styles

Everything related to our flagship word processor.
Post Reply
Yohanan
Posts: 91
Joined: 2017-12-21 04:36:37

styles

Post by Yohanan »

Hi, I am new to Nisus, coming form Word and LibreOffice in the hope of solving a styles problem, which I meet also on Nisus. Here it is: each time I define a style, at some point it gets back to another font, like times. This occurs on documents where I used fonts like Century Schoolbook and others non present on Nisus or Mellel (I tried this too). Moreover the shortcuts disappear (on all of these processors). What I would like to now is: how could I delete all my styles (they appear in the palette on the right side of the doc) and define a totally new fresh set of styles ?
Thanks in advance for any help to a drowning man. . . for the last two months.
User avatar
martin
Official Nisus Person
Posts: 5227
Joined: 2002-07-11 17:14:10
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:

Re: styles

Post by martin »

Hello Yohanan, I'm sorry you're having trouble with fonts and styles. It sounds like you're having a general sort of problem, which we might solve by increasing your understanding, though it's always possible there's some technical problem at work too.

First, it's important to make clear that the user is always free to override styles by using manually applied formatting. By this, I mean that you can always (for example) choose a font from the menu Format > Font and override the style. In this way some text in your file may use the Times font, even if all your styles only use Century Schoolbook. It's possible that manually applied fonts were added to your document in unexpected ways, for example via copy-paste. That's often a source of unwanted formatting.

If you want to clear all manually applied fonts in your document, and just use the fonts enforced by your styles:
1. Select all text in your file.
2. Use the menu Format > Font > Remove Font Attribute.

You also asked how to delete styles from your document:
1. Switch to your document's stylesheet, eg: use the menu View > Style Sheet.
2. From the list on the left, select all the styles you do not want.
3. Press the Delete key, and then confirm the action in the warning alert.

You can then create (or import) whichever styles you want to use in your document. After the stylesheet has been cleaned you can return to normal text editing and apply styles as needed.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Yohanan
Posts: 91
Joined: 2017-12-21 04:36:37

Re: styles

Post by Yohanan »

Thank you Martin for pointing out the Style sheet. This is good.

What I could not successfully achieve was to import styles from one of my documents.

I have a great number of docs on my machine (a few thousands on thirty three years of Mac use) and I would like to know if there is a way to unify the styles, for I have less than ten paragraph styles I use in most of my docs. Right now, each time I open a new doc, I have to redefine my styles.

A little problem I met with since on Nisus, was that at the end of a document my 'Normal' defined style got back to another font (Times) and I could not solve this otherwise than by the Special copy characters attributes from another paragraph.

Yohanan
Yohanan
Posts: 91
Joined: 2017-12-21 04:36:37

Re: styles

Post by Yohanan »

Hi, sorry to disturb. I cannot find import styles into my library, neither in the menus nor in the help.
Þorvarður
Posts: 410
Joined: 2012-12-19 05:02:52

Re: styles

Post by Þorvarður »

Hello Yohanan,

Welcome to Nisus! Nisus is a fantastic word processor, very easy to use once you have understood how it works, and it's extremely powerful.
I believe all the issues you mention can be easily solved. Before I address your specific questions, let me first make some general remarks.

Since you are new to Nisus, I would suggest you first watch the video by James Tummins on YouTube about creating styles in Nisus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zwKDgk8XYs

Then you must read about styles in the Nisus Writer Pro Help to get an idea what you can do, if you haven't done that already. Although Nisus is very easy to use for those who understand how it works, it is also a very complex application. Therefore the 'Nisus Writer Pro Help' is a must read.

Now, having said that, the good news first: if you have used styles in Word and happen to have some favorite styles, you can most likely use them in Nisus too. Just export a Word document as Rich Text File and then open it in Nisus. You should see the Word styles in the Style Sheet. Not all Word specific attributes may be supported though.

