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Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2009-12-16 16:55:05
by greenmorpher
Instructions are included in the template named "Outline.dot". Hope it helps. :)

Best regards, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Success in Store: how to start or buy a retail business, enjoy running it and make money: or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Buy at Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2009-12-16 18:16:11
by phspaelti
(In his Report Template) Geoff wrote:1.3. Moving heads and text around
The text follows on from the heads when you are typing, but is not attached to the heads as it is in MORE.
Geoff, have you ever tried dragging things around in the Navigator pane? If you did it that way you would find that the text is indeed attached to the heads.

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2009-12-16 19:15:10
by phspaelti
(In his Report Template) Geoff wrote:1.2.1. Body Print Text
When it is time to print, I use a Character Style, Body Print Text, to change from Verdana to something a normal person can read on the page — in my case, I use Adobe Caslon. You might prefer something different.
The quick way to apply it is to place your cursor in the text in the Paragraph Style you want to select, then go Menu Bar > Format > Paragraph Style > Select All Style, and that will select everything in the document in that style.
Then Apply the Character Style, Body Print Text, command-b-p. This will switch the type from Verdana to Adobe Caslon (or the alternative you have chosen for that style) in all the text within the document that is in that Paragraph Body Style. It will not change the paragraph settings nor any extra styling you have applied, such as underlining, italics, bolding, and so on.
You repeat the process for each level of body text. (In MORE you could change all body text with a single command.)
There is actually a much better way to do this.
  1. Save the Report Template as a Style Library. Let's name it "Outline Working Styles"
  2. Now change the formatting of each style so that it is suitable for print output. Don't change any style names or add/subtract any styles.
  3. Save the changed File in the Style Library, and name it "Outline Printing Styles"
You will now have two different style sheets with the exact same style names.

Now you can very easily switch all your styles in one go:
  1. Start with a file that now has the "Outline Working Styles"
  2. Choose Insert -> New Style -> Import from Style Library…
  3. From the menu click on "Outline Printing Styles"
  4. From the conflict menu that comes up choose "Replace Exisiting"
Presto, the formatting changes! And you can easily go back and forth as you like. This allows you to switch much more complicated formatting, and it works for your character styles too.

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2009-12-17 14:22:54
by greenmorpher
Philip sez:
Geoff, have you ever tried dragging things around in the Navigator pane? If you did it that way you would find that the text is indeed attached to the heads.
Good grief, I missed that. Maybe it didn't happen when I first set up this template? I don't know. I did try that at some time and it didn't work. Did I read all the upgrade notes? Don't be silly -- they're a kind of junior manual, right, and who reads manuals? :lol:

BUT EVEN BETTER -- not only is the immediately dependent text attached to a head you drag and drop in the Table of Contents/Navigator Window, so are dependent heads and their text. So you move a whole section at once. Excellent. Takes it that much closer to a real outliner.

Well done, Nisus Dudes. Only next time you do something like that, please send me a personal email which you are free to start: "Dear Geoffrey the twonk. We know you'll appreciate this change, you twonk, but we also know that unless we rub your nose in it, twonk, you will never notice it, twonk! So ..." (Further references to "twonk" including passages that clearly define it are available in the BBC's SciFi comedy, "Red Dwarf", the virtual reality episode.)

Thanks for pointing this out, Philip, I'm modifying my work practises instanter.

And in respect of changing the Styles from Screen to Print, Philip further sez:
There is actually a much better way to do this.

1. Save the Report Template as a Style Library. ... etc.
Now I'm really caught out. Absolutely, Philip. Many thanks. Oh dear, I'm feeling like a dinosaur. Am I about to become extinct? I KNEW I should explore that Style Library thing ...

And that takes NWPro yet another step towards the great workability of the old MORE. For my purposes, it virtually does the job. Actually, The Style Library thing could also do another thing which MORE did -- you could switch from one heading format to another -- e.g. from Number List to Letter List (MORE mentioned the Harvard Format, if I remember correctly, for one collection of heading styles). So the Style Library would take care of that too.

