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Confused by Text Styles (Publisher)


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Hello Affinity Forum,

I'm new to Affinity Designer and Publisher and in no way a DTP expert, more of a technical expert but now I have to write as well, a fairly long technical manual for shipboard equipment. I've been reading up on Text Styles for two days, AFPub Help, the forum, even YouTube videos, and I still can't get my head around the text styles concepts, I wish that there was a Simple Mode for them. I don't need fancy styles just a generic set of accepted styles that would apply to technical content -- the readers (marine engineers) want to read about machinery operation and aren't worried about text styles.

I had a Base text style but somehow eliminated it and can't recreate it, even in a new afpub file it's not there -- can I download this? Is Base a complete set with the usual styles that would get me on to writing?

Then had the great idea of trying to import the Word style set Normal but nothing appeared more than a paragraph style named Normal that seemed empty, no Character styles, so that was a failure. Anything similar to that would do the trick but how to get the full set in I can't figure out. Otherwise, I suppose I could just copy the attributes manually for the individual styles that I need, which isn't so many.

Any suggestions to get me up and running will be much appreciated!

Thanks and Regards,
Kevin

P.S. What I really love and have (I hope!) conquered is editing beefy technical drawings (CADs to PDFs) in Designer and then adding them into Publisher. To make further edits I switch to Designer Persona and do it quickly, then back to Publisher. This is a fantastic work-flow for me, Designer handles the PDFs (containing zillions of items) with ease, I'm very happy with it. Now I just have to put it all into a manual.

 

 

Edited by Kevin B
Only confused now thanks to forum members!
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1 hour ago, Kevin B said:

and I still can't get my head around the text styles concepts, I wish that there was a Simple Mode for them

Hallo Kevin, the best I can offer you is this video, it is better than many that I have watched. Personally I never hav a use for Text styles, I do everything by manual labour since it s quicker for me.  Besides that I find making text styles to be a headache, despite the videos I have watched.  From a technical authorship point of view you would not need that many really, I presume you are working to an ISO standard?  Anyway, the video is quite good for taking away someof the headache.

https://www.rachelharrisonsund.com/2019/11/04/speed-up-your-low-content-book-design-using-text-styles-in-affinity-publisher/

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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Why don't you use the default styles and only add more when needed?

You only have to change the main styles —parent from others—fonts to get something more personalised, or increase/decrease size if you find the header too big, etc.

It'll give you a nice set of options, and by dupplicating or modifying them, you'll learn more about how to use them.

Default_styles.afpub

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I think that Text Styles should be front and center for any long-form document, but Affinity makes it very confusing. It's hard to understand. I'll write some pointers, but keep in mind, I am no expert. Most of the time I feel that I am hitting far away from what would be "best practices."

Start with a clean slate: Delete all styles. you should be left with: [a] is Character Style 
[P] [No Style]
[a] [No Style]

In the hamburger menu check "Show Hierarchical" and "Sort by Type"

Paragraph Styles are for styling full paragraphs (paragraphs are separated with Hard Returns (Enter). A new line can be created within a paragraph with a Soft Return (Shift+Enter)).
Character Styles are used for styling characters within a paragraph. A bold or underlined word would be Character styling.

For any text box you have selected you will always see two styles highlighted: A Paragraph Style and a Character Style.

Create a Paragraph Style with the +P in the bottom left of the Text Styles. Two things to do first: (1) Name the Style (2) Press "Reset formatting" in the Create Paragraph Style dialog.

In the Edit Text Styles dialog, there is a "Style Settings" window always visible in the bottom right. You want to keep that as clean as possible! Don't have too much there. If you are having to scroll, you have too much. You will notice when you press "Reset formatting" all of that goes away.

With "Style" highlighted in the left column of the "Edit Text Style" dialog, always take a look at "Based on." It should always say [No Style] unless you are explicitly and consciously making a style based on another style. If you have a Paragraph Style Highlighted when you press "Create Paragraph Style" (yes, there is always one highlighted) the Style that you are creating will be based on that highlighted Style. This is good to know and be aware of every time you create a style.

On the Text Styles panel, there is a "Reset Formatting" button near the top right. It looks a T with a half circle. This button will be your friend! Press it whenever you have a paragraph that is styled in ways that you don't want and you cannot seem to make the styles go away. Do not confuse this with the "Reset Formatting" button I mentioned earlier. They use the same wording, but are not the same thing. *** Note: I am using the Beta as I am writing this, and some of the annoyances that make the Reset Formatting (T) Button necessary seem to be resolved.

