APu: Searching for explanation of the hierarchical structure of the (text) styles

[jweitzel]

Hello developers and friends,
I'm working with text styles about every day (as typesetter), and I watched the style tutorials for APu several times.
I do not succed in catching how the different classes of styles are hierarchical to each other and how they influence the styles they are "connected" with OR they refer to.

Is here someone, who can explain or even can give us a short graphic, how the default styles of APu are organized to/with each other? (I'm using the German version, the names are translations)

- There are e.g. the (text and paragraph!) styles "no style". In those there seem to be allocated "Arial". But these styles can't be altered. But I do not need "Arial", no 10/12 pkt, no 12pt gap as fall back formatting.
- How does the allocation of "no style" affect imported text, which has unwanted formattings? (It seems to me: no effect or random effects)
- how can the (paragraph) style "Grundlage" (English: basic?) be based on "no style"?
- how do unwanted formattings in imported texts struggle with the allocation of predefined (paragraph OR tex-) styles within Apu? (they struggle unforseeable)
- there is the (text) style "Body". How is that connected with "no style" of text- and paragraph styles?
In .indd I can allocate "no style" to a paragraph - and all formattings are cleaned up. Then I can start to format all text, pragraphs and single words/letters.

- there seems also to be a paragraph style "normal". How is it based on the *text" style "Body", but on no basic *paragraph* style?

For me it's a real mess. And I would like to catch the strukture which is thought behind text and paragraph styles, their hierarchy and their interdependence.
- what is the "most important" (all other influencing) text style and paragraph style?
- which other styles are depending directly from that (two!) "masters" ? (Because a "Body" *text* style must never influence a paragraph style!)
- how is the interdepence-hierarchy of the remaining (text and paragraph!) styles?

At the moment I'm struggeling very hard. And it is impossible to typeset a rather simple book for me, because if I alter a selected style all the sudden the total imposition done until that page got "hail-damaged".

Many thanks!
Johannes

 

[Old Bruce]

6 hours ago, jweitzel said:

At the moment I'm struggeling very hard. And it is impossible to typeset a rather simple book for me, because if I alter a selected style all the sudden the total imposition done until that page got "hail-damaged".

Here are some notes which may help you (I hope) it is a bit of a work in progress about best practices.

The various Styles (Paragraph and Character) which are in the program from the start are for me pretty much useless. I delete them and roll my own for each project.
Having said that I should point out that there will always be a <no style> for both Paragraph and Character Styles. I set mine up to have Courier as the font at size 11 on 12 point, ragged right. Do that by putting some text in a frame and setting it up like that then go to Edit > Defaults > Synchronize from Selection and then go to Edit > Defaults > Save. This will set all new documents to having only <no style> for Text Styles and the font will be the Courier 11 on 12.
With Publisher 1.8.x we now have Templates and these can have tons of styles and guides plus text frames and picture frames and ... already applied. You will want to set these templates up if you plan on doing lots of variations from the same basic starting point.
In one Template I have a Group Style (I name it Base), it consists of the font family and weight and size (+leading) which I intend to use for the bulk of the text in the project. I then set up First Paragraph, Bulk Paragraph and Last Paragraph styles based on this Group Style. The three Paragraph Styles have different indents and space before and after applied as I see fit. The Last Paragraph has a single line for a 'decoration' and other than that it is identical to the Bulk Paragraph.
You could set up the Base Group for most of the text and then set up another Group Style for Headings and another for Captions/Callouts or what ever you will need for the book. Headings could be used for Chapters and sections and page numbers.
The best way to work is to choose the most stuff to be set and then base other Similar styles on that style.

Set up a Paragraph style called Base and set everything you can then change it to a Group Style and base your Paragraph styles on that.
Base (Group)
    Font Family
    Font Weight
    Size
    Leading
    
    Alignment/Justification
    Set for Align to Baseline
    Indent
    Space Before/After
    Decorations
    Initial Words
    Drop Cap
    Ligatures
    Numbers
    ...
Bulk Text (Paragraph) based on Base (Paragraph)
Change only what needs to be changed, may well be nothing.

