Linking of Paragraph Styles and Character Styles

[Serif Since v1]

Is it possible to have a paragraph style also carry with it a character style for that paragraph automatically? That would mean whenever a particular paragraph style is selected, it would automatically also apply a character style to the paragraph? Here's a scenario:

Document has two character styles: "Header Font" and "Text Font"

1. "Header Font" (based on No Style; Lato font family; next style same) - Creates a uniform header font for the entire document
2. "Text Font" (based on No Style; Roboto font family; next style same) - Creates a uniform text font for the entire document

Also has two paragraph styles: "Header Paragraph" and "Text Paragraph"

1. "Header Paragraph" (based on Header Font character style; next style Text Paragraph) - sets spacing, justification, etc., for all headers
2. "Text Paragraph" (based on Text Font character style; next style same) - sets spacing, justification, etc., for all text paragraphs

I type a header line and apply the Header paragraph style, then press Enter. Since the "next style" is set to "Text Paragraph", I would expect it to not only change the paragraph formatting to "Text Paragraph", but also the character formatting to "Text Font". It doesn't. It changes all the paragraph attributes, but not the character ones (because I have left all the font info at "No change". Font stays as it was in the Header.

I know I can go into the Text paragraph style and manually assign a font family, but that seems to defeat the purpose of "Based on," doesn't it? The "Text Font" character style that gives me the flexibility to universally change the document text font by simply changing the "Text Font" character style. But if I have to manually assign a font family to the "Text Paragraph" paragraph style (since there is no way to assign the "Text Font" style directly to the "Text Paragraph" style, it seems to undo the base settings.

Maybe I am trying to next things too deeply. I thought in reading the documentation that I could set a universal base font for text, headers, footnotes, etc., and then simply change the base font settings for each of them and then have all the character and paragraph styles built on them update automatically. 

I guess what I'm really trying to accomplish is the automatic linking of a paragraph style and a character style for that entire paragraph.

If someone has a better understanding of this, please let me know if I am off track or if there is a better way to do this.

Thanks!

[Old Bruce]

26 minutes ago, Serif Since v1 said:

Maybe I am trying to next things too deeply. I thought in reading the documentation that I could set a universal base font for text, headers, footnotes, etc., and then simply change the base font settings for each of them and then have all the character and paragraph styles built on them update automatically. 

That is exactly what I do, I do not use Character styles for anything other than making text, in any Paragraph Style,

Italic,

Bold,

Bold Italic.  And for things like

Drop Caps and

Initial Words in Paragraph Styles.

You are probably thinking that you have to set the font in a Character Style But I use the Paragraph Style to set the fonts. 

[Serif Since v1]

Thanks, @Old Bruce

Actually, I understand that I can hardcode fonts in Paragraph Styles. My question is more about why you can't reference a Character Style's font also.

Look at it this way: "Text Paragraph Type 1", "Text Paragraph Type 2", etc... should be able to be based on "Text Font". Likewise "Header Paragraph Type 1", "Header Paragraph Type 2", etc... should be able to be based on "Header Font".

So if I have 6 different Paragraph Styles regarding text passages, and 8 different Paragraph Styles regarding types of headers, if I want to change the "base font" for text and the "base font" for headers, instead of changing each once in the "Text Font" Character Style and the "Header Font" Character style (which would then be inherited by the associated Paragraph styles), I have to go into each of the Paragraph Styles and change them.

But even if I base the Paragraph styles on the "Text Font" Character Style (and likewise for headers), changing paragraphs from headers to text changes the other paragraph attributes but not the font, because the font family says "[no change]". I would think it should be able to pick up the font from the Character Style it is based on.

I understand your approach regarding using mostly Paragraph Styles, but there are lots of other things including capitalization, color, etc., that I use Character Styles for when I don't want the entire paragraph to change.

[walt.farrell]

Couldn't you create a paragraph style that specified the font but nothing else, and base your other paragraph styles on that one?

[Old Bruce]

46 minutes ago, Serif Since v1 said:

So if I have 6 different Paragraph Styles regarding text passages, and 8 different Paragraph Styles regarding types of headers, if I want to change the "base font" for text and the "base font" for headers, instead of changing each once in the "Text Font" Character Style and the "Header Font" Character style (which would then be inherited by the associated Paragraph styles), I have to go into each of the Paragraph Styles and change them.

What I would do is use a Paragraph Style (or a Group Style) ( Call them Text Paragraph and Header Paragraph) and make a set of Paragraph Styles based on Text Paragraph and Header Paragraph. I then just change the fonts in the two Top Paragraph Styles and the six and eight Paragraph Styles inherit the fonts because I have the Font Family in those Paragraph Styles set to No Change.

You can set up a Character Style and base the Paragraph Styles on that. Nothing is preventing you from doing so. I just don't see the need for separate Character Styles whose only use is to be used for setting the font family for a set of Paragraph Styles, it only adds to visual clutter in the Text Styles list. It seems to me to be an added layer of complexity with no advantage.

[garrettm30]

2 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

You can set up a Character Style and base the Paragraph Styles on that. Nothing is preventing you from doing so.

I did not realize you could even do that, as I feel like that is a backward approach to the difference between character styles and paragraph styles. So I am surprised that it does work.

But I do notice this, that if you base a paragraph style on a character style, then the format readout at the top of the Text Style Studio (see screenshot below) includes all of the attributes of the character style on which the paragraph style is based as if they were local overrides. In this screenshot from my test, the font weight and character fill attributes are not local overrides, but part of the character style on which the current paragraph style is based. This is not how "based on" behaves when a style is based on another paragraph style. I believe this is an oversight.