I hope that makes sense. Here is an example of a Group style that would make use of "Based On" feature:  [ s ] is Group Style. Not sure why it doesn't use a G

[ s ] Body Text (Font, Font Size)
    [ P ] Body (Body Text + No Changes)
    [ P ] Bullets (Body Text + List:Bullets)

Above, you would use Body for all of your body type. When you have a Bullet list, you can use Bullets. If you want to change the font, change the font of the  Body Text Group style. That will automatically change the font of every Body paragraph and every Bullets paragraphs.

There are two different approaches for edited a Paragraph Style:
(1): Open the Edit Text Style dialog by double clicking the Style in the Text Styles panel. Make edits and press OK to close dialog.
(2): Highlight the paragraph you want to edit. Use the toolbars and Studio panels to edit the paragraph to your liking. When it is how you like it, press the "Update Paragraph Style" button at the bottom of the Text Styles panel. When you press that button, the paragraph style will be updated and applied across the document.
I tend to use method (1).

I do want to say, I have very little confidence in what I do is best practices. I did want to contribute to the conversation though. Hopefully some of what I posted will help bring clarity to you. I also hope others will contribute to help wrangle in my methods!

Note: I refer to both a Create Paragraph Style dialog and a Edit Text Style dialog. They are the same dialog, but just named differently depending on when you see them,

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Hi Kevin

An easy and quick way to create styles is as follows.

For a new document:

- Once you have created your document go to 'Text/Text Styles' and select 'Delete Unused Styles'
- Import or type in your text
- Format the elements of your text (font, size, weight etc.)
- As you work through your text, formatting it, highlight a selection and click on 'New Style'
- The New Style dialog box will pick up the properties of the selected text. Just add a 'Style name:' and click 'OK'

 

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Hello Chris26, Wosven, AmDivVal and Duoro,

Thank you very much for your time and replies, all useful and I think I'll be able to mix them all into a solution.

Chris26 --- That was a good video for me, she explained text style usage well although there still seems to be something "under the hood" that has me befuddled. Your suggestion I've considered as you are correct we don't need or want too many styles, would just confuse us. A complication that I didn't explain in my first post, I'll collaborate with a fellow who is the real engineering expert, he also owns Designer and Publisher but he can't be bogged-down figuring out text styles, so I need to create/find a simple text style set that we will both follow. Yes, I considered starting from scratch and base it on Word, but when I reviewed the attributes of the styles in AfPub they looked complicated and worried I wouldn't get it right.

Wosven -- Thanks for the default styles file, I've imported it and this is leading me to think that the BASE, uhhh, thing, might be what is confusing me. I don't even know what to call Base, it's not a style itself as it doesn't have the the character or paragraph icon leading it . . . . or is it, or some sort of style set??? When I import it, the Imported Text Styles dialog appears, and there I can deselect Base, so I did as a test and the other styles seem to work even though their attributes are "Base + something." If I was going to create all my styles from scratch as Chris suggested, would I have to create this Base thingy? Help manual mentions Base but doesn't really define what it is and what it isn't. 

   Wosven, did you create these default styles yourself from scratch, or they're the ones that come in a new afpub file and later modified? Is there an official text style set from Affinity, other than what I see in a new file?

AmDivVal -- Thanks very much for all that excellent info, I'm going to work thru it thoroughly, every different explanation gives me more clarity on text styles. Reading that " . . . Affinity makes it very confusing. It's hard to understand" relaxed me a lot, maybe I'm not the only one out there that's befuddled! 

   I want to ask you about your advice on Edit Text Styles >> Style Settings window: " You want to keep that as clean as possible! Don't have too much there. If you are having to scroll, you have too much. You will notice when you press "Reset formatting" all of that goes away." So the Base thing does have a lot in that window, I pressed Reset Formatting and yes it all disappeared -- so where does that leave the Base style now, does it serve any purpose if it has no settings? Here the Base is defined as a style and a Group Style at that, which confuses me even more, if it's a Group Style then what is it grouping just these 12 individual styles?

   I have the 1.9 Beta version also and made a new Group Style, but I don't see the [ s ] designation in front here or in the 1.8 version. Like Base, there is nothing in front of it to ID what it is.

