Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 24488
Better Outline Numbering
Last modified: 2004-02-12 18:38:06 UTC
At present, Outline Numbering allows one paragraph style per level. If the user wants to create an appendix that looks like paragraph style 'Heading 1', he needs to use Heading 6 (for example) to imitate 'Heading 1'. This make formatting of big documents tricky. Moreover, correct numbering of figures within appendixes is no longer straight-forward. Suggested solution: The ability to define more than one paragraph style per level. If possible, this should be done with the same user interface of 'Additional Styles' in 'Insert Index/Table' (AKA TOC). Note that a default per level must be defined, so when the user presses TAB (for example) whilst on a heading paragraph, OOo can increase or decrease the level.
Reassigned to BH
The method of applying outline numbering in OOo Writer is very confusing. On the one hand, you can achieve it by applying numbering schemes with the Stylist through use of Numbering Styles (Format->Stylist->Numbering Styles button->Modify[style]->Position and Options tabs). These allow specification of different numbering styles for the ten outline levels possible in Writer, complete with particular indent arrangements for each of these outline levels. This effectively provides a method of applying a document hierarchy with existing styles: both paragraph and numbering styles. A great deal of flexibility is gained from the ability to attach various pre-defined Numbering Styles to various Paragraph Styles through the Numbering tab in Format->Stylist->Modify[style]. However, when it comes to doing Outline Numbering according to the Help documents, you are told to use Tools->Outline Numbering. In this dialog, you select which style applies to which level, and you are forced to enter the position and numbering details for these styles, despite having Numbering Styles designed for that purpose at your disposal. The user is forced to put in repetitive outline numbering schemes which causes confusion - why do I have to do this when I've already done this elsewhere? The OOo Documentation HOWTO - http://documentation.openoffice.org/HOW_TO/word_processing/02en_numbering_howto.sxw - *specifically* instructs users that when organising 'Hierarchical Numbering' they must not: 1. include numbering under the tab Numbering, nor 2. choose the style Numbering in the Stylist. This restriction removes all the benefit from being able to assign Numbering Styles to Paragraph styles. It also begs the question as to why outline numbering was provided for through Numbering Styles, when the first thing you're told to do with 'Hierarchical Numbering' is to turn it off. Very confusing. I think the confusion comes from the way Table of Contents (TOC) generation has been implemented in Writer. Outline numbering using Styles - including the use of Numbering Styles - works reasonably well until you want to implement a TOC in a document. To do this, OOo designers introduced the Tools->Outline Numbering dialog which confused 'Document Outline' with 'Outline Numbering' used in paragraph styles. For a TOC, all that was needed was a place for the user to specify, for the TOC generator's use, the *styles* (ie, plural) to be used as the heading hierarchy to be displayed in the TOC. So, instead of Tools->Outline Numbering, Tools->Document Outline could have been implemented instead, with a dialog simply collecting information on which styles were to apply to each level displayed in the TOC. The numbering schemes involving Position and Options variations would simply be applied from the styles' Numbering tab. Allowing multiple styles to be specified for each TOC hierarchy level would allow one style to be used as a title of the main body of a document, and another style to be used as a title of an Appendix, say. The representation of each title in the TOC could then use the numbering specified for their respective styles. About the only option I could think for this Tools->Document Outline dialog - apart from specifying the styles for each level, would be whether the specified numbering scheme for each style was to be used in the TOC listing. This would be for flexibility for the occasions where you didn't want the paragraph numbering used in the TOC listing, just the text from the paragraph. This IssueZilla request to allow multiple styles in Document Outlines is the crux of fixing outline numbering in Writer. The utility of very flexible Numbering Styles attached to Paragraph Styles would not be crippled as it is now, repetitive entries of numbering schemes would be avoided, the Document Outline dialog would be simplified greatly, and confusion would be removed. This one step could turn Outline Numbering from being Writer's greatest handicap to its greatest asset.
izhaki, could you please see whether your problem is addressed in Issue 5058? Thanks.
Issue 5058 is about CVS Access. Are you sure you're referring to the right issue?
Sorry! That's Issue 5038. Thanks.
It is, pretty much the same... Funny that I've missed this issue when I was looking for this equivelent issues before creating this one... Shame that issue 5038 was submited nearly 2 years ago, and its status is still new...
Well, with more than 25thousand Issues it's not surprising that some can be overlooked. Add your votes to Issue 5038, that's the only thing we can do to speed up the process of implementing the enhancement. I will close this then as a duplicate. *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 5038 ***
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