Excellent. I look forward to someone putting up a better outline/report template which I can use!

Best regards, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Success in Store: how to start or buy a retail business, enjoy running it and make money: or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Buy at Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or http://www.worsleypress.com

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2009-12-17 22:46:27
by phspaelti
Hi Geoff,

there is actually one more typical feature of a true outliner that is missing here. That is demotion/promotion of headings etc. In a true outliner you could choose to move a heading of level 2 (and its attached subtext) to heading level 1, with a simple "promote" command.

In fact the "Increase Indent" and "Decrease Indent" do do this to a certain extent, but things are a bit confused at the moment.
  • If you place the cursor on a paragraph formatted with one of your heading styles in the document window and hit "Increase Indent" the list level will be demoted (i.e., the the indent will change and the numbering increase a level), but the Heading style stays the same.
  • If you select a heading in the navigator and hit "Increase Indent" then the heading style gets demoted (so "Heading 1" changes to "Heading 2") :) , but the list level does not :( . Note that you can actually demote/promote a whole bunch of headings at once in the navigator. So if you select a heading, drag it a bit, and release it, NWP will select the heading and all its sub-headings. Then hit "Incease Indent" and all the headings move up a level. Unfortunately the list levels will now be off, and of course the Body text styles are unaffected.
So it seems there is a bug. Nisus should fix the demotion/promotion of the list levels, when using "Increase Indent" in the Navigator pane.

On the other hand it would be possible to write a macro for a true promote/demote command, i.e, one that promotes/demotes also the associated body text.

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2009-12-17 23:10:16
by mrennie
In addition to phspaelti's comments:

it is true that line numbering does not change when promoting/demoting a heading, and this looks like a bug to me, too. I just wanted to add that you can also select a heading in the Navigator and hit tab to demote it, and Shift+tab to promote it. Just a little tip for those who prefer using the keyboard...

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2009-12-18 00:12:23
by martin
phspaelti wrote:If you place the cursor on a paragraph formatted with one of your heading styles in the document window and hit "Increase Indent" the list level will be demoted (i.e., the the indent will change and the numbering increase a level), but the Heading style stays the same.
This may or may not be the intended behavior. I'll have us take a look.
If you select a heading in the navigator and hit "Increase Indent" then the heading style gets demoted (so "Heading 1" changes to "Heading 2") :) , but the list level does not :( .
This is indeed a bug. It is however only an updating bug; if you save and reopen the file, the list numbering should be updated to take the level change into account.

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2009-12-18 15:18:15
by greenmorpher
Hello? Hello?

MRennie sez:
it is true that line numbering does not change when promoting/demoting a heading, and this looks like a bug to me, too (following pspaelti). I just wanted to add that you can also select a heading in the Navigator and hit tab to demote it, and Shift+tab to promote it. Just a little tip for those who prefer using the keyboard...
Right -- you guys are picking up stuff I haven't looked at before because I have had my way of working which worked pretty well, and haven't been exploring outside it.

Playing with my file a bit shows it is pretty confused.

So -- if we are using the Navigation window to move a head, selection of the head also selects all other heads and body copy dependent on that head, and brings it along to the new location.

But if we select a head in the Navigation window we can promote or demote it either by using the keyboard short cut for the Style, Tab/Shift-Tab, or the arrow in the Lists palette, we get the head renumbering, adopting the correct Style, but we affect only that head.

If we select a head in the document and promote or demote it either by using the keyboard short cut for the Style, or the arrow in the Lists palette, we get the head renumbering, adopting the correct Style, but we affect only that head. BUT we cannot use the Tab/shift-tab in this mode.

In the Navigation window, we can select a whole bunch of heads and promote or demote them with Tab/Shift-Tab OR with the arrow in the Lists palette -- it actually moves everything up or down one level per click -- and we get renumbering and adoption of the correct Styles. Obviously we can't use the Style shortcut that's tied to specific levels.

