Re: [O] org-odt: specifying fonts

[Christian Moe]

Hi, Mehul,

It's not that I would be opposed to a fonts option, of course, but I 
don't see it as a priority or even necessary. As long as org-odt 
handles the document structure and semantics right, and allows 
attaching an external stylesheet, I think it's done its job.

There are other developments I'm more keen on, like a finalized set of 
documented header options for images (those often need to be set on a 
per-image basis), or the table styles Jambunathan's been experimenting 
with (OpenOffice, eat your heart out!), or simply the definitive 
integration of the odt exporter into core Org.

On 10/18/11 11:15 PM, Mehul Sanghvi wrote:
> As for fonts, like styles, it
> would be easier, simpler and more elegant
> to be able to do that without having to edit styles.odt every time.
> This is not specific to org-odt.  It should be,
> at least I think so for now, to do this with any exporting backend.

Some would say tinkering with fonts is a distraction from writing that 
having Your Life In Plain Text allows you to get away from. And the 
consistent use of styles and templates is anyway good word-processing 
practice.

But sure, this is possible in other backends. For html export (which I 
know better than latex), one can simply include a header like:

  #+STYLE: <style> * { font-family: Gentium; } </style>

to make every element use the Gentium font if available. If I need 
more than 2-3 STYLE headers to get a job done, though, I find it 
easier, simpler and more elegant to link to an external stylesheet.

HTML comes with the breathtaking power and simplicity of CSS styling; 
LaTeX comes with breathtaking power and ... well, at least it's in 
plain text that Org can pass on to the relevant backend. ODT is a 
slightly different story. Its styles are in XML that was not really 
meant to be hand-edited.

> If you send me a styles.odt, and I do not like the fonts you are
> using, it becomes cumbersome to be editing the styles.odt
> for each font and making sure to change it in all possible places
> until I settle on a proper font I want to use.

> If I could instead specify the font in org file itself, it would be a
> matter of changing the header and re-generating the file.

You'd still need to do the cumbersome work of making sure to change it 
in all possible places, though. Changing the Default paragraph style 
will typically change e.g. the linked Text Body style, too , but not 
the headings (they're linked with Heading). So at a minimum, you'd 
need options to modify both. And once fonts can be specified, users 
will want sizes, weights, colors, borders, etc. Sure, there could be 
an extensive options vocab a la:

  #+ODT_STYLE: "Default" :type para :font "Gentium" :size 12pt
  #+ODT_STYLE: "Heading" :type para :font "Arial" :size 16pt :weight 
bold :color blue :borders ...etc. etc. ...

But is it needed? While Latex, HTML and DocBook users should never be 
required to sully their hands with a GUI, when we use ODT we can 
reasonably be expected to open up an office application now and again 
to modify our templates.

Okay, #+END_RANT...

Yours,
Christian