Re: [icon-users] style auto indent: can't find button to deselect.

In message <732BCE474347468DB8304B9E94B62A68@max>
          "Bruce Harvey" <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Yes you are right, I did not understand the distinction between auto indent
> and indent. Being dyslexic, I am not very good at reading manuals.

> The problem seems to be that once having used the ruler to set an indent for
> a paragraph, every time Enter is pressed at the end of a paragraph, the new
> paragraph inherits the ruler, so in writing a book, what started as a local
> change ends up infecting each and every paragraph!

Yes, indeed. This is one of the reasons why one should not leave local 
changes in but instead assign them to a style. Of course, that is 
easily said afterwards...

You can remove an indent from the complete document in one go, but 
that method is a bit drastic: Define a new Paragraph style without the 
indent. Then select all text of the document and apply the new 
Paragraph style to it - that gets rid of all local changes at 
paragraph level, so it removes the indent. It does remove all other 
local paragraph level changes, too, but chances are that you have not 
apply any? Character level overrides are not affected.

> Having had a little play with this, it seems that a paragraph style gains an
> indentation if the marker on the ruler is moved, but does not loose it if
> the marker position is moved back to 0 using the dialogue box.

Yes, there is a technical reason for that. Initially, the paragraph 
style is transparent as far as a ruler is concerned. If you set the 
indent, the paragraph style gains a ruler property. If you 
subsequently move the indent to zero, it still has a ruler property, 
namely a zero indent. That is different from its initial state. The 
initial state says: "I do not mess with the indent/ruler, just take 
the indent from the enclosing structure". The new definition says "set 
the indent to 0 to override the enclosing structure". There is no user 
interface for removing a ruler property from a style. The Style Editor 
does that for the properties it supports, e.g., font etc, but it 
currently does not support rulers/indents.

> Ah yes, I think I have found the root of the problem. The stationary pad I
> used had only document and chapter styles defined. I only used chapters, not
> sections, so no section style was ever defined. I never saved the paragraph
> style, so no paragraph style was ever defined.

There must be a misunderstanding. Each EasiWriter document always has 
at least one Section style and one Paragraph style. The "Novel" 
stationery pad has two Section styles and 5 Paragraph styles set up.

> Rooting around, I see that the stationary pad "Novel" has these properties.
> Looks like I loaded it, removed the header, replaced it with a footer,
> clicked on chapter and just started typing.

Yes, why not? That is exactly what the stationery is there for.

Martin


>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: icon-users-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:icon-users-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>> On Behalf Of Martin Wuerthner
>> Sent: 04 January 2010 11:25
>> To: icon-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Re: [icon-users] style auto indent: can't find button to
> deselect.
>> 
>> In message <48B673EB4CBB46EFAAD94904A235103C@max>
>>           "Bruce Harvey" <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> 
>>> The original dates back to June 2001, so I can't remember what I did.
>>> It was written on the then current version of TW pro and I guess the
> style
>>> comes from one of the original stationary pads.
>> 
>>> Loading in the original document and using Style Finder and Style Editor
>>> indicates that the auto indent was set in the structure of the document
>>> file. But Style editor does not give a button to deselect.
>> 
>> Yes. As I explained, the options that are available for the structure
>> styles only are not in the Style Editor. You need to use the
>> conventional structure format editing procedure to change them.
>> However, from all the other things you wrote I do not think you really
>> mean the "Auto indentation" option after all. That option has a very
>> special meaning: It suppresses the indentation set in the first
>> paragraph after each heading, so it allows you to achieve a typical
>> standard layout (first paragraph after heading without indent, each
>> following paragraph is indented) using a single common paragraph style
>> for all the paragraphs in a section without having to define a special
>> one for the first paragraph. I think what you mean is something
>> completely different: You simply have paragraphs that have a indent
>> defined. That has nothing at all to do with the "Auto indentation"
>> option.
>> 
>> 
>>> The indentation appears to have been set using the ruler with a section
> body
>>> selected.
>> 
>> In that case, you only need to select the Section body and remove the
>> indent in the ruler or, if there are no other changes, use "Delete
>> changes" to get rid of the indent. In general, you should always
>> create styles for the desired formatting rather than leaving local
>> changes.
>> 
>> Martin
>> 
>>> Regards Bruce
>>> Bruce Harvey  bruce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> The Physics of Bruce Harvey     http://users.powernet.co.uk/bearsoft
>>> Bruce's Faith and Philosophy
> http://users.powernet.co.uk/bearsoft/Faith/
>> 
>> 
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: icon-users-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> [mailto:icon-users-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>>>> On Behalf Of Martin Wuerthner
>>>> Sent: 04 January 2010 09:39
>>>> To: icon-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Subject: Re: [icon-users] style auto indent: can't find button to
>>> deselect.
>>>>
>>>> In message <896678A12AEA46D786506DF9FB5D7BBD@max>
>>>>           "Bruce Harvey" <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Techwriter pro 8.73 on Virtual Acorn running on XP pro
>>>>
>>>>> I have a book with over a thousand  paragraphs with a blank line in
>>> between
>>>>> each paragraph. I removed the blank lines by saving it as an RTF
>>> document
>>>>> and using Edit to remove the blank lines before loading the book back
>>> into
>>>>> Techwriter.
>>>>
>>>> In general, that is not a good idea. The RTF style model is far less
>>>> powerful than that in EasiWriter, so by doing so turn lots of
>>>> properties that were at style level into local overrides, which makes
>>>> them more difficult to edit - exactly the problem you discovered here.
>>>>
>>>>> I wanted to remove the auto indent, but could only do it one paragraph
>>> at a
>>>>> time. I solved the problem by going back to the RTF document in Edit.
>>>>
>>>>> As I read the 8.73 documentation on the CD, I should have been able to
>>> use
>>>>> Style Editor to unclick the auto indent options, but nothing I could
> do
>>> in
>>>>> Style Editor would give a dialogue box with an auto indent button to
>>>>> deselect.
>>>>
>>>> How was the auto indent applied in the first place? Are you referring
>>>> to the option in the Section/Chapter style? In that case, you need to
>>>> select the corresponding structure and use the "Section format" or
>>>> "Chapter format" dialogue box to deselect the option. Of course, if
>>>> the document came from Word/RTF then you will not find such a property
>>>> applied at section or chapter level. The Style Editor only covers the
>>>> aspects common to all styles, i.e., the character and paragraph
>>>> properties. The point of the Style Editor is exactly to make style
>>>> editing fully independent of any actual text - you really edit the
>>>> style itself, which exists as an independent entity in the document.
>>>> At some stage, the additional options available in Section and Chapter
>>>> styles should become available in the Style Editor box as well.
>>>> However, since your auto indent is not defined at style level anyway,
>>>> this would not make no difference in this case.
>>>>
>>>>> Style Finder only showed chapter and document styles active. The
> format
>>> menu
>>>>> showed only paragraph style. Selecting a paragraph showed that the
> style
>>> was
>>>>> modified and delete changes removed the indent, but this only worked
> one
>>>>> paragraph at a time.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, that is a typical consequence of going via Word or RTF format.
>>>>
>>>> Martin
>>>> --
>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Martin Wuerthner           MW Software          lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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