   So, your approach is to start with no styles and build up from there, all custom-created, correct? Well, if we're thinking of mimicking say the Word styles just because they're well-known, then we should follow this path and I don't worry about the Base group style, or whatever it is -- sound logical more or less?

Hi Duoro -- Thanks for jumping in, so if we decide to create new styles, and/or modify the default styles like Wosven sent to me, then your procedure would be good to follow; We could eyeball compare our style versions to what Word has, when satisfied just create it as a new style. So in reality maybe text styles aren't so difficult, but I need to figure out what to do with Base.

Genaral Question -- I see that it's very easy to delete and/or detach styles, should I be worried about doing this accidentally? Once we have settled on a style set, should I export them/it to an afpub file as a backup, or some other manner to back up text styles?

Chris26 -- Your question of "Working to an ISO standard?" is a good one, you'd think I would be but it's maritime industry which is backwards and wild-west. I'm reviewing manufacturer manuals for ideas and most are atrocious, shockingly low quality. A few companies created an organization to utilize a modified S100D standard named Shipdex, but it hasn't taken off well, it's too complicated for the vast majority of manufacturers to handle. Anyway few people are concerned and no organization has responsibility to impose a standard. The equipment yes has to meet various standards, but the manuals nobody is worried about.

    Good for us in fact -- the bar is very low! The crew engineers I believe read the manuals only as a last resort, they just figure out how to operate the equipment based on their experience . . . . . scary thought, eh?! As I say, if the aviation industry followed the same low documentation standard, there would be a crash every day!😨

Thanks for all of your contributions, all further advice is very welcome and with your assistance I will discover AfPub Text Styles Simple Mode! 😁

Best Regards,

Kevin
Confined in Barcelona

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Hi @Kevin B

1 hour ago, Kevin B said:

Wosven -- Thanks for the default styles file, I've imported it and this is leading me to think that the BASE, uhhh, thing, might be what is confusing me. I don't even know what to call Base, it's not a style itself as it doesn't have the the character or paragraph icon leading it . . . . or is it, or some sort of style set??? When I import it, the Imported Text Styles dialog appears, and there I can deselect Base, so I did as a test and the other styles seem to work even though their attributes are "Base + something." If I was going to create all my styles from scratch as Chris suggested, would I have to create this Base thingy? Help manual mentions Base but doesn't really define what it is and what it isn't. 

   Wosven, did you create these default styles yourself from scratch, or they're the ones that come in a new afpub file and later modified? Is there an official text style set from Affinity, other than what I see in a new file?

If you don't know a lot about text styles, I suggest to keep the default styles since it's difficult to create something when we don't have examples and technical knowledge to show how it's done.

That's what I used to say when teaching CMS (for creating and adding content to web sites): keep the provided examples (those are not visible on the website unless you're logged in with sufficient administrator level), as a "playground" in which you can test or check how something you saw long ago is done. It provides fastly answers to the usual question we have sometimes: "I saw this done here or there… Where was it? How was it done?" (and we spend a lot of time searching... instead of playing/working)

Base style is some sort of parent style, in which you can set the font, colour, size, etc. that'll be used in the children (visible when displayed in hierarchical list). It's important, since with this, in a blink you can modify all the style to use your corporate fonts and colours, for example.
I usually use at least 2 base styles, one for the headers (headers, titles in box, drop caps...), and one for body text (body, captions, text in box...), using 2 different font families.
Each time I need to add a child, I use an existing child style from a base on my text, modify it to suit my needs, and add/save it to the list with a meaningfull name. It's possible also to set its option "Base on" to the base style you want later, and keep on tweeking the other options.

 

1 hour ago, Kevin B said:

You want to keep that as clean as possible! Don't have too much there. If you are having to scroll, you have too much.

I think it's silly. Did you  delete all the tools from the toolbar since you only use few of them regulary? Depending of your need, you'll have few or a lot of styles. Those provided by default seems logical enough, since we frequently have at least 2 levels of headers (main title of book, + chapter), body text, lists, boxes.
There are less styles in novels, but I suspect a manual would use lists and boxes to emphasis important parts, for example. If manuals are really terribel, I can understand people having difficulties to read them. It's easier to learn and memorize when data is presented correctly and in a hierarchical way. For example, my parents or grand-parents’ shool books were a pleasure to read in their simple black and white, well organised text — and I did — when mine, full of terrible colours and with text and boxes everywhere looked more like cheap items I find regulary in my mailbox.

