Difference between revisions of "Documentation/Writer for Students/Headings"

Revision as of 15:55, 13 January 2014

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As mentioned above you have to tell the programme what is a Heading and what is Text Body.

For that you use the following keyboard shortcuts:

• Ctrl + 0 for Text Body (ground level)
• Ctrl + 1 for Chapter Headings (level 1)
• Ctrl + 2 for Section Headings (level 2)
• Ctrl + 3 for Subsection Headings (level 3)

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For those of you who use Macs: it’s not the Ctrl-Key but the Cmd-Key instead. But I’ll leave it up to you to figure out the variations. Linux machines use the same keyboard shortcuts as Windows.

Making your Headings Look Nice

If you right click on, say, any Level 1 heading, a menu pops up. One of its options is Edit Paragraph Style. Any changes made here will apply to all other Level 1 Headings. Same goes of course for the other levels, indeed for any paragraph style.

Generally headings should meet following criteria:

• left alignment
• hyphenation turned off
• single line spacing
• conciseness

Here my formatting suggestions for the first three levels of headings:

Table 1: Styles for Headings (just a suggestion)

New Page for Each Chapter Heading?

If you want each chapter to begin on a new page, then right-click on any chapter heading and choose Edit Paragraph Style; under the tab Text Flow check box Breaks › Insert › Type › Page. If you would like to avoid chapter headings near the bottom of the page, you can insert a page break right before the heading using the shortcut Ctrl + Return to shift the heading to the beginning of the following page.

Alternatively you could right click the paragraph immediately following the heading and choose Paragraph › Text Flow › Options › Do not split paragraph. The paragraph in question will “pull” the heading immediately above it along to the next page should there not be enough room on the present page.

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Using this method consistently avoids the necessity to keep on checking the text after adding bits or taking bits out to see if any headings might have landed too low on the page.

Blank Lines?

When in a hurry it’s tempting to just add a couple of blank lines before a heading and another blank line following a heading in order to influence spacing. But this destroys the “sticking” effect – that is, the property of headings to always keep together with the next paragraph. Instead change spacings within the paragraph styles pertaining to the various header levels using suggestions listed in table 1.

How Many Levels?

I would recommend a maximum of two numbered heading levels:

1 Chapter
   1.1 Section
   1.2 Section
   1.3 Section
2 Chapter
   2.1 Section
   2.2 Section
   2.3 Section
   etc.

Per level you should have at least two headings. If you have a 2.1 heading then you should also have a 2.2 heading, a 2.1 all alone would definitely be a mistake. If you are going to use a third or even fourth level, then leave these unnumbered and don’t include them in the table of contents. I myself have used two levels in this document, but only actually included the first one in my table of contents and I also only numbered the first level. Think about it: numbering suggests structure or even hierarchy. And a finespun numbering structure suggests to the reader an equally finespun logic which might not actually exist in the social reality you are trying to describe. For technical publications or textbooks on the other hand that would be fine.

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Avoid overlong chapter headings. Best short headings with some explanatory text immediately following. Don’t forget long headings also appear in the table of contents in their full length.

Some Settings

Under Tools › Options › OpenOffice.org Writer › Compatibility I would recommend unchecking three choice boxes:

• Add spacing between paragraphs and tables; unchecking this option ensures that the set spacing below a paragraph and the set spacing above the paragraph immediately following it do not get added together; instead only the larger of the two spacings takes effect
• Add paragraph and table spacing at tops of pages; unchecking this option ensures that headings appear right at the top margin, without the usual set spacing separating them from a previous paragraph
• Expand word space on lines with manual line breaks in justified paragraphs; unchecking this option ensures that inserting a new line using short cut Shift + Return will not expand the words on the previous line right up to the right margin; instead they will be left aligned even in a paragraph with justified alignment

Having removed these three ticks don’t forget to press the button Use as Default so that these changes apply also to any future documents.

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