Authors, like most users, rightly see their word processor as a tool. They prefer to sit down in front of a screen and create their masterpiece without needing to bother with technical niceties.

On the other hand, an understanding of styles is the most important way of making the writing task easier, saving considerably more time than it consumes. These pages aim to give both the understanding and the technical tools.

The focus here is on Libre Office Writer, a decision based on the superiority of Writer for large manuscripts. Word can be used in a similar way, but technical pitfalls make that a sub-optimal choice.

There are three sections:

• Working with Styles Working consistently with paragraph styles is the key skill
• Manuscript Standards Adopting these standards will reduce final editing whatever the destination of your manuscript
• Making it easy Resources to customise Writer to benefit from recommendations in the other sections

The key page is style sequence, however if you are unfamilair with using styles, you may need to refer to other pages first