Wish for future version: Linking styles

[Joachim_L]

My wish - for various programmes - is quite old. Images can be linked, in ancient times text documents were linked in Indesign. But why is there no linking for text styles like a css file?

There could be some scenarios and benefits coming from this:

1) All styles could be managed at one place, important for corporate design

2) You don't have to set up the styles anew or duplicate documents having the styles or importing the styles

3) Master style document could be changed or something added and this would be visible and reachable in all documents where the styles are linked

Only my fantasy or a good idea?

 

P.S.: Please make individual panels for character and paragraph styles

[fde101]

I don't think this would be a good idea.

Changing a style can completely change the layout of the document: for example, if the size of the text changes (which can happen by making it italic for example) the text needs to be reflowed, which could result in more or fewer pages, could cause the last text box in a chain of text boxes to be more or less full, etc.  It could cause anchored images (when available) to move around and completely change the look of the page.

Granted that this could happen from changing the style within the individual documents also, but when that happens you are paying attention to the change and can go through and check that document to make sure everything still looks right, making any needed adjustments, so I think forcing you to do it manually on a per-document basis is a good thing here as you really need to be validating each of them anyway.

In the dynamic world of web pages you are not dealing with a document made up of discrete pieces of paper with specific cutoff points so designing a web page that can dynamically adjust to changes in the styles is quite a bit simpler than trying to do the same task when designing for print.

 

3 hours ago, Joachim_L said:

P.S.: Please make individual panels for character and paragraph styles

This one I agree with completely.  The current setup functions but it is kind of annoying.

[Joachim_L]

6 minutes ago, fde101 said:

...

Changing a style can completely change the layout of the document: for example, if the size of the text changes (which can happen by making it italic for example) the text needs to be reflowed, which could result in more or fewer pages, could cause the last text box in a chain of text boxes to be more or less full, etc.  It could cause anchored images (when available) to move around and completely change the look of the page.

...

Some valid points here, but ... I like the idea ;). As of now, you have the preference "Automatically update linked resources when modified externally". This could be used as well for the style document.