rabbijacobs wrote: ↑2022-12-12 05:57:48
Hi,
Thanks for the kind reply.
For some reason, I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around using the Style Sheets.
Style sheets are where styles are stored. A style, which is arguably kind of a funny name, is a collection of text attributes. Let's say a character style is called ImportantStuff and includes italics, Times New Roman, 16 point.
When you apply that character style, it's like applying all those choices at once - but wait, there's more.
If you change ImportantStuff to be bold, non-italic, 12 point, Arial, then everywhere you used the ImportantStuff character style it will change in one swoop to all those new settings without your having to go through your document. Magic.
I like to define character styles for every way characters appear in my document. Then I base paragraph styles on the character styles. That way I get a character appearance that feeds a paragraph appearance.
For instance, most of my style sets have a character style called Body. I might have paragraph styles called Body First Paragraph and Body Paragraph.
Both are based on the character style Body. Body First Paragraph doesn't indent the first line and is set for a next style of Body Paragraph. Since they are both based on the character style Body, they both look the same except for the first line indent.
I might also have a heading style for Chapter, creating a nice big title. The next style will be set for Body First Paragraph.
So, I start a chapter by selecting Chapter. I type the title and hit return, which automatically shifts me to the Body First Paragraph style. When I hit enter at the end of the first paragraph, it drops automatically into Body Paragraph.
Here's a tip, too. If you might later first line indents, make yourself those two different styles. You can set them to look the same, with or without first line indent.
Then, to reformat to indented first paragraph, all paragraphs indented, or no paragraphs indented, you just adjust the styles. You don't have to touch the text.
It's also a good idea to highlight all your styles and save them to a style library. Be sure to select all the styles you want to save, otherwise you'll just save the current style. You save styles to style libraries in the style editing mode.
Now you can use those same styles in a new document. Or, you can make a document reformat itself for a different audience just by loading a different style library.
You can still manually italicize or use bold text, but for overall appearances, never select long-running attributes. Underline or italicize when it's an exception.
Define styles to set general appearances. Go through the process once and you'll see it is no more work to create a style than it is to select the text attributes you want as individual settings. The benefit to styles is consistency and flexibility.