Another important point to use styles, without forgetting character styles for bold, italic, etc. is that you always can later, use those to modify all your document in few clicks.
You spend more time in the beginning to create and organize the styles, but once done, you'll work faster on the document(s). And you can always reuse those styles in another document, just modifying few options to give it a new feeling.

 

Once you understand the default styles, and know enough to create them from scratch when needed, you can start with a blank document, adding base styles and more.

 

1 hour ago, Kevin B said:

Genaral Question -- I see that it's very easy to delete and/or detach styles, should I be worried about doing this accidentally? Once we have settled on a style set, should I export them/it to an afpub file as a backup, or some other manner to back up text styles?

There's no reason you delete all the styles without noticing it! Undo will restore it. 
Having backup of ours files, or simply saving them with "v2, v3, v4..." to keep track of versions can be usefull. I do this before doing main changes, of after a long session. It can also be usefull to compare old version with new ones to decide if our last ideas for our layout are as fabulous as expected :D

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6 hours ago, Kevin B said:

   I want to ask you about your advice on Edit Text Styles >> Style Settings window: " You want to keep that as clean as possible! Don't have too much there. If you are having to scroll, you have too much. You will notice when you press "Reset formatting" all of that goes away." So the Base thing does have a lot in that window, I pressed Reset Formatting and yes it all disappeared -- so where does that leave the Base style now, does it serve any purpose if it has no settings? Here the Base is defined as a style and a Group Style at that, which confuses me even more, if it's a Group Style then what is it grouping just these 12 individual styles?

I would use the "Reset formatting" for when making a new style. I would leave Base as it is.
Yes, there is A LOT listed in the Base style settings. My reasoning for cleaning that section with the "Reset formatting" button is because I cannot tell what the style is for with all of that there. I am overwhelmed from step 1! haha . So, I clean out the Style settings to start fresh. I want to be able to glance in that box and see what settings the style is overwriting.

If you have a style and press "Reset formatting" so that the Style Settings window is blank, I assume Affinity sets all settings to some default settings. These are just assumptions, but my thinking is there has to be default font, font size, line height, text color, etc, etc for every one of the dozens of settings. Base might be exactly those default settings, but I have no idea if that is true. So, Base with all of those settings and Base with "Reset formatting" pressed might be functionally identical. Maybe someone can chime in and give some insight!

Yes, Base is a Group Style. Group Styles [I think] are unique to Affinity. They are there as a way to help organize your styles. If you have "Show Hierarchical" checked under the hamburger, your group styles are collapsible. You can also choose style settings for the Group style that all styles under it will inherit. For example, if you decide on 2 fonts for your document: a San Serif for headers and a serif for body type. You can create 2 Groups Styles, place all of your headers in 1 Group Style and all of the body type styles in the other. Now, if you want to change the font you use for headers, you only have to change it in one place.

Group Sans-Serif (Font)
   - [ P ] Header 1 (Font Size)
   - [ P ] Header 2 (Font Size)
   - [ P ] Header 3 (Font Size)
Group Serif (Font, Font Size)
   - [ P ] Body 1 (No Change)
   - [ P ] Bullets (Bullets)

 

Quote

 

  I have the 1.9 Beta version also and made a new Group Style, but I don't see the [ s ] designation in front here or in the 1.8 version. Like Base, there is nothing in front of it to ID what it is.

Sorry, I should have proof read my post a bit better. You are correct. Group Styles do not have anything in front of them in the Text Styles panel. Base is a Group Style. The reason I used [ s ] is because to create a Group Style, you press the +s at the bottom left of the Text Styles panel.

As an aside. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of Affinity users that don't even use Group Styles. The most important style is the Paragraph Style. Group Styles should be thought of as just a way to organize your styles when you have "Show Hierarchical" checked.

Quote

   So, your approach is to start with no styles and build up from there, all custom-created, correct? Well, if we're thinking of mimicking say the Word styles just because they're well-known, then we should follow this path and I don't worry about the Base group style, or whatever it is -- sound logical more or less?

Yes, my approach is to start fresh. For example, I might make only a body style first that will style almost everything. When I get to a point that I need a header, I create a header style. When I get to a point that I need an unordered list, I create a bullet style.

My logic for that is the Text Styles panel is too overwhelming from the start. I want to explicitly write the styles that I need.

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4 hours ago, Wosven said:

I think it's silly. Did you  delete all the tools from the toolbar since you only use few of them regulary? Depending of your need, you'll have few or a lot of styles.

