Subject: Re: Features V stability
From: Ron Ross (ronross@colba.net)
Date: Thu May 03 2001 - 21:37:28 CDT
A corrective followup to my previous post:
Ron Ross <ronross@colba.net> writes:
> Neil Timms <neilt@netvigator.com> writes:
[...]
> > I used 0.7.13 for a 20+ pages legal style document and found that is was
> > easer to use than other wp for numbered paras (well done those who worked on
> > that bit) - the problem came when saving to rtf so that I could exchange my
> > data with others still using Word - no numbers on the para (I think now fixed
> > for 0.7.14?). The issue in the end was was not so much in the use of the
> > program but in the format of the data.
>
> I haven't checked this in AbiWord for myself, but I know from having
> created rtf and Word documents in either WordPerfect or through
> SGML->DSSSL (with Openjade) that autogenerated numbers/letters in things
> like outlines, lists, page numbers, and so on, will often _first_ appear
> broken in Word (usually all entries are "1" or "A" or whatever the
> scheme is based on), but if you then scroll through the document in
> "Normal" view and call for a "refresh" of the document (I'm sorry, this
> last function is a little obscure to me now, and I'm not on Windows at
> the moment and can't check, but it's something accessed through the menu
> and has to do with Page layout, or specifically with page numbers), then
> all the numbers get properly incremented.
OK. Back in Windows, and I took the time to check this, and indeed, as
Neil's following post indicates, numbered paragraphs are read properly
in Word when saved in rtf. However, I've found a condition in which the
above anomily is manifest. If, in AW, you follow a numbered paragraph
with two newlines, thus ending the list, and then continue the list in
the following paragraph, that continuation is not interpreted correctly
in Word, producing the effect described above. Moral: if you want that
extra space between items, then apply paragraph styling to produce it
rather than entering another newline. I haven't experimented more
thoroughly with situations in which you would really want to continue a
previous list.
I hope this is useful to others. It was a revelation to me, for
off-topic reasons, because I was in the habit of using a feature of
WordPerfect that should perhaps be considered a bug (or bad hack) and
that I had even been considering for an AW bug report/feature request!
On terminating a numbered paragraph, in all mentioned word processors,
another such paragraph with an incremented number is automatically
created. In AW and Word, if you hit return again, the listing is ended
and you're back to "normal" (or whatever). In WP, a second return adds a
newline previous to the new autogenerated numbered paragraph, pushing
the latter and the cursor position down one line, and you can add as
many such intermediate newlines as desired while preserving your
position in the ordered paragraphs. This makes it easy, as a Normal
User, to produce the desired spacing layout for listed items, in the
same sense that the normal user usually hits return twice between
paragraphs instead of defining inter-paragraph spacing in their default
paragraph style. Moral: don't do that. But this also calls for a robust,
logical, consistent and intuitive styles implementation and interface,
which no word processor now provides. More on that later.
Cheers to all,
Ron
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Sat May 26 2001 - 03:51:25 CDT