OpenOffice.org OpenOffice - 3.3 Manuel d'utilisateur télécharger pdf (Page 217)

Working with character styles

Character styles complement paragraph styles and are applied to groups of

characters, rather than whole paragraphs. They are mainly used when you want to

change the appearance or attributes of parts of a paragraph without affecting other

parts. Examples of effects that can be obtained by means of character styles are bold

or italic typeface or colored words.

Two of the character styles used in this document are:

• Keystrokes use the custom OOoKeyStroke style. For example:

to set Writer to full screen, press Control+Shift+J.

• Menu paths use the custom OOoMenuPath style. For example:

to turn field shadings on or off, choose View > Field Shadings.

Other ways of using character styles are described elsewhere in the Writer Guide.

These uses include making chapter numbers, page numbers, or list numbers larger

than the surrounding text and formatting hyperlinks. When inserting words in

different language or words you do not want the spell checker to detect as mistakes

(for example procedure names in some programming language), character styles are

quite useful because you can define the language to be applied in the character-style

properties.

Why use character styles?

Beginning Writer users often wonder, “Why use character styles?” or “How is this

different from clicking the bold icon to change the font typeface?” The following real-

life event illustrates the difference.

Jean is a technical writer from Australia. She learned the value of

character styles after her publisher told her to unbold menu paths in her

200-page book. Jean had not used character styles. She had to edit all

200 pages by hand, with some help from Find & Replace. This was the

last time Jean failed to use character styles.

Character styles do not have as many options as paragraph styles or page styles.

Their benefits are of a different nature:

• Formatting changes

As Jean’s story illustrates, the ability to make formatting changes throughout a

document can be important. Character styles provide this.

• Consistency

Character styles help ensure that typesetting guidelines are applied

consistently.

• Focus on content

“Was I supposed to bold keystrokes? How about menus?”

A writer should not have to remember the answers to these questions.

Typesetting details distract you from the real content of your work. A properly

named custom character style (such as OOoKeyStroke or OOoMenuPath) will

remove this burden from you.

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OpenOffice.org OpenOffice - 3.3 Manuel d'utilisateur Page 217