First Paragraph (Paragraph) based on either Bulk Text or Base 
Change Indent and maybe choose Drop Cap or Initial Words. Change Space before, maybe set it to start in an new frame or on a new page...

Last Paragraph (Paragraph) based on either Bulk Text or Base 

Headings (Group)
    Same sort of stuff from the first Group Style
Chapter Heading (Paragraph)
Change what needs to change, Type Size, Leading, Alignment, Space Before/After ...

Chapter Sub-Heading (Paragraph)
Change what needs to change, Type Size, Leading, Alignment, Space Before/After ...

Section Headings (Paragraph)
Change what needs to change, Type Size, Leading, Alignment, Space Before/After ...

Page numbers if you think it necessary 
Callouts if needed
Captions if needed

[Wireman]

4 hours ago, jweitzel said:

Hello developers and friends,
I'm working with text styles about every day (as typesetter), and I watched the style tutorials for APu several times.
I do not succed in catching how the different classes of styles are hierarchical to each other and how they influence the styles they are "connected" with OR they refer to.

Is here someone, who can explain or even can give us a short graphic, how the default styles of APu are organized to/with each other? (I'm using the German version, the names are translations)

- There are e.g. the (text and paragraph!) styles "no style". In those there seem to be allocated "Arial". But these styles can't be altered. But I do not need "Arial", no 10/12 pkt, no 12pt gap as fall back formatting.
- How does the allocation of "no style" affect imported text, which has unwanted formattings? (It seems to me: no effect or random effects)
- how can the (paragraph) style "Grundlage" (English: basic?) be based on "no style"?
- how do unwanted formattings in imported texts struggle with the allocation of predefined (paragraph OR tex-) styles within Apu? (they struggle unforseeable)
- there is the (text) style "Body". How is that connected with "no style" of text- and paragraph styles?
In .indd I can allocate "no style" to a paragraph - and all formattings are cleaned up. Then I can start to format all text, pragraphs and single words/letters.

- there seems also to be a paragraph style "normal". How is it based on the *text" style "Body", but on no basic *paragraph* style?

For me it's a real mess. And I would like to catch the strukture which is thought behind text and paragraph styles, their hierarchy and their interdependence.
- what is the "most important" (all other influencing) text style and paragraph style?
- which other styles are depending directly from that (two!) "masters" ? (Because a "Body" *text* style must never influence a paragraph style!)
- how is the interdepence-hierarchy of the remaining (text and paragraph!) styles?

At the moment I'm struggeling very hard. And it is impossible to typeset a rather simple book for me, because if I alter a selected style all the sudden the total imposition done until that page got "hail-damaged".

Many thanks!
Johannes

 

The internal APu help pages give much more information than the tutorials (unfortunately, not in German). Menu: Hilfe | Hilfe zu Affinity Publisher then navigate to Text | Text Styles.

I am also an InDesign user and struggled at first with the structure of APu text styles. I think because they are similar to InDesign but – crucially – not the same.

It is important to recognise that [No Style] is not a Style, but only indicates that there is no Style applied. So it is not the case that Arial Regular is "allocated" to [No Style], just that Arial Regular is the default font for the application (probably because Arial is pre-installed on every computer sold). One of the crucial differences between APu and InDesign is that InDesign will let you set an application font with no documents open. In APu, all typography settings are greyed out (non-selectable) when no document is open.

However, in APu, you can set a default [No Style] font for the open document by activating either of the text tools (Artistic Text or Frame Text) and - without drawing or selecting a container - setting the face and font in the Context Toolbar. The font you select becomes the default for every new text container you draw in that document. In APu v1.8, you can retain your setting by exporting that document as a template.

Going further, you can also set default paragraph level attributes – indents, spacing, justification, etc – by using the same method. These will become the "settings" for the paragraph [No Style]. Again, these can be retained (in APu v1.8) by exporting the document as a template.

