styles

jardar · Post by **jardar** » 2004-10-20 23:40:05

1. Write a paragraph where one of the words is in italics.
2. Place the cursor anywhere in the paragraph and change the style.
3. The entire paragraph is now in roman letters.

I have one wish.

I would like the typeface to change only if the italics part is marked. Or that it does not change at all.

MacSailor · Post by **MacSailor** » 2004-10-21 00:17:34

I agree totally. The way it's working now, I have to call a misbehavior.

Peder · Post by **Peder** » 2004-10-21 04:01:53

And I would also like to voice my agreement--especially as I have been harping on the same theme in previous posts

Let's hope NWE 2.1 (2.0.2?) might be the remedy.

Peder

JBL · Post by **JBL** » 2004-10-21 10:44:42

Suggestion: Create a character style called italics or emphasis with the property that it sets the text to italics. Use this style instead, and your italics will not go away when you change paragraph styles.

I personally think it should work the way it does with one exception. If your style doesn't specify an attribute that attribute should remain the same (e.g., if List is based on Normal which is based on None, and neither List nor Normal specify a text color, the text color should not change when you set the style to List). Then if you didn't want setting paragraph styles to effect the character settings you could just not specify any character settings in your paragraph style.

cchapin · Post by **cchapin** » 2004-10-21 11:54:16

JBL wrote:If your style doesn't specify an attribute that attribute should remain the same

I concur. While I appreciate Nisus's efforts to keep files clean, the current behavior apparently goes too far for many users, including myself. I think your idea is a good solution. It does mean that users will at times need to think a bit more carefully about their styles, but in most cases it shouldn't be an issue.

--Craig

MacSailor · Post by **MacSailor** » 2004-10-21 12:18:07

JBL wrote:Suggestion: Create a character style called italics or emphasis with the property that it sets the text to italics. Use this style instead, and your italics will not go away when you change paragraph styles.

I tried what you suggested and you know what, it worked!

Thanks for the suggestion.

dennisg · Post by **dennisg** » 2004-10-21 12:36:32

JBL,

I'm embarrassed to ask this, but can you provide some details on how to go about following your suggestion.

I created a 70-page book chapter using NWE 1.1.2. When 2.0 came out, I opened the chapter, created paragraph styles, then applied them to each paragraph -- only to discover (afterwards) that it had stripped away 70 pages of character formatting.

I know Charles has stated in this forum that this behavior is actually a "feature" and not a bug, but I'm having a hard time understanding the logic. Under what circumstance would you want character formatting stripped when you apply paragraph styles?

MacSailor · Post by **MacSailor** » 2004-10-21 12:52:51

dennisg wrote: Under what circumstance would you want character formatting stripped when you apply paragraph styles?

I believe that character styles should have priority over paragraph styles, not the other way around. But doing it the way JBL (and Charles?) suggested will fix the problem for the future (not for the 70 pages with the lost formatting).

Maybe I have to start to read the pdf manual provided with the NWE?

JBL · Post by **JBL** » 2004-10-21 13:50:04

dennisg wrote:Under what circumstance would you want character formatting stripped when you apply paragraph styles?

Well, I have a tendency to copy stuff from various sources into my documents (e.g., from web pages, other documents...). These other sources will have text of various colors and fonts. With the current system, all I have to do is click on Normal and everything is formatted correctly. If the old formatting had precedence, I would have to select the whole paragraph and change the Font, the size, the color, etc. If you want all those things to stay, I think my solution will work for you fine; just set up styles that don't change those attributes.

On this topic I would actually like to make a request that, when you have a paragraph that has had some of its attributes changed from its associated style, and you click on that style, NWE should switch all the attributes back to the defaults for that style. Okay that sentence was horrible; here is an example. I have a style "Normal" which says that text color should be black. I have a paragraph in Normal style where I have made a word red. Clicking on Normal in the style panel should switch that word back to black.

I should add that, if the Nisus people should chose to implement my solution to this problem, they probably should not have the default paragraph styles specify character attributes, since it is a little counter intuitive that changing the paragraph style changes character "styles."

dennisg · Post by **dennisg** » 2004-10-21 14:17:59

JBL,

What I'm trying to make clear, and apparently haven't, is that I don't understand your solution. Could you please provide some details.

JBL · Post by **JBL** » 2004-10-21 16:42:12

Sorry.

There are two parts to my solution. One is a sort of work around that will work now. The other is something the Nisus people will have to program. The work around is to create a new style by clicking on the + button in the style pallette. Select "Character Style". This will open the style sheet with a new character style highlighted. Name the style "italics". Then highlight the thing that says "Font: Lucinda Grande" by clicking on it. Delete it by hitting delete. Then highlight the text that says "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs." and make it italic by clicking the italicized T in the Character pallette. You can now go back to editing your manuscript. instead of using italics in the character pallette use italics from the styles pallette. The italic style will not be erased when you change paragraph styles.

I hope that helps.

dennisg · Post by **dennisg** » 2004-10-22 05:51:03

Got you. Thanks. That would certainly help when creating a new document, but I suspect it wouldn't have helped with my original problem with losing character styles after applying paragraph styles to an existing document created in NWE 1.1.2. But I'll use your solution for new documents.

JBL · Post by **JBL** » 2004-10-22 08:20:52

Right, it wouldn't have helped with your old document, but I got the feeling that it was too late for your old document anyway.

Peder · Post by **Peder** » 2004-10-22 11:02:59

Strikes me, one way to do it might be the following: Before starting applying Styles, create the necessary Character Styles – italic, semibold, etc – then highlight one instance of italic, semibold etc, choose Select All from one of the little icons at the bottom of the page and just apply the Character Style in question from the dock. One click – and then you can start applying Paragraph Styles at will...
Now, if these Character Styles import nicely into InDesign, I may actually have solved my own problem and main gripe

Peder

PS Of course, in an ideal world, an italic should be an italic should be an italic – and inviolate – whether made with a Character Style or a quick Command-I toggle on the keyboard

JBL · Post by **JBL** » 2004-10-22 12:09:39

Peder wrote:Strikes me, one way to do it might be the following: Before starting applying Styles, create the necessary Character Styles – italic, semibold, etc – then highlight one instance of italic, semibold etc, choose Select All from one of the little icons at the bottom of the page and just apply the Character Style in question from the dock. One click – and then you can start applying Paragraph Styles at will...

Hey, that works. Cool. I thought the select range stuff only worked with the Styles.

Peder wrote:PS Of course, in an ideal world, an italic should be an italic should be an italic – and inviolate – whether made with a Character Style or a quick Command-I toggle on the keyboard

I disagree (see above). If you want to make Command-I set your text to inviolate italic you should set up the corresponding character style and make command-I the shortcut to it.