Styles

You can make any text a style.  Once you have created a text style, you can apply that style to any other text in any other document or frame.  For example, create a style that contains the correct font, text size, and indentation for the company logo.  Whenever the logo is needed in a document,  enter the text and apply the style.  All the formatting is copied from the style to the selected text.

Professional writers and designers always use styles because it standardizes the look and feel of documents.  Moreover, once you have a comprehensive set of styles, you can more quickly develop and publish documents. 

However, the most useful aspect of styles is their live nature.  If you change the formatting feature of a style, all items or text using that style are automatically updated.  For example, if you change the color of a text style, all text that uses that style is updated to the new color.  The same is true of graphic and spreadsheet styles as well.

To Create a New Text Style

  1. Type the text you want to use as the template for the new style.  Format the text exactly as you want it to appear for the style.  Make sure to set everything including the font, indentation, and line spacing.  
  2. Select New Style... from the Styles tool .  A New Style dialog box is displayed. 




  3. Type in a Style Name.

  4. Set the Style Type.  If you want the style to appear in ALL document types, select Basic.  If you want the style to appear in only word processing documents, select Paragraph

  5. Check the Copy formatting from selection box.  This copies the formatting from the selected item.  If you leave this unchecked, a new "blank" style is created. 

  6. Click OK to create the new style.  Click Cancel to return to the word processing document without adding the new style.

To Edit a Style

Once a style is created, you can freely edit the properties for the style. 

IMPORTANT:  While you are editing styles you cannot directly edit any items in the workspace.  If you want to edit items in the workspace, you must close the Edit Styles window.
  1. Select Edit Styles... from the Styles tool .  An Edit Styles window is displayed.

  • The left side of the window lists all the styles available in the current document.   Remember, the Basic section can list graphic and spreadsheet styles as well as text styles. 
  1. Select the style you want to edit.  To unfold a category of styles, click the small triangle beside the style group. 
  • The right side of the Edit Styles window lists all the properties for the style that you can change. 
  1. Use the appropriate tool or menu to change a parameter.  For example, if you want to change the text color, use the text color tool on the FormatBar and select the solid color, pattern, or gradient you want.  You can also tear-off the tools and select your options from the floating palettes for the tool.  See the Tear-Off Tools topic for more information.

  2. When you are finished editing styles, close the Edit Styles window. 
note.gif (967 bytes) NOTEIf you change the format of a style within the document, instead of following the above Edit Styles steps, the name of the style in the Styles Tool changes to display a "+" after the name.  For example, if you directly underline, bold, change the font, size or color of a text that has the style Styles associated with it, then the Style tool adds the "+" sign to show that a change was made to the style:  buttonstylesplus.gif (1063 bytes).

To Copy a Style

Generally, when you copy text or images from one frame to another or from one document to another, the styles associated with the copied material is also copied.  You can also manually copy a style from one document to another. 

  1. Select Edit Styles... from the Styles tool .  An Edit Styles window is displayed.

  2. Select the style you want to copy from the styles list (left side of window).

  3. Select Copy from the Edit menu.  The style is copied.

  4. Close the Edit Styles window.

  5. Open the document where you wish to place the copied style.

  6. Open the Edit Styles window in the new document.

  7. Select Paste from the Edit menu.  The style is copied to the new document.
NOTE:  If you copy a style or text or graphics with styles into a document where an existing style has the same name, Gobe Productive displays a dialog box asking whether you wish to keep the existing style or replace it with the new style.

To Delete a Style

  1. Select Edit Styles... from the Styles tool .  An Edit Styles window is displayed.

  2. Select the style you want to delete from the styles list (left side of window).

  3. Select Clear from the Edit menu.  The style is removed.

To Apply a Style to Text

  1. Select the text you wish to apply a style to.

  2. Select the name of the style from the Styles tool .  The style is applied to the selected text.
  • You can also tear-off the style tool and select the style from the style palette. 


Copyright © 1999, Gobe Software, Inc