BUT the Increase Indent and Decrease Indent commands don't work properly and they don't work with the Paragraph Styles either. As Philip says, what we really want here is a Promote or Demote command we can use in both the Navigation window and the document window.

With that, it would be good if promotion/demotion of a head automatically picked up and changed the level of dependent heads.

And (heaven on a stick) NWP could pick up the dependent body text Styles and change them appropriately too -- that would be just wonderful~!

I can see the heads stuff working, but I'm feeling that this last bit is a bit of a challenge.

ONE THING -- when I promote and demote heads they aren't necessarily moving appropriately in the navigation window. And in one case, I somehow ended up with 1.3 dependent on 1.2. I had demoted 1.3 to level 3, and somehow, while messing around, made it dependent on 1.2. When I promoted it to level 2 again, it remained dependent on 1.2.

That happened once; I tried to replicate it without success.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2011-01-10 17:21:07
by martin
Yes, Nisus Writer Pro will import ODT files.

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2011-01-25 09:55:02
by Kino
Er… I have never been using an outliner as an outliner, nor working with paragraph styles simulating the functionality of an application of that kind and I don’t understand well the discussions above. So it is very likely that I’m doing something pointless but perhaps macros in the zip archive below might be of some interest for those who are using Geoff’s Outline.dot or something similar.
Outline_dot_Macros .zip
(14.96 KiB) Downloaded 2246 times
One of the macros increases the level of numbered paragraph styles in continuous or non-continuous selections. For example, when you have a selection consisting of multiple paragraphs having various numbered paragraph styles in the following manner:

    Heading 1
    Body Entry 1
            Heading 2
            Body Entry 2
            Body Entry 2
                    Heading 3
                    Body Entry 3
            Heading 2
            Body Entry 2

the macro will replace each of those styles with that of the next level so that you will get

            Heading 2
            Body Entry 2
                    Heading 3
                    Body Entry 3
                    Body Entry 3
                            Heading 4
                            Body Entry 4
                    Heading 3
                    Body Entry 3

Another macro does just the opposite: decrease the level of numbered paragraph styles in selection(s). The only difference between the two is that $number += 1 in the former is $number -= 1 in the latter.

Those two macros work for a single paragraph partially selected, too.

The third and last macro is the same as the one posted to the Macro forum as “Insert Newline and Apply Heading Style” macro:
http://nisus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=19017#p19017
except that I simplified the long and bad macro name into “Insert Heading” and added $numberFirst option and some code for supporting style names such as 1 Heading, 2 Heading… when that option is set to true.

Here is the code of the first macro.

Code: Select all

### Increase Numbered Paragraph Style Level ###

$numberFirst = false  # true: for styles such as 1 Heading, 2 Heading...

$doc = Document.active
if $doc == undefined
	exit
end

$findNumberedStyle = '^(?<baseName>.*[^0-9])(?<number>[0-9]+)$'
if $numberFirst == true
	$findNumberedStyle = '^(?<number>[0-9]+)(?<baseName>[^0-9].*)$'
end

$sels = $doc.textSelections

$nameToStyle = Hash.new
foreach $style in $doc.paragraphStyles
	if $nameToStyle{$style.name} == undefined
		$nameToStyle{$style.name} = $style
	end
end

foreach $sel in $sels
	$paraStarts = Array.new  # get paragraph start(s) in $sel
	while $sel.range.bound > $sel.text.rangeOfParagraphAtIndex($sel.location).location
		$paraStarts.appendValue $sel.text.rangeOfParagraphAtIndex($sel.location).location
		if $sel.text.rangeOfParagraphAtIndex($sel.location).bound < $sel.bound
			$sel = TextSelection.newWithLocationAndBound $sel.text, $sel.text.rangeOfParagraphAtIndex($sel.location).bound, $sel.bound
		else
			break
		end
	end
	foreach $start in $paraStarts
		$styleName = $sel.text.attributesAtIndex($start).paragraphStyleName
		if $styleName.find $findNumberedStyle, 'E-i$'
			$number += 1
			if $numberFirst == true
				$newStyleName = $number & $baseName
			else
				$newStyleName = $baseName & $number
			end
			if Defined $nameToStyle{$newStyleName}
				$paraStart = TextSelection.newWithLocationAndLength $sel.text, $start, 0
				Push Target Selection $paraStart
					$nameToStyle{$newStyleName}.apply
				Pop Target Selection
			end
		end
	end
end
The macro above does nothing for inexistent paragraph styles. No error message. I mean, for example, Heading 6 will remain Heading 6 silently because Heading 7 is not available in Outline.dot’s style sheet if you are using it without modification. Error dialog is annoying for something obvious to one who is in front of the display monitor, especially that shown by a macro run accidentally (that happens often to me with macros having shortcuts).

