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Paragraph Style and Character Style
Text Styles
comes in two varieties. Paragraph Styles apply to whole paragraphs, and are also typically used for
headings. It's not possible to apply a Paragraph Style to a smaller section than a paragraph, so you
cannot, for example, apply a Paragraph Style to a single word within a paragraph. If you try, then the
whole surrounding paragraph will take on this Style.
Just place the text cursor anywhere on the line and select a Paragraph Style from the Style menu, and the
whole paragraph will take on that Style.
Character Styles, on the other hand, can be applied to any selection of text, from a single character
upwards. For example, if you wanted to highlight certain words in your text in a different color a
Character Style would be ideal. The advantage is that you can then change the color (or font, etc) of all
these highlighted words with a single Style update.
Paragraph styles can define all text attributes except for bulleted/numbered list properties. Character
styles can only define text attributes that can be applied to individual characters, such as text color, font
size, font weight, etc.
Updating Text Styles
To update a Style definition:
1.
Select some text already in the style you want to update.
2.
Apply whatever changes you require, say an alternative font, or font size.
3.
Select "Update style" from the Style drop-down menu on the Text InfoBar.
For example to change all the "Normal text" to be a different font, select a few words in the "Normal
text" Style, change the font (and any other attribute) and then Select "Update Style" "Normal text" from
the Style Menu on the TextTool InfoBar
Note: When you update a style based on a selection of text, the updated style is re-applied to the
selection. So if you select just a few characters of a Heading 1, say, and make it a new color, then do an
Update Style 'Heading 1', the whole paragraph will take on this new color (because it's a paragraph style
and can only apply to whole paragraphs).
Styles based on other styles
In, you can base one style upon another. For example, if you wanted another variant of Heading 2 style,
that was identical in every respect, except a different color, then when you create the new style you
would make it based on "Heading 2" in the Create Style
dialog. This means that if you update "Heading 2" to be, for example, a new font or size, your new Style
would also take on that new font or font size.
New Character Styles are typically based on the "Underlying Paragraph Style", but just with the changes
you want. So this means if you have a Character Style that just sets the text color and nothing else,
applied to a single word, then when you altered the Paragraph Style of the paragraph, this word would
change to match, except its color.
Creating new Styles
To create a completely new Style, change a selection of text to appear how you want and then select
the Create Style menu from the Style list drop-down on the Text Tool InfoBar.
If you want to create a new Paragraph Style it's recommended that you select and apply your changes to
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