I was speaking about the number of Style settings for any 1 Style, not the number of individual styles. But, yes, it is sometimes necessary to have a lot of settings. I try to keep as few settings as I can because it's very hard to tell at a glance what settings a style is writing. This is one area that I really wish Affinity would improve on. The style settings should be easy to read at a glance, but instead they are all clumped together in a tiny box with no line breaks.

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Wow, there is more technical information here about text styles than there will be in Kevin's Engineering manual......

computers-publishing-publishers-printing-gutenberg-computer_desks-tmcn7_low.png.bae996a32e481f581bcb7395cef2d2b7.png

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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15 minutes ago, AmDivVal said:

I was speaking about the number of Style settings for any 1 Style, not the number of individual styles. But, yes, it is sometimes necessary to have a lot of settings. I try to keep as few settings as I can because it's very hard to tell at a glance what settings a style is writing. This is one area that I really wish Affinity would improve on. The style settings should be easy to read at a glance, but instead they are all clumped together in a tiny box with no line breaks.

If find the hierarchical order usefull when creating styles.

After this, If you always use same names for styles like titles, body, boxes, (it can be the same names as in APub, or different depending of companies or personnal use...), you are able to switch between documents and won't have to pay attention to the names. Sometimes, you'll just need some specific names, but it'll be easier to remember them or what they do.

What I've got problem with, is:

  • that paragraph and character styles are in the same panel. On complexe document, it's impossible to have such workflow, scrolling up and down to search what you're needing constantly, At work or at home, I have 2 screens, and having panels on another screen is common. I don't understand why the text styles panel need to be cluttered like this.
  • it's impossible to order style in folder, like we do with magazines, and sorting styles depending of parts of the document can help to get the correct header 1, body text. It's especially important if you're not familiar with a layout, with few issues a year, or needing to work on coworkers' layouts.
    To order them, you'll have to use specific names, or add prefix... and it can be a pain if you need to update all or part of them at some point...
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Hello Text Style Consultants,

Thanks for your very helpful followup messages, let me go thru them thoroughly and then reply with results and thoughts. Maybe soon I can change my status from "Befuddled" to "Somewhat Fuzzy" on the topic, thanks to all of you!

Chris26 -- Great observation, so much useful info here it's going to raise the bar on my engineering manual 😨
Gutenberg press breaking the desk, that's a funny one for sure!

Kind Regards, Kevin

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Hi All,

Thanks again for all the great assistance, perhaps I'm getting a grip on the text styles, not 100% but enough to get started and not worry about the peculiarities. As Wosven wrote, the long part is coming -- writing and rewriting and tele-collaborating with the other expert who works in the Netherlands.

Perhaps what's confusing me is the Base "thing" that I was thinking is a standalone entity / function but not explained well in AfPub help. After reading AmDivVal "some sort of parent style" and Wosven "Yes, Base is a Group Style" I realize that it's both and I mis-interpreted the word base -- it's just another Group Style with a lot of pre-entered settings. I can't create a new "Base Style" in an empty document, only a Group Style and name it Base or anything else. So I'll just utilize the default styles that Wosven sent to me, in their Base group, and build on that.

However, I'm still curious to know the origin of all those settings in the default styles file that Wosven sent to me? If I create a new Group Style (+s ?!) then the settings box (in Edit dialog) is empty, so Affinity or a user populated that settings box. In fact, most of the settings are Off/Null/0/No etc, but if I alter the setting, save and close, then reopen edit settings and return them to off/0/no, then the setting name remains there.This would give me a trail to show what I've altered in the past, even if it returned to off/0/no.

Another minor thing that confused me, we have the Create Group Style dialog, then to edit it the dialog name changes to Edit Text Style -- no big deal now, initially it wasn't clear that I was dealing with the same thing. AmDivVal did write that "Create Paragraph Style dialog and Edit Text Style dialog" are really the same dialog, but I didn't extrapolate that to Group Styles until just now. Perhaps Affinity should rename or explain that in the dialog itself, there's plenty of space there to write a note for us newbies. 

Yes, a lot of settings in there as AmDivVal wrote but they all relate to real settings that I could alter like global settings, when desired; otherwise I'll ignore them and concentrate on the Character and Paragraph styles.