I forgot to say that Increase Numbered Paragraph Style Level and Decrease Numbered Paragraph Style Level macros work with any paragraph styles whose names are: BaseName 1, BaseName 2 and so on or, if $numberFirst = true, 1 BaseName, 2 BaseName and so on. To use Insert Heading macro for document files whose numbered Heading and Body Text paragraph style names are different from those defined in Outline.dot, you have to customize

Code: Select all

$headingBaseName = 'Heading'
$bodyBaseName = 'Body Entry'
in the very beginning of the macro so that it understands those in your document files.

Some more explanation in the comment lines of the macro files.

  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %  %

I do have OmniOutliner but I’m using it just for taking notes, not as an outliner. Making an outline before beginning to write a document is against my way. In the past, I tried to accustom myself to the outline-first-ideology — yes, it is just an ideology among innumerable ideologies, why not? why don’t you rely on your native ability to structure your documents intuitively and capriciously??? — but very, very soon I gave up very, very happily ;-)

Anyway OO was the first OS X application I purchased (or perhaps OmniWeb? — my physical memory is exceptionally volatile in these days). When I began to run OS X (10.0.3), OO was the only Cocoa application for manipulating text AND enabling you to do some regex find/replace. I tried to use it as a kind of word processor but it was not very handy for that purpose and OO’s regex ability was/is rather poor, to say the least. Now I’m running Nisus Writer Pro, a fully featured word processor with the excellent support of regex (regular expression). Like in a dream…

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2011-09-12 02:30:39
by NisusUser
Hello, All,
I'm new to NWPro, at least as far as using any of it's more advanced features.

What I'd like to do is have a way to regularly make outlines with many levels of headings which have explanatory text under them. However, I want to be able to print out the entire full outline with explanatory text and a leaner outline with just the headings (down to a certain, variable-depending-on-which-file-it-is heading level).

I have been making outlines with NWPro, but I can't figure out how to conveniently get to just the skeleton down to a desired heading level.

I found this template by Geoff, and I'm wondering if it would be useful for this (also it's from 2009, so NWPro has improved a lot since then). Maybe some kind soul could give me some pointers?

Thank you!

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2011-09-12 12:29:18
by martin
NisusUser wrote:However, I want to be able to print out the entire full outline with explanatory text and a leaner outline with just the headings (down to a certain, variable-depending-on-which-file-it-is heading level).
I'd say the best way to accomplish this is to configure two TOC styles in your document(s). You can have a main/default TOC style that includes all headings and explanations, and then a secondary TOC style that only includes the skeleton/headings. You can add such a TOC style via the menu Tools > Table of Contents > Configure TOC Styles.

Once you've created your two TOC styles, you'll want to adjust your paragraph styles to enforce them in a way that will be useful. For example, the "Default TOC" style might be enforced by the paragraph styles Heading 1-9, while your "Skeleton TOC" style might be enforced by just paragraph styles Heading 1-3. It all depends on what you're doing and how you have your paragraph styles configured. But the point is that you will then be able to insert/generate a TOC for either the full or skeleton style.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Re: Numbered Outline/Report Template

Posted: 2011-09-12 18:53:41
by NisusUser
Thank you, Martin. I'll look into it and see if I can make that work for me. Nisus' responsiveness on the forum is amazing!