a few noob questions on using styles

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TimL
Posts: 17
Joined: 2005-12-27 23:28:19

a few noob questions on using styles

Post by TimL »

1. When I'm in the style sheet, how do I change the "First line indent"? I can select it, but can't figure out how to change it.

2. If I open a document with its own styles how do I attach styles from my template? Is there something equivalent to Word where you attach a template to a doc?

3. I opened a doc from Word, and I want to change the footnote style (which was imported as "Normal") into my Nisus Footnote style. I couldn't figure out how to do it. The Footnote style is not in the palette (only the character style for Footnote reference), and I tried to use the green note tag in the status bar.

Thanks..
cchapin
Posts: 424
Joined: 2004-02-25 18:28:40
Location: Nagoya, Japan

Re: a few noob questions on using styles

Post by cchapin »

TimL wrote:1. When I'm in the style sheet, how do I change the "First line indent"? I can select it, but can't figure out how to change it.
If the ruler bar is showing (View > Show Rulers), just drag the top droplet at the left margin to the position you want.
TimL wrote:2. If I open a document with its own styles how do I attach styles from my template? Is there something equivalent to Word where you attach a template to a doc?
There might be a simpler or more elegant way that I don’t know about, but here are two ways that will work. Let’s say that you have two documents open. Document A contains the styles you want, and document B does not.

Option 1. Select some text that is in the style or styles you want to bring over to document B. Copy or drag it from document A to document B.

Option 2. In document A’s style sheet, select all the styles you want to bring over to document B. Copy them to the clipboard. Paste them into the document B style sheet.
TimL wrote:3. I opened a doc from Word, and I want to change the footnote style (which was imported as "Normal") into my Nisus Footnote style. I couldn't figure out how to do it. The Footnote style is not in the palette (only the character style for Footnote reference), and I tried to use the green note tag in the status bar.
I’m less certain about this since I haven’t needed to do what you’re doing. To mimic your situation, I deleted the Footnote note style in a document. When I inserted a footnote (Insert > Footnote) into the document, Nisus Writer Express created a new footnote style, which I was then able to edit. Having done that, you should be able to select existing footnotes and change their style.

--Craig
TimL
Posts: 17
Joined: 2005-12-27 23:28:19

Post by TimL »

Thanks for your help. If anyone else works with Word and can give me a little guidance on how to use styles as in my examples above, I would greatly appreciate it. If I can't figure out an easy way to replace styles going from a Word doc to Nisus, I'm afraid I'll have to stick to the Beast.

Don't other people open a doc from Word and want to access your own styles? There must be an easier way to do it. I was going to take a paper I was working on and transfer it to Nisus, but if I can't get those footnote styles to be consistent, my document will look like crap.
cchapin
Posts: 424
Joined: 2004-02-25 18:28:40
Location: Nagoya, Japan

Post by cchapin »

TimL wrote:…if I can't get those footnote styles to be consistent, my document will look like crap.
You can select all the footnotes and apply the same note style pretty easily. Assuming that you have a footnote style set up already (see the earlier post) …

1. Click in any footnote.
2. Select all footnotes (Edit > Select All).
3. Apply the Footnote style (Format > Style > Footnote).

This will leave intact rulers, character formatting, character styles and even paragraph styles. If the notes don't look consistent, you might need to remove some of this. (Be careful not to strip out formatting or character styles that you need.) The tags in the status bar can help you to remove these things.

--Craig
TimL
Posts: 17
Joined: 2005-12-27 23:28:19

Post by TimL »

cchapin wrote: 1. Click in any footnote.
2. Select all footnotes (Edit > Select All).
3. Apply the Footnote style (Format > Style > Footnote).
When I do that, the footnote style is already checked, and when I select it, it doesn't change anything (even though my footnote style should be different). I can change the attributes manually, although the footnotes from Word have a larger space between the number and the text that I don't know how to change (or to get the footnote style in Nisus to match it). Not that I'm trying to do a professional layout or something, but there should be a way to fix that.

If anyone knows, I'd still like to figure out how to access my template styles in an imported doc. I don't think the user guide explains it.
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