I think your new description is very good... I missed the point the first time.
This is how I solve a similar problem using styles. My interest is source code, but, very generically, assume you define three different styles names named something like: first_quote_par next_quote_par last_quote_par Use properties similar to the following: For first_quote_par and next_quote_par: set the "next style" to be "next_quote_par". For last_quote_par, set the next style to be whatever you normally use for your text. Set any specific line spacing for before and after as you desire for the different paragraphs in the style. It sounds like you might want to add something like "keep with next paragraph", or something, but, I usually only use that for things such as captions where I really need to keep the caption with a figure, table, or code listing. For my uses, I don't need the "first_quote_par". Also, the last_quote_par has suitable values in case I have a single line of code. If this is not true in your case, you might also need to define "single_quote_par" for when you have only a single paragraph for your quote. Note that I do something similar for page styles. I have a style named "first_page_in_chapter" and "next_page_in_chapter". On Tuesday, September 03, 2019 13:14 EDT, Felmon Davis <dav...@union.edu> wrote: On Tue, 3 Sep 2019, Brian Barker wrote: > At 17:54 02/09/2019 -0400, Felmon Davis wrote: >> it's easy to set up a style to indent a paragraph with two line spaces >> separating it from the rest of the text fore and aft. > > I'm sorry to have to disappoint you but, although OpenOffice is available for > a range of operating systems, it is not available for Typewriter, which you > appear to use. It's only when using a typewriter that you space paragraphs by > "lines", of course: in a word processor you are not restricted to lines and > so set paragraph spacing simply by distance. cute remarks (including 'archaic need' below). gotta get the word out to OpenOffice too since the dialogue, 'Indents & Spacing', refers to 'line spacing' - perhaps it is a typewriter! thank you for the substance of your remarks, but I'm not sure they help. I think I haven't described my problem adequately. I can make a 'style' which indents a paragraph say .03" left and right and say .08" above and below. I call this 'text-indent' and when the authors in the volume have extended quotations, I can format them with a click on the style. but in some cases the quotations themselves comprise two paragraphs. I don't want the two paragraphs separated from each other by .08". I was asking is there a way of making a style which separates two paragraphs from the surrounding text but not from each other. I suspect not. ok if not; I'll have to do it by hand. >> suppose I want a style that will keep two paragraphs together, separated by >> one line but separated from the rest by two spaces before and after the >> couplet. is that doable? > > o It's a bit messy (though it satisfies your archaic need to think in lines), > but you could separate the two blocks of text by two successive line breaks > (Shift+Enter) instead of a paragraph break. You could still adjust the > vertical spacing by changing the font size in the intervening empty line. The > two blocks would then actually constitute a single paragraph, of course. I know I can do the work by hand. but I wanted to encapsulate it in a style. > o Alternatively, you could apply local paragraph formatting to the pair of > paragraphs (or probably just one of them), to override the paragraph style > formatting. > > o Here's an idea. Put your pair of paragraphs into a single table cell (one > column, one row). (You won't want a table border.) Apply a different > paragraph style (perhaps Table Contents?) to your pair of paragraphs, with > smaller spacing (one "line"). Then also set spacing after the table to make > up the necessary difference between the pair of paragraphs and the following > material (the other of your two "lines"). in the present text there are only a couple of instances where I want do this kind of indentation but the table solution would be unwieldly even then, and prohibitive in papers with more instances. > I trust this helps. thank you for the ideas! f. -- Felmon Davis --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