I'll start off using a Group Style and Hierarchy control to keep it all clear and organized, as AmDivVal and Wosven wrote there's a lot packed in on that small window with Group Paragraph and Character styles, so I see the importance of keeping it clean and organized.

Side Note: A big positive for me is in version 1.9, I tested the beta to see how the headings and anchors export to create PDF bookmarks, and looks perfect from my quick test. We'll need that feature for sure with three or four heading levels necessary, primary viewing format will be a PDF and paper printing secondary, maybe only once. 

Hmmm, I wonder if there's another AfPub user on the forum that's creating a long boring technical manual, would be good to share tips with him/her. Please let me know if you bump into one.

Thanks again everybody, your assistance is much appreciated by me/us . . . . . now time to dive into it and start writing!

Kind Regards,
Kevin

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4 hours ago, Kevin B said:

However, I'm still curious to know the origin of all those settings in the default styles file that Wosven sent to me? If I create a new Group Style (+s ?!) then the settings box (in Edit dialog) is empty, so Affinity or a user populated that settings box. In fact, most of the settings are Off/Null/0/No etc, but if I alter the setting, save and close, then reopen edit settings and return them to off/0/no, then the setting name remains there.This would give me a trail to show what I've altered in the past, even if it returned to off/0/no.

You describe creating a Group Style and the settings box (in Edit dialog) is empty. Try this: instead of pressing [ +s ] Create Group Style, highlight P [No Syle] and press [ +P ] Create Paragraph Style. Now in the Edit dialog under Style > General > Type change it from Paragraph to Group. You now have a fresh new Group Style with all of the default settings that "Base" has. Note: I think they are the same settings, there is a lot in there to cross check. I also realize that is a workaround non-intuitive way to get that result.

Quote

Another minor thing that confused me, we have the Create Group Style dialog, then to edit it the dialog name changes to Edit Text Style -- no big deal now, initially it wasn't clear that I was dealing with the same thing. AmDivVal did write that "Create Paragraph Style dialog and Edit Text Style dialog" are really the same dialog, but I didn't extrapolate that to Group Styles until just now. Perhaps Affinity should rename or explain that in the dialog itself, there's plenty of space there to write a note for us newbies. 

I really feel that dialog should be named the same things across the app. It's the same thing but sometimes named something different... 😕

Quote

Yes, a lot of settings in there as AmDivVal wrote but they all relate to real settings that I could alter like global settings, when desired; otherwise I'll ignore them and concentrate on the Character and Paragraph styles.

I'll start off using a Group Style and Hierarchy control to keep it all clear and organized, as AmDivVal and Wosven wrote there's a lot packed in on that small window with Group Paragraph and Character styles, so I see the importance of keeping it clean and organized.

That would be a good approach. Your top-level Group Style can have all of those settings, but you can ignore them and keep your Paragraph Styles and Character Styles clean and more simple.

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@Kevin B

I just realized this. I am guiding you in the direction of creating Group Styles that are filled with settings set for every attribute and creating Paragraph Styles that are clean except for the styles you explicitly want. That is the way that the pre-setup "Base" styles are design, BUT Affinity naturally behaves in the opposite way.

What I mean by "Affinity naturally behaves in the opposite way", I mean, when you Create a new Paragraph style with [No Style] highlighted, it is filled to the brim with settings, but when you Create a new Group Style, it is blank. The opposite of how "Base" is designed.

I'm really just thinking out loud here and putting into words some of the ways that Text Styles are confusing. I know that Affinity developers browse these forums, maybe they'll see some of these grievances and use them to improve the product.

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Just some quick thoughts to further confuse and enlighten you. I use the Group Style to set Everything for the Paragraph Style which will be based on it, then I change nothing in the Paragraph Style. An example would be the (S) Base which would have font and justification and leading etc, etc. and the (P) Bulk Text would have nothing, absolutley nothing, set. Everytning is inherited from Base. Same for the (S) Lists and (S) Heads

(S)    Base * 
    (P)    Bulk Text ** 
        (P)    First Paragraph **
        (P)    Last Paragraph **
    (P)    Illustration Caption **

(S) Lists * 
    (P)    Bulleted List 1  **
        (P)    Bulleted List 2 **
    (P)    Numbered List Level 1 **
        (P)    Numbered List Level 2 **
            (P)    Numbered List Level 3 **

You may want to include Table Styles. 

