searching for a given style

[dpb]

Some of my files, cobbled together from many sources, are a mass of variant versions of the same style names. I would like to consolidate a lot of these. But I don't see an easy way to actually locate the places in the document where a given style is used, so that I can see what the effect will be of deleting or renaming it. Is there such a way?

Thanks for your help.

[DavidK]

If the cursor within a paragraph in a particular style, all you need to do is go to the gear menu underneath the styles, to the paragraph style mini-icon at the bottom of the window, or to the Format/paragraph style menu on the menu bar, and select either "select all style" or "select style range." I can never remember the difference between the two, but they seem to select all text that belongs to that style.

[dpb]

I understand this method, but the idea is that you scroll through the document and look at each thing that needs to be fixed, and fix them one by one.

That means there's no way to fix one case and then jump to the next case, because you need to start out by selecting one case of what you're looking for.

And if you simply make the change at the style level and then scroll through, checking all the cases, you can't easily adjust those cases that need adjustment.

This would seem to be an area in which future development would be helpful.

[martin]

select either "select all style" or "select style range." I can never remember the difference between the two, but they seem to select all text that belongs to that style.

The "Select Range" menu selects just text marked in the style that touches the current selection, eg: it expands the current selection to all adjacent text in that style. The "Select All" menu on the other hand selects all text in that style anywhere in the document.

That means there's no way to fix one case and then jump to the next case, because you need to start out by selecting one case of what you're looking for.

Attribute sensitive find can help you here:

1. Switch to PowerFind (or Pro).
2. Use the gear menu to select the menu Wild Card > Anything.
3. Select the text that was inserted into the find field and apply the style you want to find.

The "attribute sensitive" option should have become automatically enabled. Now you can use Find Next to move through your document.

[greenmorpher]

select either "select all style" or "select style range." I can never remember the difference between the two, but they seem to select all text that belongs to that style.

The "Select Range" menu selects just text marked in the style that touches the current selection, eg: it expands the current selection to all adjacent text in that style. The "Select All" menu on the other hand selects all text in that style anywhere in the document.

Hello dpb

Your various Styles may be either Paragraph Styles or Character Styles. They are probably Paragraph Styles, though. You can check this by going Menu Bar|View|Style Sheet -- and you can see whether the Styles are under Character Styles (at the top of the Styles menu on the left) or Paragraph Styles.

Set up or choose the Styles you want to implement instead of the mess of imported Styles, then go back to Draft or Page View.

Now place your cursor in a paragraph with the Style you want to change and go Menu Bar|Format|Character (or) Paragraph Style|Select All Style. With all the paragraphs of that Style selected, click on your preferred Style for them.

Repeat for all the Styles you want to convert to your preferred Styles, then return to Menu Bar|View|Style Sheet and delete the now unused Styles.

To do it will probably take you about half the time it took me to write this!

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com

[dpb]

Now place your cursor in a paragraph with the Style you want to change and go Menu Bar|Format|Character (or) Paragraph Style|Select All Style. With all the paragraphs of that Style selected, click on your preferred Style for them.

Yes, but that's not the problem - the problem is ensuring that the new style doesn't lead to any unwanted changes, and that means examining each change item by item.

However, it seems from Martin's message that styles are now fully supported in Find/Replace, which they were not when I got into the habit of using the Paragraph Style menu. Find/Replace allows item-by-item review and changes. I'll give it a careful try.

Thanks for everyone's help.