Among the outline formats you can choose in ClarisWorks 2.0 and ClarisImpact 1.0 is custom formatting, where you define how each level will be indented and what font, size and style the text will be. This is an extremely powerful feature. It allows you to specify standard styles to use at different levels of your document.
With each new section or sub-topic, there is no need to manually indent paragraphs and apply formats. Instead, you just create a new topic at the level you want. The custom outline format takes care of the rest.
And if you decide to change the way a certain level looks, modifying the level format changes every topic of that level to the new format automatically. While you can do the same thing with the Define Styles feature in Claris Works, the custom formatting feature in the Outline menu adds the additional capability to control paragraph indents.
Outline View vs. Page View
Most often, you use Outline View as a notepad to organize your ideas. Once organized, you leave Outline View to format and fill out their document. However, there is another approach which is potentially more efficient, especially for longer, structured documents such as research papers and business reports.
For example, imagine this document was in outline view. It's possible if you set Topic labels (Labels in ClarisImpact) to None and indents (Left Indent in ClarisImpact) to zero.
This brings up an interesting point. For documents that use topic and sub-topic headings with varied paragraph formats, it may make the most sense to start in Outline View and stay there. An added benefit of composing your document in this way is that you can quickly move paragraphs and sections around since you can grab a whole topic.
For instance, say you decided this sentence should come before the one above. Rather than cutting and pasting, you can just click in the left margin on the first line in the paragraph and drag the cursor up until you see a black bar appear before the paragraph above. Let go of the mouse button and the paragraph will be repositioned.
Collapsing Topics
You can even collapse topics to get an overview. This paragraph could be considered a sub-topic of the topic "Collapsing Topics." If you were viewing this in the ClarisWorks or ClarisImpact outliner, you could double-click the heading to collapse all the paragraphs under it. What a time-saver in long documents! You could use the Expand To command and specify level 1, 2 or whatever, depending on how much detail you want to see.
Creating New Topics in Claris Works
Unlike ClarisImpact, Claris Works does not have preset topics or levels in the outliner; however, creating new topics is easy. To create a new topic on the same level in Claris Works, just press return. For a new sub-topic, press Command-R or choose New Topic Right from the menu. For a new section, press Command-L or choose New Topic Left.
If you've already created a topic but want to change its level, choose Move Left or Move Right from the menu. In addition to the command key equivalents listed in the menu, you can use Control-right arrow or left arrow to move right or left.
[A template demonstrating these techniques in Claris Works is available for download from Claris forums on America Online and CompuServe, and the Claris BBS.]
With each new section or sub-topic, there is no need to manually indent paragraphs and apply formats. Instead, you just create a new topic at the level you want. The custom outline format takes care of the rest.
And if you decide to change the way a certain level looks, modifying the level format changes every topic of that level to the new format automatically. While you can do the same thing with the Define Styles feature in Claris Works, the custom formatting feature in the Outline menu adds the additional capability to control paragraph indents.
Outline View vs. Page View
Most often, you use Outline View as a notepad to organize your ideas. Once organized, you leave Outline View to format and fill out their document. However, there is another approach which is potentially more efficient, especially for longer, structured documents such as research papers and business reports.
For example, imagine this document was in outline view. It's possible if you set Topic labels (Labels in ClarisImpact) to None and indents (Left Indent in ClarisImpact) to zero.
This brings up an interesting point. For documents that use topic and sub-topic headings with varied paragraph formats, it may make the most sense to start in Outline View and stay there. An added benefit of composing your document in this way is that you can quickly move paragraphs and sections around since you can grab a whole topic.
For instance, say you decided this sentence should come before the one above. Rather than cutting and pasting, you can just click in the left margin on the first line in the paragraph and drag the cursor up until you see a black bar appear before the paragraph above. Let go of the mouse button and the paragraph will be repositioned.
Collapsing Topics
You can even collapse topics to get an overview. This paragraph could be considered a sub-topic of the topic "Collapsing Topics." If you were viewing this in the ClarisWorks or ClarisImpact outliner, you could double-click the heading to collapse all the paragraphs under it. What a time-saver in long documents! You could use the Expand To command and specify level 1, 2 or whatever, depending on how much detail you want to see.
Creating New Topics in Claris Works
Unlike ClarisImpact, Claris Works does not have preset topics or levels in the outliner; however, creating new topics is easy. To create a new topic on the same level in Claris Works, just press return. For a new sub-topic, press Command-R or choose New Topic Right from the menu. For a new section, press Command-L or choose New Topic Left.
If you've already created a topic but want to change its level, choose Move Left or Move Right from the menu. In addition to the command key equivalents listed in the menu, you can use Control-right arrow or left arrow to move right or left.
[A template demonstrating these techniques in Claris Works is available for download from Claris forums on America Online and CompuServe, and the Claris BBS.]
Figure 1 - Custom outline formats simulate elements of the article's text: Headlines, subheadings, and body text.