(S)    Heads * **
    (P)    Chapters  **
    (P)    Sections **
        (P)    SubSection 1 **
        (P)    SubSection 2 **
        (P)    SubSection 3 **
    (P)    Illustration Heads **

For all of these (Illustration things) make sure that you Base on [No Style] and have everything “zeroed out” via the Clear Settings (You may want to put these in the Base only for organizational purposes.)
(P)    Illustration Number ** 
(P)    Illustration Title  ** 
(P)    Illustration Caption **

(Based on [No Style] and the only things set are the Bold or Italic or the colour. everything else is inherited from what ever Paragraph Style they are applied to.)
(A)    Bold
(A)    Italic
(A)    Colour 1
(A)    Colour 2
(A)    Colour 3


You may want to have a set of styles for Information: 
(S)    Info
    (P)    Information
    (P)    Important Information
    (P)    Very Important Information
    (P)    Extremely Very Important Information
    (P)    Do NOT do this under any circumstances
For these I would use Paragraph Decorations to put boxes and shading around the text, you’ll need to use New Line (and a tab) instead of New Paragraph, Shift + Return versus Return, if the text is more than one paragraph in size.
=================================
 * (Base on [No Style] and have everything “zeroed out” via the Clear Settings) Now set everything, but don’t change anything you don’t understand, the default settings are pretty good for starting.

 ** Only change that what needs to be changed, the first line indent, is it a list, Justification settings... 
 
 

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Hello AmDivVal and Old Bruce,

Thanks to both of your for your replies, interesting and gives me a better handle on Text Styles.

First AmDivVal -- thanks for that workaround to populate the settings of a new Group Style, it does in fact work but not intuitive, just as you wrote. However, it's an empty Group so I'll have to create the styles manually, or optionally just use the afpub default styles file from Wosven and build on that. I might even stick with the same name Base for the sake of tradition, and tag on a suffix to differentiate when I create more Groups for specific uses.

While trying this I investigated the small pointer in the upper-left corner of the Text Styles Studio panel, and was surprised to see here is possibly the source of the default settings that populate a new Group, as you wrote in your previous post:

image.png.9e50da7e9a58e6e0d5fcfedb685826f3.png

A new Group Style created with the setting box populated, seems to be the same settings I see here. if I change a setting in the Group it does not reflect here, and I cannot edit or copy this list so I presume it's coded in to AfPub. Settings appear here depending on how the Group was created but I can't see any logic to when they appear and when not. If selecting an individual style it simply shows the same name as in the list. I can live with it but I agree that this Text Edit Studio needs to be re-jigged so it's intuitive, maybe a simple mode for those that don't need so much control, and explained better in the help file. The blue high-lighting on Groups seems chaotic to me, overall I feel like I'm wrestling with this studio.

Hello Old Bruce -- Thanks for chiming in and your advice is interesting, this could simplify it a lot but will have to play around with it. I'll work with a collaborator and he needs a simple bullet-proof interface . . . . well, me too of course but him more so. So, you're recommending to use a good number of Groups to organize styles by usage, and all settings made in the Group dialog instead of directly in paragraph or character, right?

We don't need much unique styling, heck if all of the standard styles are defined in one Group's settings, could we just have that Group as default while writing, or perhaps AfPub always jumps to the No Style setting? If not, then we have to manually select the Group and apply it to the text or entire page, right?

Thanks again for your assistance, let me play around with all the great info that I've been sent and if any new comments or advice then please post it, of course.

Kind Regards, Kevin

 

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5 hours ago, Kevin B said:

So, you're recommending to use a good number of Groups to organize styles by usage, and all settings made in the Group dialog instead of directly in paragraph or character, right?

You got it in one.

You can't apply a Group to any text, I would start with a Group (Base) and a Paragraph Style (Bulk Text) and apply the Bulk text to the text and build from there. The great thing about Group having everything set is that as you work you can change the Font size for all the paragraph styles in one place. Go from 12 point on 14 point leading to 10 on 11 with changing the Group and then the Bulk and the First and Last (and maybe the Lists and Information as well) will automatically change.

You can use Find and Replace to search for Fonts and replace them with Styles, so your collaborator can just use a font for headings (Gill Sans) and a font for the text (Times) and you'll search for Gill and replace it with Paragraph Style Chapter Heading using what ever font you have for that (Avenir). He won't have to worry too much about Styles in his documents. Just send you Rich Text format files.

