How to merge text styles?

[elk]

I work on a brochure. I thought it was a good idea to have some formatted text elements as assets. But when I put them in the layout, the included text style is imported and copied so that I get more and more redundant styles.

It would be great to map this style copies to the original when deleting them. Or merging all copies with the original. How could I handle this?

 

[Old Bruce]

At first glance one would think this is a good idea. 

Consider though that you may save an asset with Paragraph Style Body Text which has Courier at 12 points on 14 point leading etc etc.

You now drag that into/onto a document which has a Paragraph Style Body Text which has Times at 11 points on 12 points etc etc.

What should happen?

I would suggest that you try saving assets with text as style [No Style], it may work as you wish.

[Oufti]

1 hour ago, elk said:

to map this style copies to the original

To map a style (A) to another one (B):

1. Select some text set in style B,
2. In the Style panel, on the right of style A, click on the 3-bars button aka burger button and
3. Choose 'Update style A'. 

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, Oufti said:

To map a style (A) to another one (B):

1. Select some text set in style B,
2. In the Style panel, on the right of style A, click on the 3-bars button aka burger button and
3. Choose 'Update style A'. 

In V1 this doesn't work and may cause unwanted results. Here the updated style 'A' gets the [No Style] definition set while the currently selected object + its style 'B' are ignored. It appears, to update a saved text style in V1, it needs to have an object or text selected that has this style assigned already (but with local deviation / overriding).

Also, for text the option menu Edit -> Paste Style  appears not to work, it either pastes the copied text, or the option is grayed-out. (depending on the selection: frame or text)

[Oufti]

@thomaso: Thanks for this complement of information.  

Looks like there has been some improvement since v1…

+++++++++++

@elk: Obviously, mapping styles as I suggested won't be enough. There will still be some search & replace to do, so that you can then erase superfluous styles. 

[thomaso]

5 hours ago, elk said:

formatted text elements as assets. But when I put them in the layout, the included text style is imported and copied so that I get more and more redundant styles.

In V1, I can't reproduce copied text styles by dragging an asset with a saved text style multiple times into a document, neither in the document where style + asset got created nor in a new document.

Do you also get a style copy if you duplicate an existing asset within a document or copy/paste that asset from a new document to the other?

Can you show the workflow and result in a screencast, including the Asset / Layers / Text Styles panels?

[elk]

15 hours ago, Oufti said:

 

@elk: Obviously, mapping styles as I suggested won't be enough. There will still be some search & replace to do, so that you can then erase superfluous styles

Yes, I think this works.

It would be simplier when on deleting a style there would be an option to replace with any other existing style.

 

Thank you all for your answers and suggestions 🙂

[thomaso]

11 minutes ago, elk said:

It would be simplier when on deleting a style there would be an option to replace with any other existing style.

If you delete a style (– without detaching* it first from any text –) then the text automatically changes its look and either gets its parent or the [No Style] assigned.

Thus I wouldn't call it 'simplier', to me the missing "replace with style" option rather feels like a bug, since it forces the user to risk a change in the text appearance anywhere in a document when deleting a style – unless you selected a menu option to *detach the style before deleting it, whereas to get the menu option to detach the style from any text the user has to have the text selected first.

[walt.farrell]

17 hours ago, thomaso said:

In V1, I can't reproduce copied text styles by dragging an asset with a saved text style multiple times into a document, neither in the document where style + asset got created nor in a new document.

I think the comment about getting more and more redundant Text Styles may mean that the OP has a bunch of Text Assets using different Text Styles saved from one document, and is copying them from the Assets panel into a different document that uses a another different set of Text Styles. So the first Asset is copied, and the Text Style doesn't exist in the document, so it's added. Then an Asset using a different Text Style is copied in, and its Text Style also doesn't exist in the document, so it's added. Now there are two new Text Styles. Do this with a 3rd Asset and (if it has another different Text Style) you have three new Text Styles.

It would be good to have clarification of what is really happening, from Elk, as you've asked.

[thomaso]

12 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

(…) Do this with a 3rd Asset and (if it has another different Text Style) you have three new Text Styles.

Ah, thanks for the description of a possible workflow, maybe I was mislead by the term "style copies" and it seems @Old Bruce gave the right answer to avoid additional styles in the panel caused by assets.

