From koffice-devel Thu May 18 21:00:41 2006 From: Stefan =?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCcking?= Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 21:00:41 +0000 To: koffice-devel Subject: Re: [odf-discuss] Non-portable paragraph rendering settings, Message-Id: <200605182300.41549.office () stefanluecking ! de> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=koffice-devel&m=114798636321852 Sorry, that I write as a user in the developers list, but for me the different behavior of OpenOffice and KWord regarding paragraph margins is an important issue. Maybe the point of view of a user can help further development of KWord. There are two different issues concerning vertical paragraph margins: (1) adjoining vertical margins (2) vertical margins at the top of a page ad (1) adjoining vertical margins The default behavior of OpenOffice 1.X for adjoining vertical margins was to use the maximum height of the top and bottom margins. For compatibility reasons there is an option (on document level) to add both margins, because this is the default behavior of Microsoft Word. In the GUI you can set this option in writer options -> compatibility. In OpenOffice 2 the default has changed to the behavior of Microsoft Word, i.e. use the sum of both margins. From my point of view the original behavior, i.e. to take the maximum of both margins, is far more convenient, specially if you use styles. Normally you use top and bottom margins for text structuring. And in most cases the margin you use separate two parts of a text should also be the maximum Take for example headings: Heading 1 has a top margin of two lines and a bottom margin of 1 line, Heading 2 has 1 line on top and no bottom margin. What happens if a Heading 2 follows a Heading 1: in the first case (using the maximum space) you have a space of one line between both headings, in the second case (summing up both margins) you have a space of two lines, or to avoid this you have to create an extra style for Headings 2 following Heading 1 (which is a normal practice in Microsoft Word). ad (2) vertical margins at the top of a page As vertical margins serve to structure a text they are redundant at the top of a page. In professional books the first line begins always at the very top of the page, even if it is a heading that normally has a space above. My colleagues who work with Microsoft Word have always difficulties to find the option to make Word ignore vertical margins at the top of a page. There is an option but very hidden. The only case where an additional vertical space at the top of a page makes sense is at the beginning of chapter, that always start with a new page  and this page should differ from other pages to make it easier to find the start of a new chapter. In KWord it?s completely viceversa. The top margin of a paragraph style is only ignored when the option "Page break before" is used. Therefore if you define a style for chapter headings that always are at the top of a page, you cannot assign an additional top margin for the space, while normal headings that have a top margin to separate them from the previous paragraph, they retain this margin also on top of a page, although they are already separated form the previous paragraph be the page break. In OpenOffice normally paragraph top margins are ignored on top of a page. For chapter headings you have the option to use a special page style. For compatibility reasons there is also the option to change this behavior (on the same place in the GUI). In KWord the right behavior (from my point of view) could be realized when paragraph top margins are ignored on of a page unless it is combined with the option "Page break before". But to be compatible with OpenOffice the only solution is to offer an option to choose between these two behaviors. But even then you have to answer the question which behavior should be the default. I write this because the the actual behavior of KWord regarding paragraph top and bottom margins, is one reason the prevents my to use KWord more often. I hope these reflections on the sense of vertical paragraph margins help you to decide how to solve these issues in KWord 2. Stefan _______________________________________________ koffice-devel mailing list koffice-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/koffice-devel