Caveat: It is stupid early here on the Wet Coast of Canada so be aware that I am still decaffeinated.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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6 hours ago, Kevin B said:

While trying this I investigated the small pointer in the upper-left corner of the Text Styles Studio panel, and was surprised to see here is possibly the source of the default settings that populate a new Group, as you wrote in your previous post:

image.png.9e50da7e9a58e6e0d5fcfedb685826f3.png

A new Group Style created with the setting box populated, seems to be the same settings I see here. if I change a setting in the Group it does not reflect here, and I cannot edit or copy this list so I presume it's coded in to AfPub. Settings appear here depending on how the Group was created but I can't see any logic to when they appear and when not. If selecting an individual style it simply shows the same name as in the list. I can live with it but I agree that this Text Edit Studio needs to be re-jigged so it's intuitive, maybe a simple mode for those that don't need so much control, and explained better in the help file. The blue high-lighting on Groups seems chaotic to me, overall I feel like I'm wrestling with this studio.

Hey Kevin B,
I have some insight into this for you! We'll call it the Current Formatting window. Think of this as a way to get insight into the formatting applied to specific text in your document.

How is this useful? Let's say you have a 10 page document. On page 4 you can highlight a paragraph and look at the Current Formatting window. It might say "Body". You might see an italic word in that paragraph. Highlight the italic word and look at the Current Formatting window. It might say "Body + Emphasis".  That means there are two styles applied "Body" and "Emphasis". "Body" is a Paragraph style and "Emphasis" is a Character Style.

You might be thinking, "that's not useful, it's already highlighting the styles in blue, why does it need to also list them?"

Imagine in that same 10 page document you notice on page 6 a paragraph that looks off. The text looks slightly smaller. Highlight that text and look at the Current Formatting window. It might say "Body + Font: Myriad Pro; Font size: 10pt". Someone has assigned the Body style, then applied some local formatting to the text. That is, the text started as Body, but someone manually selected attributes outside of the Body style definition by manually selecting a different font and a different font size. You can strip all of that local formatting away so that it is consistent with the rest of the Body paragraphs by pressing the (T) Reset Formatting button to the right. **EDIT** Adding this: Otherwise, you might decide you like that style, and want to apply it to a few other paragraphs in the document. You can package that style by pressing the (+P) button and give it a name.

When you highlight [No Style] it's kinda a special case in that it lists all of the default formatting. If you highlight [No Style] and press (+P) Create Paragraph Style, it packages all of those attributes into a Style. Now look over at the Current Formatting window, it now just lists the name of the style. I kinda feel I have a better understanding of some of this just trying to put it into words! haha.

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17 hours ago, Old Bruce said:
23 hours ago, Kevin B said:

So, you're recommending to use a good number of Groups to organize styles by usage, and all settings made in the Group dialog instead of directly in paragraph or character, right?

You got it in one.

I cannot get my head round this and reading examples above is not helping. Is there a graphical representation of this model that shows the structure. Nested subroutines have always been my downfall 🙂

 

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Hello AmDivVal and Catshill,

Thanks for the above info AmDivVal I'll look closely at it soon, Current Formatting window will be useful, I checked again and can't find anything in AfPub Help on that window, so you're discovering virgin help information!

Catshill, yes the Publisher text styles seem convoluted to me, I'm a newbie so I'll have to learn it enough to work and just ignore the oddities, I was hoping for a "Simple Mode" but it doesn't exist, unfortunately. Anyway, keep reading the above advice from some very helpful forum members and I'm sure that we'll both figure it out eventually!

Old Bruce, thanks again for your helpful feedback, I'm going to look at that strategy closely, maybe that combined with understanding the Formatting window will do the trick. A question: how do you write such an informative message even before your first cup of coffee? A truly dedicated Af Pub trooper you are!

I'll submit some more thoughts soon after compiling all of the above, and Catshill just jump into it as I'm sure you'll come up with a trick or two to understanding the text styles.

Kind Regards, Kevin

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4 hours ago, Kevin B said:

Thanks for the above info AmDivVal I'll look closely at it soon, Current Formatting window will be useful, I checked again and can't find anything in AfPub Help on that window, so you're discovering virgin help information!

Check Panels > Text Styles panel > Options
There is only one line, it says:

  • Current Formatting—displays the formatting applied to the selected text or at the current caret's position. Click the arrow to the left to display overflowing information, if necessary

Also, I just noticed how difficult to read the Help docs in the software is; everything is bold and italic...
you can also fine docs at affinity.help

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