Imported text: Only plain text (from a .txt file) will be imported in the [No Style] format. Importing any rich text (.rtf, .docx, .odt, etc) will respect the typography applied in the imported file. It may also import any Styles applied in the imported file. I suspect that is where your "normal" comes from, as there is no style of that name in off-the-shelf APu. If you want to strip all unwanted styling from imported text, highlight it all and apply both character [No Style] and paragraph [No Style]. This should render all the imported text as default. I have got into the habit of converting all files to .txt before importing. That way I know that any typesetting is applied by me, deliberately. Also that any bad typesetting is my fault. 😐

Base style: (Assuming this is "Grundlage" in German). If you consider Base as the "parent" of all styles, then its own "parent" must be [No Style], otherwise you risk circular "based on" style inheritances, an inevitable way of causing application crashes.

Body style: (Assuming this is "Körper" in German) This is supplied by the developers to "get you started". You don't have to use it (though why wouldn't you?). It is not "connected" with [No Style] because it is a Style. Remember, [No Style] means "not a Style".

The regime I stick to (in both APu and InDesign) is use Styles for everything. There should be no text that is locally formatted – I call it "hand-knitted" – where you select some text and apply a face, font, weight, etc, manually. Always use a Style. And always delete Styles that appear with imported text. Then there are – or should be – no surprises. Remember that any glyph can be affected by two Styles – Paragraph and Character. And possibly more, depending on what those Paragraph and Character Styles are based on.

Sorry this is so long. But the subject is complex (and I'm trying hard to keep my English non-idiomatic). I'll attempt to answer any follow-up questions if I can.

 

[jweitzel]

Many , many thanks to you both, "Bruce" and "Wireman"! Thanks for your kind attempt in bringing light in that materia!

And yes, you are speaking "out of my soul", because that explanations are exactly what I needed as help - and what i more or less imagined. I am too, in a first attempt, deleted all styles in APu and tried to built up a style system from scratch, as I had been used from Quark and Indesign. But it wasn't not so successful and I got the impression, that I may have "damaged" APu. But especially what "Bruce" is telling about the different styles for structuring texts, would be my opinion about a sound system of styles. ©Wireman: If I rember right, applying "no style" to an importet text in APu effectuates "nothing" in the appearance of that text: If it has before (by import) a "bold" formatting, it has that formatting still after applying "no style". In Indesign an imported text with any (unwanted) formatting will "collapse" to one single basic "style" if I apply the basic "style"  "basic paragraph" (in German "ohne/without" [= text] resp. "einf. Absatz" [=paragraph]). By that the imported text is "cleaned up" from any formatting and – what is most important – accepts any allocation of a text- or paragraph style without any quirks.

I think, at the moment, where I have a *basic* text style (which should rule, e.g., all body-text!) and then I set up a *paragraph* style, which also contains (divergent) text-style informations, the muddle begins:
which style information is now more important/does rule the formatting of a text: the style of the "basic" text style (e.g. "Arial") or the style of the paragraph style? (e.g. "Courier"). Do you understand what I mean?
Under strict conditions, a paragraph style must not include informations about a font, and a text style must not contain informations about line pitch. But both are allowed in styles in APu.

(I also use to import text only after storing the source text file as .txt. All other .doc and .docx is a mess.)
Today I got the APu update 1.8.1. And I'm very excited to go on with that great software. It's very fun.

Thank you again to you!
Johannes

[Wireman]

14 hours ago, jweitzel said:

I think, at the moment, where I have a *basic* text style (which should rule, e.g., all body-text!) and then I set up a *paragraph* style, which also contains (divergent) text-style informations, the muddle begins:

If I understand you correctly, when you refer to "text style" you mean Character Style. That is not how I approach the task.

Like @Old Bruce, I would set all my body text attributes in Base (Grundlage).

Then create a Body Paragraph Style and base it on Base. Change only the first line indent (in the Spacing tab) to 2mm. 

Then create an Intro Paragraph Style and base it on Body. Change the first line indent to 0mm.

Now create an Emphasis Character Style. Tick the Italic box in the Font tab.

I've used the above styles in the attached screen grabs. Paragraphs 1 and 3 have no character styles applied. Paragraph 2 has character style Emphasis applied to one word only. Emphasis italicises whatever font is applied to the paragraph it is in. I don't need to apply character styles to anything else because the paragraph style provides the font.