If @elk feels that their assets produce "more and more redundant styles" in a document I wonder for what purpose the assets got saved with saved styles (= entries in the Text Styles panel) if the styles should not get used as such but are actually unwanted for the assets?

In this case it would be useful to replace the assets in the panel by modified versions that got their text detached from the saved styles via their style's burger menus.

[elk]

 

On 10/28/2023 at 9:11 PM, thomaso said:

If @elk feels that their assets produce "more and more redundant styles" in a document I wonder for what purpose the assets got saved with saved styles (= entries in the Text Styles panel) if the styles should not get used as such but are actually unwanted for the assets?

🙂 I just wanted to have some formatted snippets at hand.

Think of a formatted image capture with 3 styles: An arrow (from a font), a title and some different styled information. It would be comfortable to just drag this in from a library instead of searching in the document to copy a fitting one. But the styles are copied then. Affinity doesn’t see that they are identical (not only names but also every style detail) and copies it in. Now I have these styles redundant in my document. So – this is no option. It’s just obviously not the idea of the asset library.

I think what I had in mind was more a sort of clipboard with multiple objects instead of only one at a time.

[thomaso]

24 minutes ago, elk said:

Think of a formatted image capture with 3 styles: An arrow (from a font), a title and some different styled information. It would be comfortable to just drag this in from a library instead of searching in the document to copy a fitting one.

Yes, the Affinity asset feature is limited in several aspects and works different than perhaps expected and useful (… and than theoretically possible).

However, for your styles example (title + arrow font + info) the "Next Style" option could be useful if the content is structured accordingly. It would enable you to apply just one style instead of three.

Also, alternatively, saving the styles as a Group or the arrow as character style for instance may make the workflow with the Text Styles panel easier than "searching in the document to copy a fitting one".

Another option could be to store the various sets of styled text frame examples on a master page. This page can get accessed easily via the Pages Panel or even with the button "Toggle Master View" to pick a wanted item of the master page + switch back to the previous page.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, elk said:

Think of a formatted image capture with 3 styles: An arrow (from a font), a title and some different styled information. It would be comfortable to just drag this in from a library instead of searching in the document to copy a fitting one. But the styles are copied then. Affinity doesn’t see that they are identical (not only names but also every style detail) and copies it in. Now I have these styles redundant in my document. So – this is no option. It’s just obviously not the idea of the asset library.

Can you provide:

• A saved .afassets file with your assets; and
• An Affinity document that uses the exact same text styles, where when you use one of the Assets you get a duplicate text style?

When I try this, if the text styles are truly identical (name, and settings), the existing Text Styles are used.

It might suffice to have one of the documents where the duplication occurred, so we can look at your Text Styles and confirm they are identical.

[elk]

On 11/15/2023 at 7:13 PM, thomaso said:

Another option could be to store the various sets of styled text frame examples on a master page. This page can get accessed easily via the Pages Panel or even with the button "Toggle Master View" to pick a wanted item of the master page + switch back to the previous page.

Yeah, I thought of that too – didn’t try it yet. But seemes a good workaround. Thank for all your suggestions 🙂

[elk]

On 11/15/2023 at 7:58 PM, walt.farrell said:

When I try this, if the text styles are truly identical (name, and settings), the existing Text Styles are used.

Really? I have to try that – maybe I didn’t realize a small difference. I will report …

[thomaso]

27 minutes ago, elk said:

I have to try that – maybe I didn’t realize a small difference. I will report …

As mentioned earlier, I also don't get multiple copies of a text style when dragging an asset multiple times to a document. As Walt replied, it is not fully clear what exactly you are doing to get unwanted text styles:

On 10/28/2023 at 8:38 PM, walt.farrell said:

I think the comment about getting more and more redundant Text Styles may mean that the OP has a bunch of Text Assets using different Text Styles saved from one document, and is copying them from the Assets panel into a different document that uses a another different set of Text Styles. So the first Asset is copied, and the Text Style doesn't exist in the document, so it's added. Then an Asset using a different Text Style is copied in, and its Text Style also doesn't exist in the document, so it's added. Now there are two new Text Styles. Do this with a 3rd Asset and (if it has another different Text Style) you have three new Text Styles.

It would be good to have clarification of what is really happening, from Elk, as you've asked.