Now let's talk about something that many new users are not aware of and may cause some confusion. When you open a new document in Word and in Nisus, you are actually opening an already predefined template with (certain) styles in it (unless you have deliberately deleted all styles in that template, of course, which is possible.) If you change the template during your working session in Word, Word will *ask* you whether you want to save the changes before you quit the application. Nisus doesn't do this. If you choose 'New' from the File menu, Nisus always opens the same template, called 'Nisus New File'. If you now start working and you create the most fantastic styles with breathtaking formatting, and then save the document and quit Nisus—the next time you start Nisus and create a new document all your fantastic styles will be "gone." That's because you didn't save them to 'Nisus New File'. Actually, the styles are not gone, they are still in the document you were working on. In order to have a direct *permanent* access to them, you'll need to save them to the … , well you guessed it, to the 'Nisus New File'. You can also save the styles to a so called Style Library. That's a file/container for styles. Think of a style library as a warehouse where you *store* your styles.
If you create a style that you do not intend to use often, you should save it in a Style Library in order to be able to import it later into a document you want to have it in. If you have very few styles, then only one single Style Library suffice. If, on the other hand, you have many styles, then consider creating many Style Libraries, for example, one Style Library for scholarly papers, one for formal letters, one for books (if you write books), one for linguistic papers (if you are a linguist) and so forth. You can keep as many Style Libraries as you want.

To save styles to a Style Library, switch to Style Sheet View, select the style(s) in the style list on the left, and then press the button "Save to Style Library…". Press the button "Import from Style Library" to import one or more styles into a document.
What I could not successfully achieve was to import styles from one of my documents.
Be assured, it's ridiculously easy. You can:

1. Select all text in the document which has the styles and then simply drag the text into the other document. Then delete the text you dragged. The new styles remain.

2. Switch to the Style Sheet View in both documents. Now just drag the styles you want in the left column from one document to the other.

OR
3. First save the styles to a Style Library, then import them into a document you want to have them in.
I have a great number of docs on my machine […] and I would like to know if there is a way to unify the styles, for I have less than ten paragraph styles I use in most of my docs.
Maybe…, if I only knew what you mean by "unify styles" ?! Reducing the number is of course no problem. Just make sure that the ten paragraph styles you need are in the 'Nisus New File'.
Right now, each time I open a new doc, I have to redefine my styles.
That's because you need to *save* the redefined styles to your 'Nisus New File'.
A little problem I met with since on Nisus, was that at the end of a document my 'Normal' defined style got back to another font (Times) and I could not solve this otherwise than by the Special copy characters attributes from another paragraph.
I don't understand. What do you mean by "end of document"? You mean the last character or does the document end with a Return character that has another style value than the preceding text? I have also no idea what you mean by "Special copy character". Please upload a screenshot.
What happens when you are at the "end of a document" and then open the Styles palette (Window menu > Palettes > Styles) and click on the 'Normal' style?
Hi, sorry to disturb.
Wow, that's what I call being humble…! In the Nisus forum you have not only the right to remain silent, but also to ask questions, as many questions you like and as often as you like, and nothing you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. :D
I cannot find import styles into my library, neither in the menus nor in the help.
You *save* styles INTO a Style Library and *import* styles FROM a Style Library. This is done in the Style Sheet View.
1.png
1.png (48.93 KiB) Viewed 8284 times
Last edited by Þorvarður on 2018-01-10 02:14:37, edited 1 time in total.
Yohanan
Posts: 91
Joined: 2017-12-21 04:36:37

Re: styles

Post by Yohanan »

Thank you Martin. I begin to get used with the styles library and I defined a Template with styles of my own (I use them regularly in most of my docs). I had to throw away the Nisus New File.dot in order to have Nisus open my own template when opening a new file. Now, it happens that I had to redefine my styles on the basis of the Didot font, because Century Schoolbook, my precedent font, is not available in Nisus. Which leads me to the question: does this mean that every time I open one of my older docs, I will have to redefine my styles ? By the way, I wonder if it would be possible to introduce new fonts to be used by Nisus Writer Pro ? I guess the answer is yes, but are some better for the use of Nisus Writer ?
Þorvarður
Posts: 410
Joined: 2012-12-19 05:02:52

Re: styles

Post by Þorvarður »

Yohanan wrote:Now, it happens that I had to redefine my styles on the basis of the Didot font, because Century Schoolbook, my precedent font, is not available in Nisus.
If it was available in Word, it's also available in Nisus; or at least it can be made available. My Century Schoolbook is in Library/Fonts/Microsoft. There should be no need for you to redefine anything.

Make sure the Character pane looks like this:
1.png
1.png (28.37 KiB) Viewed 8249 times
Which leads me to the question: does this mean that every time I open one of my older docs, I will have to redefine my styles ?
No. I think I explained this in my long post about styles. Did you read it? Haven't you put those styles now into your 'Nisus New File'?
By the way, I wonder if it would be possible to introduce new fonts to be used by Nisus Writer Pro ?
All fonts you have installed on your computer can be used in Nisus. I'm not aware of any restrictions.

__________
Þorvarður
Post Reply