The advantage of working this way is that to change the whole text from serif to sans, all I have to do is set the font in Base from Baskerville to Helvetica. Everything – including the Emphasis word – follows the change made in Base. Similarly, if I want to change the size of the whole text from 12pt to 10pt, I simply do that in Base. If I want to change the indent of all body paragraphs from 2mm to 4mm, I would do that in Paragraph Style Body.

In summary, you only need character styles ("text styles") to change the appearance of text that doesn't follow the style of the paragraph it is in. It could be italics, bold, underlining, even colour.

[jweitzel]

Hello Wireman, all I can do, is to thank you again for your explanations and the illustration! And Yes, I misused the word "text style" for correct "character style". You got it right!

Now I want to face the (legitimate) impression, I may be to foolish in setting up and using styles for formatting texts... ;-)
The background of my wish, to get a "plan" (or hierarchy), of how the programmers of APu thought that the different styles, they deliver by default in APu, "rule" over each other or work together with each other, the background for that was me erroneously assuming, that "no style" IS already a definite style.
I tried (as in .indd) to "clean up" imported text from any unwanted character- and paragraph style by allocating the "style" "no style". (in .indd, if I rember right,  you *force* the allocation of a style by clicking <Alt> and mouse click on the name of a style, to throw out any other styles off a paragraph.). But in APu nothing happend, and further more, as I allocated my new styles, there arouse a mess of importet/already given formattings and fresh allocated styles.
(Actually I do not know, how APu deals with [unwanted] existing styles in a text, when I allocate "on top" new styles.  And moreover I'm unsure, in what cases it is only needed to have the text cursor clicked on any place within a paragraph or to have highlighted all characters of a paragraph, to allocate successful a character style [which would be reasonable for the latter] or paragraph style [the former]. You got me?)

Thanks to You and Bruce again. At the very end there still seems to be the best practice, to import only .txt files and format the make-up (? in German: the "Umbruch") of the book "from scratch". Normally, text written by more or less authors as total laymen in using styles/templates, results in a queasy formattet layout in the typesetting software like APu. But one has to be aware, that in the case of .txt import, I have to go through all 280 pages of text in order to allocate, say, all italics the autors formatted "hand-knitten" (!) in their texts. (You may remember, that my starting point of that all is the upcoming layout of a communal periodical [yearly review] with about 25 contributers, and all "using" MS Word ... :-(

a nice week end!
Johannes

[Wireman]

1 hour ago, jweitzel said:

in .indd, if I rember right,  you *force* the allocation of a style by clicking <Alt> and mouse click on the name of a style, to throw out any other styles off a paragraph.). But in APu nothing happend,

You can achieve the same thing by highlighting the text and right-clicking (or ctrl-clicking) on Base. The first option – Apply "Base" to Paragraphs* – will clear all other styling. You also have the option to apply "Base" without clearing character styles.

* "Grundlage" auf Absätze übertragen in German.

2 hours ago, jweitzel said:

I have to go through all 280 pages of text in order to allocate, say, all italics the autors formatted "hand-knitten" (!) in their texts.

You can do a special Find/Replace to search for all text in italics and replace with Emphasis character style. See the help pages under Text | Checking Text | Find and Replace.

[jweitzel]

Thanks, "Wireman"!

42 minutes ago, Wireman said:

You can do a special Find/Replace to search for all text in italics and replace with Emphasis character style. See the help pages under Text | Checking Text | Find and Replace.

generally spoken, yes! But not, after I have thrown out any author-related, hand-knitten formatting of the original text by saving it as .txt/ASCII. One gets a really "clean" text - but all fomatting (and e.g. greec text) are lost.

ok. I think, at the moment all things are spoken. I'll return if there are any new findings or problems...
Have a nice week!

Johannes

 

[Seneca]

19 minutes ago, jweitzel said:

after I have thrown out any author-related, hand-knitten formatting of the original text by saving it as .txt/ASCII

If you save the original text as .rtf you will have a clean file but all italic, bold, etc will be preserved.

Then you can follow the advice of other posters to search and replace these with character styles.

Once you've done that you can the apply the paragraph style to the whole text.