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Right, most people don't want to do that, they want the burden of applying styles to the couple headings or whatever.

Unfortunately, most people don't use paragraph styles, but if you do, it's a couple clicks.

Agreed. There is actually a lot better control in openoffice / libreoffice than most people know. You just have to set up your styles and be systematic about (virtually) never using direct formatting, instead always applying a pre-configured style. There is a distinct value in seeing your final product as you work, when the final product is visual.

And if you define shortcut keys for your styles it's as quick to type as markdown.

This is more of a utopia than expecting the average office drone to learn emacs.

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