text styles in Publisher

[Fipo]

where can I find an example of complex text style management? I've already done a post to request something similar to the grep styles, but maybe I find it useful to know better what can be done now.

[firstdefence]

Use the Text Styles Panel

This is from Affinity Publishers help files

Text Styles panel

The Text Styles panel gives you access to all the text styles in your document, allowing you to apply them, modify them, delete them or create new ones.

About the Text Styles panel

The Text Styles panel shows you which styles are applied to the current selection and gives you the option to apply paragraph and character styles at the caret position or to selected text.

The panel also gives you options for creating new paragraph and character styles, redefining existing styles, or deleting them.

Furthermore, there are options for setting specific text styles as defaults and for importing text styles from other projects.

For more information on using text styles, see Using text styles.

Display preferences

There are several options, available from panel preferences, which allow you to change how styles are displayed in the panel:

• Show Hierarchical—styles appear nested below styles which they are Based on.
• Show Samples—when selected (default), a style's appearance mirrors what will be seen on the page. If this option is off, styles will all show as plain text.
• Sort By Type—when selected (default), paragraph styles are listed first, followed by character styles. If this option is off, styles are listed purely in alphabetical order.

Options

The following options are available in the panel:

• 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.
•  Reset Formatting—removes overwrites and local formatting from the selected text, ensuring it honours the Current Formatting perfectly.
•   Type—specifies whether the text style is a paragraph, character or group type.
• Text style—displays the name of text styles currently available in the document.
• Keyboard shortcut—displays the key combination necessary to apply the text style. A shortcut must first be applied to a text style.
•  Options menu—provides access to a pop-up menu with creation and editing options.
•  Create Paragraph Style—launches the Edit Text Style dialog ready for creating a new paragraph style.
•  Create Character Style—launches the Edit Text Style dialog ready for creating a new character style.
•  Create Group Style—launches the Edit Text Style dialog ready for creating a new group style.
•  Update Paragraph Style—redefines the current paragraph style to conform with the local formatting of the selected text.
•  Update Character Style—redefines the current character style to conform with the local formatting of the selected text.
•  Delete Style—removes the selected paragraph or character style from the document and any instances of their application.

[firstdefence]

Again, from Affinity Publishers help files

Creating and managing text styles

Text styles can be created in the Text Styles panel, ready for applying to text. They can also be managed and modified to improve your design and workflow.

There are several ways to create a new text style:

1. build it from scratch—the new text style will have no initial connection to any other text style.
2. duplicate it from another style—the new text style will initially be exactly the same as the selected text style but has no connection to that style.
3. base it on an existing style—the new text style will use the selected text style as its base. A connection between the styles is retained and a hierarchy is established.

A text style can be modified in two ways:

• Editing the text style directly.
• Updating the text style to match some selected, locally formatted text.

You can also set up your own keyboard shortcuts to apply individual text styles to text.

   To create a text style from scratch:

1. (Optional) Select a portion of text or click inside a paragraph.
2. On the Text Styles panel, select:
   • Create Paragraph Style—to create a new paragraph style.
   • Create Character Style—to create a new character style.
   • Create Group Style—to create a new group style.
   See Text style types for more information.
3. Adjust the settings in the dialog.
4. (Optional) In the Edit Text Style dialog, select the Apply style to selection option to apply the style to the text selected in step 1.
5. Click OK.

 To create a text style from an existing style:

1. On the Text Styles panel, click on a listed style's options menu and select:
   • Duplicate—to start with settings exactly the same as the selected style.
   • Create Style Based on—to automatically set the dialog's Based on option to the selected style.
2. Adjust the settings in the dialog.
3. Click OK.

 To edit an existing text style:

1. On the Text Styles panel, click on a listed style's options menu and select Edit.
2. Adjust the settings in the dialog.
3. Click OK.

   To update a text style:

1. Select a portion of text or click inside a paragraph and make any local changes via the context toolbar, Character panel or Paragraph panel.
2. On the Text Styles panel:
   • Select Update Paragraph Style to update the paragraph style applied to the current text to match the local formatting.
   • Select Update Character Style to update the character style applied to the current text to match the local formatting.
   • From any listed style's options menu, select Update ... From Paragraphs or Update ... From Characters.

 To assign a keyboard shortcut to a text style:

Options

The following options are available in the Style section of the Edit Text Style dialog:

• Based on—sets the default settings for this style. In a hierarchical sense, the Base on text style is the master style to this subordinate style.
• Next style—for paragraph styles, this determines the text style automatically applied to the following paragraph (see note).
• Keyboard shortcut—sets the keyboard shortcut which will apply this text style.
• Type—determines the predominant nature of the text style.
• Show in both panels—if this option is off (default), the text style can only be applied in its predominant way (determined by the Type set above). When selected, a paragraph style can be applied as a character style and vice versa.
• Reset Formatting—removes all the settings applied in the Character, Typography and Paragraph sections of this dialog. The settings in this Style section remain unchanged.

The Next style feature is only activated when you press the   when typing text or when using the Apply ... Then Next Styles option in the Text Styles panel.

Additional Edit Text Style dialog options:

• Style name—defines the name the text style will use throughout the app.
• Character—assigns character-level attributes to the text style or overwrites those determined by the Based on style. See Character panel for details.
• Typography—activates OpenType features for the text style or overwrites those determined by the Based on style. See OpenType font features for details.
• Paragraph—assigns paragraph-level attributes to the text style or overwrites those determined by the Based on style. See Paragraph panel for details.
• Style settings—lists all the attributes applied to the current text style.
• Apply style to selection—applies the current text style to any selected text (if text was selected prior to entering the dialog).

Where [no change] is shown, an attribute remains unchanged from the Based on style.

 

 

[rjvela82]

@firstdefence  hey can you explain what a group style? I'm sorry that I've never heard this term before. How is it different than a Paragraph stye and what is the purpose / best practice for setting one up?