PageStream - Documents:Introduction

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Introduction

Understanding styles

A style is a named collection of attributes that you can apply to a block of text without having to select each attribute manually. Styles are used to ensure uniformity and to save time when formatting text. While they can be used in any type of document, their use is critical in long documents.

PageStream offers two types of styles: paragraph and character styles. A paragraph style can contain every text attribute, but should only be applied to paragraphs of text. A character style contains only character attributes and can be applied to any range of text.

When you apply a style to a block of text, the style's defined attributes will override those same attributes already used by that text. For example, if the text was formatted as Bookman Normal 12/15 (12 point type with 15 point fixed leading) and you applied the Body Text style to it that was defined as Helvetica Normal 10/12, the existing attributes of the text would be overridden by the style's attributes.

Styles need not have every attribute defined in them. Only the attributes defined in a style will override the existing attributes. For example, if the Body Text style did not define the leading amount, applying it to text with 15 point leading would retain the original leading amount.

Type attributes applied to text before being formatted with a style will be retained. For example, if you had italicized words of a Bookman Normal paragraph for emphasis, and then changed the paragraph to Body Text (Helvetica Normal 10), the italics would remain.

Using paragraph and character styles

You can apply both a paragraph and a character style to text. Paragraph styles are used to format entire paragraphs. For example, a manual such as your PageStream manual may have the following paragraph styles:

Body Text: for the main body type of the manual.
Headline1: for the main headlines.
Headline2: for subheadlines.
Caption: for picture captions.
Character styles are used to override paragraph styles when you need to change character attributes for a small block of text. For example, you may use a different type style's attributes for emphasis.

The example above shows an article with two levels of headlines, a body text format, and a couple of words in a different font. The headlines (Headline1 and 2) and body text (Body Text) are formatted with paragraph styles, and the words in a different font are formatted with a character style (Emphasis).

You can override character and paragraph styles by applying attributes after formatting text with a style. For example, if you want to change leading for one paragraph, you can select it and change the leading. A plus sign will appear next to the style name in the Style palette when you have overridden a style so that you know you have changed the attributes. To change the text back to the style's attributes, select it again and re-apply the style.

Based on and next styles

You can base a style on another style to save you time in creating and changing styles. For example, if the only difference between Title and Subtitle is the size, you can base Subtitle on Title and just specify a different size. If you later change any attribute of Title, Subtitle will change as well.

You can also specify a style to follow a paragraph style to save you from having to switch styles manually. For example, if Body Text always follows Headline, you can set Body Text as the next style for Headline. After typing your Headline text, press Return. PageStream will automatically change the current style to Body Text so that you can continue typing without interruption.

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