Issue 52783

Summary: change templates for a document
Product: Writer Reporter: chiggs <colin.higgs>
Component: formattingAssignee: AOO issues mailing list <issues>
Status: CONFIRMED --- QA Contact:
Severity: Trivial    
Priority: P3 CC: andre.schnabel, belegdol, bruce.button, cno, fakohler, issues, joe, Mathias_Bauer, oooforum, pmneve, thomas.lendo, tj
Version: 680m118   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
Issue Type: ENHANCEMENT Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---

Description chiggs 2005-08-02 13:34:36 UTC
I'll describe this as an "enhancement" because I'm not describing a current
feature not working, though I think it's really a defect, due to the broken
behaviour described later.

There should be somewhere in OpenOffice.org to:

1) See what template a document is associated with, and
2) Change what template a document is associated with.

Changing the template should reload the styles, just as if one had edited the
current template, reloaded the document and clicked "Yes" (to the question about
updating styles).

Note that this would fix the following somewhat broken behaviour:

- Make a new document based on some template and save it. If you don't have any
templates you'll need to make one first.

- Change the template in some way and save it.

- Close and re-open the document.

- Answer "No" to the question about updating styles.

Your document is now disociated from the template. There is no way to
re-associate it. You would be able to fix this, of course, if you could just
access the document's template settings and "switch" back to the old template
again...

One can work around this by creating a new document linked with the template and
copying all the material from the original into it, but that's plain ugly.

Colin.
Comment 1 michael.ruess 2005-08-02 14:05:50 UTC
Reassigned to requirements.
Comment 2 elektronaut 2006-08-22 16:00:15 UTC
The behaviour described by chiggs is really annoying, especially if you
encounter it for the first time. There is no indication given by Writer
concerning the consequences of answering no to the question about updating
styles. This is an odd behaviour, no new user would presume that this will
disassociate the document and it's template once and for all. See also this
commentary by someone else: http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=20789
Comment 3 srhoades 2006-10-18 16:37:53 UTC
This would be a big deal, for example, for writers submitting to publishers.
Each publisher has different formatting guidelines. Easily switching templates
this way would allow writers to create templates based on each of their markets'
guidelines, and easily switch between them.

It would also help in cases where comanies share documents and reformat them
with their own branding.

Actually, I can think of several more uses for this.
Comment 4 toucheguy 2006-10-27 14:37:15 UTC
Styles & templates is a powerfull tool in OOo.
Writers that will become accustomed with the use of them will make more
consistent documents, it will be easier to change text presentation overall by a
simple modification of templates and styles 
The use of them should be made more intuitive, transparant and easy.
Comment 5 Mathias_Bauer 2007-02-02 10:46:17 UTC
Changing target to 2.x. It could be done for Writer in 2.3 but at least
currently Calc and Draw/Impress don't offer an API to load styles. Depending on
the effort to implement it and the available resources we could consider to move
the target to 2.3.
Comment 6 claudiadzm 2007-05-03 06:45:32 UTC
That would be great (do it for 2.3). Every time I read this desire it concerned
the writer module. So I think, if it could just be realized for this module,
that would help a lot of useres even though we'd have to wait for a further
implemenation in the other modules.
best regards
Comment 7 andreschnabel 2007-11-04 11:49:50 UTC
I have wrapped the functionality in a small extension:
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/templatechanger

this should do the job as requested, but is (imo) just a workaround. 

The correct way (at least a I see it) was to integrate this functionality in the
"Load Styles" dialog. (Open Styles and Formatting window, click on the icon on
the upper right, select Load Styles.)
All the requested functionality is already there (load styles from a template)
with more usefull options. Only one thing is mising "associate document with
template" - it should be enough to add this option to the dialog.
Comment 8 Mathias_Bauer 2007-11-13 19:22:57 UTC
*** Issue 83597 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 9 Mathias_Bauer 2007-12-04 09:31:48 UTC
target 3.0
Comment 10 cno 2008-02-05 08:55:27 UTC
*** Issue 74861 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 11 Mathias_Bauer 2008-04-21 11:39:38 UTC
As this enhancement would require some UI I'm afraid we have to move it to the
next release. Setting 3.1 instead of 3.x to enhance its visibility in the issue
reviews.
Comment 12 aladdin2k7 2008-07-18 13:16:55 UTC
But import styles doesn't import the chapter format.

Please check #55777[1].

[1] http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=55777
Comment 13 T. J. Frazier 2010-02-12 02:21:54 UTC
You might consider the following design as a supplement and/or temporary
alternative to the richer design given above. This should be quick and easy to
specify and implement; it does no loading, but makes the auto-update setting
visible and changeable.

The template name is displayed on the General tab of the File > Properties
dialog. On the right-hand end of the line, add something like the following:

Auto-update: Yes o o No

featuring two grouped radio buttons, set from the settings, and user-selectable.
The new setting would take effect the next time the document is loaded.
Comment 14 joe 2015-08-18 19:19:06 UTC
I'm voting that this is an important feature.  The way I (and many other users) work is to start typing out my document.  When the content gets into its final or nearly final form, then I want to put in the styles and formatting.  Maybe someone has been creating a template or working on it separately while I'm creating the content.  Style and content are separate.  It's like in HTML, I can select and swap around CSS at any point in the process.  It might be easier to put it in at the end so I can focus on the content.

Right now, in OO, once I have created a document without a template selected, it's too late to apply a template.  I have to paste the entire document into a template document.  Content+structure should be separate from style.  The template should be as easy to swap as linking a CSS file into an HTML file.  A word processor isn't a typewriter, and the lack of template management as a first-class feature is really hurting OO for use in business setting.  This seems like a trivial feature to add and I hope OO will take it seriously.
Comment 15 pmneve 2017-02-18 23:34:56 UTC
This is not, in my view, trivial.  When some one else creates the content and I need to edit and format, assigning a template to an existing document is easier and quicker and more logical than opening a template and replacing everything in it and then going through each item and setting the appropriate style, especially with custom styles.

Given the existence of an extension (Template Changer) for 3.x, it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to ask for it to be updated and integrated into 4.x
Comment 16 oooforum (fr) 2017-03-05 14:23:15 UTC
(In reply to pmneve from comment #15)
> Given the existence of an extension (Template Changer) for 3.x, it doesn't
> seem too much of a stretch to ask for it to be updated and integrated into
> 4.x
This extension is dedicated to people who need this feature.
So if you want it, install it. No need to embed in core app.

Just 17 votes shows that is not a priority for end-users since 2005.
Comment 17 pmneve 2017-03-05 22:58:16 UTC
Integrating it into Oo is not a necessity.  

Somehow getting the extension fixed to support 4.x is the real need.  

I know 17 is not a large number, but those of who would use it are 'power' users and using Oo because it is a viable alternative to MS Office.  Even though Office does have more flexible (although convoluted) template handling, I'd rather not go back to it.

I'll try to contact the author of Template Changer and see what his situation is.  I'll also try to see if I might be able to assist in bringing the extension up to date.

All that aside, Oo is a really excellent package and my thanks to all who contribute to it.
Comment 18 Marcus 2017-05-20 11:05:09 UTC
Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".