John Kaufmann wrote:
In a message dated 2009.09.25 12:32 -0500, Barbara Duprey wrote:
... A paragraph with an embedded list. The first few sentences of
the paragraph describe the list, and then the elements are listed.
One would like to treat this, spatially and conceptually, as a
single paragraph. For such purposes Writer provides the
intra-paragraph line break (Shift+Enter), which breaks the line
without invoking the inter-paragraph spacing. But there is (at
least) one problem: It can't be used with "Justified" paragraph
alignment.
... Typically, each item in a list is a separate paragraph, as is
the introductory "first few sentences" describing the list, as well
as any post-list commentary about what the list illustrated.
Thanks for generalizing to post-list commentary [which I had excised
from an already overlong question] - you have the point conceptually,
and I think your answer is Writer's answer. But then:
(a) Doesn't that mean we have at least three paragraph styles for the
"'paragraph' with embedded list" - *none* of which is linked to the
document's "normal" paragraph spacing?
Yes, it probably does -- pre-list, list item, post-list, or various
other possibilities, if you can't accept the kind of spacing you get if
you just set the list item spacing to 0 before, 0 after. Since the list
is ordinarily terminated by hitting the Enter key twice to turn off
indention and bullets/numbering, that generally gives you normal spacing
to the next paragraph, which has by default 0 above, .02 below. (I
realize that this gets you back to the original problem of possibly
having a blank line at the top or bottom of the page, though!) I guess
the problem is that while there is no "pure" solution, this kind of
thing is always going to be very low on the developers' priority list,
because not too many people really care. LaTex may allow this level of
control, I've never pursued learning it.
(b) If this is not the case for which Writer has the intra-paragraph
line break, what is?
I've never found a use for it myself, but I assumed it might have
something to do with formatting poetry for a particular visual effect,
for example. Maybe somebody who's actually used it could tell us why? :-)
... there really seems to be little advantage from the perspective of
those receiving your paper. About all you seem to lose by adhering to
the usual structure (in practical rather than theoretic terms) is the
ability to triple-click to select the whole extended paragraph for
other functions, or to apply a specific paragraph style without
selecting the material first.
With sufficient manual formatting, one can always make such paragraphs
look like the document's norm; the reader need not be concerned with
how we got there. But isn't the whole point of OO styles to
encapsulate formatting issues in styles that inherent document-wide
attributes like paragraph spacing? [I'm trying to do this "right",
from OO's perspective. In another thread, I was told that layout
problems in my document could /only/ have come from manual formatting,
which should /never/ happen if OO is properly used.]
John
If you're willing to use the multiple styles, you can achieve some of
your objectives, but the statement about *all* layout issues being
derived from manual formatting overstates the case, I think,and you seem
to have a valid example of why. It's just that proper use of styles
eliminates *most* layout issues, and a lot of people never take the time
to learn about them. That certainly isn't the case for you! :-)
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