Text Frame Styles

[EatMoreBacon]

Can I set a text frame style to include a certain inset and fill? Then apply that style to multiple existing text boxes, so that they all have the same inset and fill?

[carl123]

Have you tried...

Edit > Copy
Edit > Paste Style

[thomaso]

As a savable / permanent option you can use the "Styles Panel".
For possibly new text frames also APubs "Defaults" (synchronize, save, revert) may be useful.

[EatMoreBacon]

I am having trouble understanding the Styles panel. I can save a new style or delete a style, but I'm not sure how to edit a style. Somehow it seems like a poor excuse beside Indesign's Object Styles.

Thanks for the tip on Paste Style. Not a preferred method by any means, but will work for this project.

[Done]

.

[EatMoreBacon]

Text styles works great

But can I have text frame styles? Like for insets, borders, etc

[Done]

.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, EatMoreBacon said:

I am having trouble understanding the Styles panel. I can save a new style or delete a style, but I'm not sure how to edit a style. Somehow it seems like a poor excuse beside Indesign's Object Styles.

You are understanding correctly. An object style in this panel can not get edited or updated and once a style got assigned it is not linked to the item in the Styles panel. So, if you delete a style in this panel no layout item will be affected. To update an assigned style you can create a new item in the panel and assign that. So it is useful to add only those styles to the panel that you want to keep for future use.

Object Styles, Assets and colour Swatches work quite different to Object Styles, Library objects and Swatches in ID.

8 minutes ago, EatMoreBacon said:

But can I have text frame styles? Like for insets, borders, etc

As mentioned already: Object Styles Panel and Defaults feature.

EDIT: don't confuse text frame styles with text styles. Text frame properties may differ from their containing text style properties but always affect their entire content. While text styles can affect a single character, line or paragraph a text frame style affects each of them, e.g. with an inset, background or frame colour, text wrap setting etc. Even the number of columns may not vary (yet?) within one text frame object.

Edited September 19, 2023 by thomaso

[MickRose]

I agree that the Styles panel is half baked. Tagging objects with a colour in the Layers panel can be useful because you can then select all objects with the same colour and change fill, outline, insets etc.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, EatMoreBacon said:

Text styles works great

Since you seem to be still getting familiar with Affinity while you seem to compare Affinity with other, experienced apps:

• Text styles don't have "Grep styles" (yet?).

• If you delete a text style from the Text Styles panel then no dialog window will occur to choose a style for those layout instances that got this style assigned. Instead the style simply gets removed from the panel and all items that got it assigned get the style which is saved in the app "Defaults" as "[No Style]". Furthermore, if other styles are based on the style you delete then also this 'child' styles get affected and their related properties get reset and their appearance modified accordingly.