AFPub: text and paragraph styles tutorial wanted

[jweitzel]

Hello out there,

after I have tried to type set the first novel, I have to state that I got totally lost in the use and "thinking" of the developers, how character and paragraph styles should set up, should be structured and used. I'm used and skilled to even use styles with single cover drafts, because I know the wishes of my clientele ..., since 30 years. On page somewhat beyond 120 in that novel, the whole novel all the sudden got reformatted to "Arial" "of it's own" and I needed a whole day to trap that. I have to state, too, that not in any other type setting software (Quark, Indd etc.) I'm skilled to use, there are such "strange" approaches and thoughts in setting up and using styles than in AFPub.

Example: For setting up a total new set of styles, I delete every defauld style which comes with the software. There remain "no style" for paragraph and character. Well. Now I want to start to set up styles "from scratch". But at first in the dialogue I'm "forced" to use "no style" as basis for the new style! But the style "no style" I can't edit (which may be reasonable), although it's speaking of "Arial" and other things I do not want to have (which is on the aother hand absurd). If I am setting up a system of character and paragraph styles, I want to be totally free, what parameters I need.
Second, I do not understand the intending of styles and their derivates in a hierarcy. I did set up a paragraph style "body text with first line intend". This is always the most basic setup for type settig long texts. But if create a "sub-style" to that in order to get "body text only first paragraph with NO intend", not that sub-style is intended in the style list, but the "mother"!

There had been a video tutorial for AFPub 1 in setting up and using styles (with that friendly narrator ... :-). But I do not find it again.

Johannes

 

[walt.farrell]

I usually just start with the default styles, and modify them, rather than deleting them and starting from scratch.

But if starting from scratch, you might consider typing some text and formatting it as you want, then creating your Text Style from that text. With the text selected (or the cursor in it), you can click the icon at the bottom of the Text Styles panel.

[v_kyr]

3 hours ago, jweitzel said:

There had been a video tutorial for AFPub 1 in setting up and using styles (with that friendly narrator ... :-). But I do not find it again.

• Text styles

 

[Old Bruce]

6 hours ago, jweitzel said:

Example: For setting up a total new set of styles, I delete every defauld style which comes with the software. There remain "no style" for paragraph and character. Well. Now I want to start to set up styles "from scratch".

The key is to use Group Style(s) it is for some unfathomable reason the little S in the Styles panel. The [No Style] styles should be 

I set up a Group Style, I call it Base. I set the Font, and the Spacing sections, I usually change everything in those two sections from [No change] to what I want/need. Anything that I want the bulk of the text to have. Then I make a Paragraph Style called Bulk/Basic/Normal/Whatever and in that I base it on Base. I also make a Group Style for the Headings.

Some projects will have 

• Base.  - a Group
  1. Bulk
  2. 1st Paragraph
  3. Last Paragraph
  4. Caption
• Headings  - a Group
  1. Page Header
  2. Page Number
  3. Chapter Name
  4. Section Name

Other projects will have many more.

I make my own Italic Bold and Bold-Italic Character settings. I base these on [No Style] and change only the Bold and or Italic settings.

[thomaso]

@v_kyr, what app do you use for this search dialog window?

[v_kyr]

19 minutes ago, thomaso said:

@v_kyr, what app do you use for this search dialog window?

 

[jweitzel]

Hallo Walt and "old bruce",

I owe you to thank you for your advice and help. So thank you very much!
I will take again a closer look at that video tutorial. The advice to use existing styles is of course helpful, but as a careful worker I like to set things up from scratch, not least to understand them.

When I was forced to switch from FreeHand to Illustrator, I recognized that not all programming teams "think the same way" and that solutions that seem fully logical to me need not beeing nessecary also logical to others. Unfortunately, when changing software, it's always best to forget more or less everything that came before. That's "digital"!

Greetings from John