Dear TC members,

in the last TC meeting we figured out, that many text documents contain numbered paragraph that do not follow one after another in the document, but are distributed among the document. In the OpenOffice.org file format, such numbered paragraphs have to be represented as several list, each requiring its own list and list-item elements. Since such numbered paragarphs are not really list, this seems to be some overhead. In such cases, it seems to be more apropriate to individually assign the level and list styles to paragraphs.

On the other hand, we also figured out that many documents contain numbered paragarphs one after another, and that such paragraphs can be considered to be real list. This applies to text documents, but also to presentations, that might also contain numbered paragraphs. We also figured out, that at least some office suite in its UI represent numbered paragarphs as list, and that many other XML schemas also support the concept of lists, among them are XHTML and XSL-FO, that both influenced the OpenOffice.org file format. For this reason, and since the TC charter mentions retaining high-level information, transformation friendliness and 'borrowing' from existing standards as requirements, it seems to be apropriate to also keep the concept of lists.

To be able to represent both kinds of numbered paragarphs, single one and paragarphs that form a list, I would like to propose to

- keep the concept of lists as it is, with the exception that the "text:ordered-list" and "text:unordered-list" elements are replaced by a single "text:list" element.

- add a new "text:numbered-paragraph" (or "text:num-p", etc.) element. This element has an "text:level" element like headings ("text:h") that specifies which level of a list styles should be the applied to the paragraph. The list style itself is specified as "style:list-style-name" attribute attached to the paragraph's style element, as this is the case already. The "text:numbered-paragraph" element must not occur within lists, so that there are no conflicts between the level of a numbered paragraph and the level a paragraph gets because it is contained within a list.

- the "text:list" element should be used if numbered paragraphs that use the same list style follow one after another. "text:numbered-paragraph" should be used for single numbered paragraphs.

Best regards

Michael