Styles not listed in

[Eric Weir]

I have created a simple set of styles that meets my formatting needs. It includes footnote, endnote, and bullet styles. When I import the entire set, all the styles in the set are listed in the style sheet view on the left side of the window. However these three don't show up in the styles list in the writing pallete group in the tools drawer. As a result, I am not able to use them.

Any ideas why they're not showing up, or how I can get them to show up?

Thanks,

[Groucho]

Hello, Eric.

Try typing some text and adding a note anywhere (Insert > Footnote or Insert > Endnote). Footnote and Endnote styles only appear after you have created a footnote/endnote. Anyway, you won’t see them in the Style palette. After you have created the first note, a new green tag appears on the statusbar. See below:

Screenshot 2011-02-07.gif (20.4 KiB) Viewed 15606 times

As for the bullet style, did you create a new paragraph style with bulleted indents? If so, it should be made available in the Style palette. I’m sorry I seldom use lists, though.

Henry.

[martin]

Henry is correct: note styles are applied automatically when you insert a new footnote/endnote.

As for list styles, they are shown in a separate Lists palette (and the Lists menu, toolbar button, etc), but not in the Styles palette.

[Eric Weir]

Thanks Henry and Martin.

I need to be more specific. The problem I've encountered arises in working with documents exported from Scrivener. The exported documents already have footnotes, but when opened in Nisus they are not always formatted as they would be if they had been created in Nisus. I need to reformat these notes.

I've found a way to do it, though it doesn't strike me as the most natural way: I use the "note reference in note" style which is in the styles palette.

I'm a relatively new user. I find the "footnote reference," "note reference," and "note reference in note" nomenclature to be obscure and confusing. It was only by trail and error that I more or less figured out what they do, and it is not easy to remember. I also don't understand why the notes styles, i.e., "footnote" and "endnote" do no appear in the styles palette. They are styles, after all. I'm sure there are good reasons for it all, but as new user I'm finding some of the nomenclature and procedures of Nisus less than intuitive.

That said, I should also say I find Nisus a lot easier to work with than OpenOffice or Word. I am using styles. In OpenOffice especially, I found them very, very confusing, and never got comfortable with them. I am reasonably so now, despite the present instance.

Thanks again,

[Groucho]

To get what you mean, I had to create a document with a footnote in Scrivener and export it into rtf. When I opened the document, the footnote was there. There was a footnote reference (the small number that appears in the main text) and some text in the footnote area. Note that you need to be in Page View (View > Page View) to actually see the note. Then I imported a bunch of styles from a style collection. Among them was a footnote style based on Normal plus size 8 points. But the footnote was 18 points, same as in Scrivener. So I clicked anywhere in the footnote area and selected all (Edit > Select All or Command-A), then I selected Format > Remove Attributes Except Styles, and the text turned to 8 points.
Maybe you are wondering why the text is not automatically formatted once you have imported the styles. This is because there are some overlying attributes that you need to clean up.
Please tell me if this helped.

Greetings, Henry.

[Eric Weir]

Yes, it was helpful, Henry. The document I'm working with is a complicated on that is in the midst of revision but that I last worked with several months ago -- pre-Nisus and pre-Scrivener. There are several versions of it, with lots of notes for revision. Getting it all reconstructed in Scrivener and Nisus I'm having to be careful that I don't lose any of the work I'd completed when I last worked on it.

It has 20 footnotes and innumerable comments. The comments have come through fine. When I open a document after exporting from Scrivener the formatting of footnotes is inconsistent. After importing my own style set into the document I assumed the footnote style could be used to reformat the notes. As I've explained, that turned out not to be possible because the footnote style isn't displayed in the styles palette.

My work around is a little different than yours -- I used the "note reference in note" style instead of going through the format menu -- but otherwise similar. In the process, I discovered that if you do a "select all" when the cursor's in any footnote it selects all the footnotes, and then any reformatting command is applied to all of them.

Not clear about what you mean when you say there are "overlying attributes that need to be cleaned up." Would that be formatting carried out in the application from which the document was originally exported?

Which raises a question for me: Where do the styles associated with a document that has just been opened after exporting from another application come from? Are they Nisus versions of formatting established in the exported-from application? Are they combination of styles originating in the exported-from application and the styles applied when a new file is opened in Nisus? Or do they get established some other way altogether?

Thanks again,

[Groucho]

Eric said:
Not clear about what you mean when you say there are "overlying attributes that need to be cleaned up." Would that be formatting carried out in the application from which the document was originally exported?

You guessed right. Some of the original attributes are preserved when you apply a style. Italics and bold, for example.

Where do the styles associated with a document that has just been opened after exporting from another application come from? Are they Nisus versions of formatting established in the exported-from application? Are they combination of styles originating in the exported-from application and the styles applied when a new file is opened in Nisus? Or do they get established some other way altogether?

I don’t know where they come from. I know they are there when you open a file created with Scrivener, or TextEdit for that matter. Both applications don’t embed styles in documents, unlike Nisus Writer Pro/Express. My guess is the Mac’s text engine is the culprit.
Anyway, you can overwrite them. When I want an imported document, that is one not created by NWP, to comply with my styles, I open an empty document with all the formatting I want and then drag the imported document into the empty window. That is, I drag the icon. Unfortunately, so far NWP doesn’t have an Import File feature.

Cheers, Henry.

[Eric Weir]

Well, now I've got another question: How do you get quotes into posts on this forum? I've looked for a way and can't find it. I'll try another guess: Cut and paste between "[quote][/quote]."

