Can text styles be saved?

[pauldev]

The Affinity suite is great for saving colours and colour palettes for use inside documents or across documents. But I can't work out how to save text styles in the same way. Word processors do it readily enough. How can I do it, principally in Designer and Publisher?

[loukash]

affinity.help/publisher/English.lproj/pages/Text/textStyles_create.html

[pauldev]

Thanks for your response. However, there's no mention of saving the text style. If I open a new file, I have to start again, unless I import. But that's a hassle. I don't have to do that in Word or even LibreOffice, nor do I have to do that with colours in Affinity.

[walt.farrell]

8 minutes ago, pauldev said:

Thanks for your response. However, there's no mention of saving the text style. If I open a new file, I have to start again, unless I import. But that's a hassle. I don't have to do that in Word or even LibreOffice, nor do I have to do that with colours in Affinity.

If you open the Text Styles panel, and click on the the panel preferences/settings icon (aka "hamburger" menu), one of your choices will be to save the current set of text styles as the default set.

Help: https://affinity.help/publisher/en-US.lproj/pages/Panels/textStylesPanel.html

Alternatively, you can create a Template file, create the Text Styles in it, and start new documents using that Template.

[Joachim_L]

6 minutes ago, pauldev said:

If I open a new file, I have to start again, unless I import.

Set up your preferred text styles and then in Text Styles panel from the small hamburger (3 vertical lines) pick Save Styles as Default.

[pauldev]

Thanks, both. I'll give it a go.

[pauldev]

I tried it but I must be missing something. If I select some text and then Save as Default, and then open a new text box and type, I still get the original default style.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, pauldev said:

I tried it but I must be missing something. If I select some text and then Save as Default, and then open a new text box and type, I still get the original default style.

Or we're misunderstanding what you're trying to do.

The Save as Default that we're talking about allows you to save Text Styles (from the Text Styles panel) as default text styles to be available in future documents. It does not establish a default text style to be used for future text. It just makes the styles available.

For your scenario, one of these sounds more appropriate:

1. Create your new text frame. Click in the Paragraph Text Style box in the Context Toolbar, and choose the style you want from the list. Or set other characteristics directly in the Context Toolbar (font, size, etc.).
   or
2. Having chosen the text style you want (see 1 above), and with the text frame selected, use the menu item Edit > Defaults > Synchronize from Selection to set the default for future text frames in that document. Follow it with Edit > Defaults > Save if you want to set it as the default for future documents.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, pauldev said:

I tried it but I must be missing something.

I think this is yet another place in Affinity where paying attention to the plural form is necessary to avoid confusion -- it is "Save Styles as Default," not "Save Style as Default." The plural form is a clue that you will be saving a default list of styles you can chose from, not a single style that will be applied automatically by default to anything.

That aside, I think since there is an "Import Styles..." item in the text Styles menu, it would be nice if there was a corresponding "Export Styles" item & an appropriate text styles filetype extension so we could name those files meaningfully & not have to remember which document included the styles we wanted when importing them into a document.

[walt.farrell]

20 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I think this is yet another place in Affinity where paying attention to the plural form is necessary to avoid confusion -- it is "Save Styles as Default," not "Save Style as Default." The plural form is a clue that you will be saving a default list of styles you can chose from, not a single style that will be applied automatically by default to anything.

Good point.

20 minutes ago, R C-R said:

That aside, I think since there is an "Import Styles..." item in the text Styles menu, it would be nice if there was a corresponding "Export Styles" item & an appropriate text styles filetype extension so we could name those files meaningfully & not have to remember which document included the styles we wanted when importing them into a document.

Easiest workaround there is probably to name the document appropriately, and have it be a meta-document that has only the text styles, not a "real" document you're using for other purposes. But yes, a more consistent set of export/import functions would be nice.

[pauldev]

Thanks, Walt. That works.

It is a bit convoluted, though. It would be nice to be able to have an Application Palette of text styles, as with colours, available for any document.

Paul.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, pauldev said:

It is a bit convoluted, though. It would be nice to be able to have an Application Palette of text styles, as with colours, available for any document.

The Text Styles panel provides that for each new document that you create. When you have a set of Text Styles you're happy with and want to use in other documents, you just use the "Save Styles as Default" action to update it, and it's there for the next new document you create. 

However, changes to it don't affect your old documents, which is different from the other application palettes such as In the Swatches and Styles panels.