Hi
Just wondering if I am missing something.
I’m finding the use of Fonts in Layout, for any substantial amount of Text, really slow it down. Not ideal when trying to insert Building Regs Text.
Would anyone have any advice on this.
I would like to use Graphite, but with a lot of text it becomes slow. I have noticed that even when creating annotations, it can slow up where I am waiting for Layout to catch up.
For information, this is on my Windows PC.
Mike
I haven’t seen any instances of text slowing LO down. Are you adding the text directly in LO or inserting .rtf files? For large blocks of text I would tend to use the .rtf file because there’s more editing and formatting option in the typical word processor.
Hi Dave
I tried adding a large block of text an then editing it. It was copied from Notepad and then pasted into a Text Box.
I have noticed that Graphite does slow down the more it is used if that makes sense.
Just Tried Candara and it seems to be quicker.
Mike
Interesting that Graphite slows it down. I’ll have to experiment.
I would suggest using a word editor (I like LibreOffice for word processing and spreadsheets.) and then inserting .rtf files instead of copying and pasting into a text box.
It’s when typing notes, the longer the note and the text appearance starts lagging behind key strokes.
Mike
Ha ha.
Must admit, I did cut and paste a lot of text.
I’ll have to look into the importing as rtf.
Does that allow me to adjust the layout, once I have it in the Layout Document?
Mike
Do you know how hard it is to type all the lorem ipsum stuff? 
Actually I copied and pasted all that and thenjust added the last bit.
You can change the size of the text box for the inserted .rtf file but don’t double click into it and edit the text. Right click on it and choose Open with [the text editor you have set up as the default] and make your edits that way. when you save the changes in the editor and go back to LO, the edits should show. It’s much like editing the .skp file.
I was impressed that you can speak Latin 
Just tried the RTF but is doesn’t seem to save Bold Type formatting. (CORRECTION: It does).
It also inserts it as one long text box, but I need to be able to show columns, like in the attached.
Mike
Unfortunately I don’t think that even qualifies for pig Latin. 
For multiple columns like that you would need to use separate .rtf files for each column unfortunately. I’ve made a request to have the ability to be able to do that sort of thing from a single .rtf file. Maybe one day.
The “lorem ipsum” text is a garbled arbitrary quote from Cicero, if I remember right. For instance, it starts with a truncated word in the middle of a sentence. (it is “dolorem ipsum”). Some printer in Venice started using a variety of it in his typeface sample book about 500 or more years ago.
Mmmmm, that’s a bit of a pain then.
I normally have to jig the columns to arrange them on the page, depending on the space.
Looks like I’ll have to just carry on Double clicking in the text and then separating into columns. Just seems to take ages.
I really wish they would rewrite Layout from the ground up.
Mike
Michael, here’s what I do (since LO does not have inbuilt word processing capability worthy of the name).
I’m on a Mac so I use Pages but any half decent word processor would do. One that can create columns, for example.
I have a generic set of BReg Notes that I adapt for each project. So I make a copy for the project, edit, and save. Then I export to PDF. That is the document I import into LO. As I start with an A3 landscape page in Pages, providing the notes fit on that, I know they will look fine in LO.
When I need to edit the notes, I make the adjustments in the project’s Pages file, export again to PDF (overwriting the previous version), then go into LO and relink to the new file. It sounds long-winded but it’s actually pretty quick.
Do I wish you could do all this natively in LO? Sure, but it doesn’t look as if that is high on the developer’s to do list.
I produce documents on A3 so there’s no room for lengthy notes on a page that also has a drawing.
I have separate A3 pages devoted to generic statutory / building regulation notes which don’t get edited per project and project specific building regulation notes (specification, etc.) are on 1:10 / 1:5 detail pages which will be annotation rather than blocks of text
On the question of LO and speed, I have just upgraded my memory on my new iMac from the basic 8Mb to 24Mb. It’s early days, but it does look as if it may make a difference to LO’s speed in general.
Whilst I’m on a roll, here’s another thing about LO on Mac.
Why is it that changing anything to do with text is done by Show Fonts instead of being another dockable tray? Dimensions have their own style tray so would it not be logical to have a Text Style tray too? It’s almost as if developers forgot about text editing until the last moment and then had to hurriedly implement a quick fix!
…and if you have to edit the notes you have to PDF it again
Is this a Mac thing?
Do you have issues with editing text too?
Just seems rather convoluted.
I’ve never had problems with text in LO and as I indicated, I have generic bulk notes that I infrequently need to edit
It’s been that way on Mac since the beginning because similar to the colors panel, they use the Font window supplied by the OS.
It is kind of a Mac thing in that Macs make it really easy to create PDFs from almost any other application. Choose Print, select Print to PDF and voila!
It is convoluted compared to what you would hope for, ie. the ability to do it in app with LO. But still pretty fast.
You obviously work differently from me. My work is too varied for me to be able to include a generic set of notes that will do for all projects. And I always bear in mind something someone senior to me said when I was starting out. Along the lines of standard solutions lead to standard errors.
Ah, I see. But do they have to? Could they have their own set of fonts and colours?