Anyway, thanks for your help again. You've piqued my curiosity about dragging and dropping formatted documents from another application into Nisus. You say you drag the icon. I gather you also use Scrivener. What icon do you, or would you, drag to drag a Scrivener document into Nisus? Since Scrivener "projects" are "packages" of files, and since I only ever export a small part of the package, I don't see how to do what you say you do.

Would copying and pasting, from Scrivener to Nisus, work as well? [I'll give it a try.]

Regards,

[Eric Weir]

Would copying and pasting, from Scrivener to Nisus, work as well? [I'll give it a try.]

Footnotes come through. Comments do not.

I guess I guessed right about quoting.

Regards,

[Groucho]

Yes, you’ve guessed right about quotes I see.
Now for the icon.
Select a file in Scrivener and export it into a folder (File > Export > Files…). Choose Rich Text from the Export main text as drop-down.
Create a new file in NWP and set margins, styles and everything the way you deem best. To speed up things, you can duplicate an existing document you think is alright, select all and delete all. Even better, you can save this document as a template, with .dot extension, that you can use as many times as you like.
Open the folder with the exported file. Select the file (the file’s icon) and drag it into the open document, right on the page.

Screenshot 2011-02-08.jpg (98.08 KiB) Viewed 15562 times

NWP might ask what to do in case of conflicting styles. Click on Use Existing Styles. That’s it.

Greetings, Henry.

[martin]

Where do the styles associated with a document that has just been opened after exporting from another application come from?

When you open a file with no footnote/endnote styles (as is the case with Scrivener exports), NWP will magic up some default/empty Note Styles and add them to your document.

I know they are there when you open a file created with Scrivener, or TextEdit for that matter. Both applications don’t embed styles in documents, unlike Nisus Writer Pro/Express. My guess is the Mac’s text engine is the culprit.

That's correct. The stock OSX text engine has no notion of styles. Only manual formatting is supported.

When I open a document after exporting from Scrivener the formatting of footnotes is inconsistent. After importing my own style set into the document I assumed the footnote style could be used to reformat the notes. As I've explained, that turned out not to be possible because the footnote style isn't displayed in the styles palette.

Even though the footnote style is not shown in the Styles palette, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or isn't applied. When you import a file with footnotes/endnotes, NWP will ensure that some note style is applied to those imported notes (as appropriate for the placement of those notes). You can check this yourself with your file from Scrivener: select some text in your footnote area and look at the menu Format > Note Style.

Now, onto the inconsistent formatting. The problem is that even though NWP adds and applies the note styles, the imported file contains nothing but manual formatting. Manual formatting has a higher precedence, ie: it overrides the formatting enforced through applied styles. So if your style enforces the Optima font but the manual formatting says to use the Times font, the text will display using the Times font.

If you want to switch your document to use styles instead of manual formatting, select all the text and use the menu Format > Remove Attributes Except Styles. This is a one time effect that discards all manual formatting applied to the selected text, and thus your styles will be the sole source of formatting. The unfortunate thing is that this also removes any interesting manual formatting, like italics applied to a movie title. But there's no way around this, since again, the exported text only specified manual formatting.

Depending on what you want exactly, you might be able to get away with removing the manual formatting piecemeal, one attribute at a time. For instance, you can select all your text and use the menu Format > Fonts > Remove Font Attribute to gives your styles control over the font family (but keep other manual formatting like italics, color, etc intact).

I hope that makes some sense.

[Eric Weir]

Select a file in Scrivener and export it into a folder (File > Export > Files…). Choose Rich Text from the Export main text as drop-down.
Create a new file in NWP and set margins, styles and everything the way you deem best. To speed up things, you can duplicate an existing document you think is alright, select all and delete all. Even better, you can save this document as a template, with .dot extension, that you can use as many times as you like.
Open the folder with the exported file. Select the file (the file’s icon) and drag it into the open document, right on the page.

No surprise to you, Henry. Works perfect. Thanks.

[Eric Weir]

Now, onto the inconsistent formatting. The problem is that even though NWP adds and applies the note styles, the imported file contains nothing but manual formatting. Manual formatting has a higher precedence, ie: it overrides the formatting enforced through applied styles. So if your style enforces the Optima font but the manual formatting says to use the Times font, the text will display using the Times font.

Thanks for the explanation, Martin. Makes sense.

If you want to switch your document to use styles instead of manual formatting, select all the text and use the menu Format > Remove Attributes Except Styles. This is a one time effect that discards all manual formatting applied to the selected text, and thus your styles will be the sole source of formatting. The unfortunate thing is that this also removes any interesting manual formatting, like italics applied to a movie title.

Thanks for calling this option to my attention. I'm not sure, but it looks like Henry's method -- dragging an exported file into a new Nisus file that is set with desired styles -- eliminates the inconsistent formatting and -- this is a guess -- preserves the manual formatting as well.

Depending on what you want exactly, you might be able to get away with removing the manual formatting piecemeal, one attribute at a time. For instance, you can select all your text and use the menu Format > Fonts > Remove Font Attribute to gives your styles control over the font family (but keep other manual formatting like italics, color, etc intact).

Piecemeal would not be that big a deal with my documents, which are article length, not book length. Actually, that was what I was setting out to do when I encountered the problem that led to this thread. Henry's solution appears to make that unnecessary now.

Thanks again,

[Eric Weir]

Even though the footnote style is not shown in the Styles palette, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or isn't applied.

I knew that it existed because it was listed among the styles when Style Sheet View was selected. But since it was not listed in the palette. Is there a reason why it's not listed in the Styles palette. It is a style.

Thanks in advance,

[Eric Weir]

One last question: It's off topic, but why is word wrap not working on this thread? It seems to be working on other threads on and other forums. On this one, though, it's not working for me either in reading or composing mode.

Thanks,