2019.2

templates allows a consistent look and feel to be applied. A style sheet can change the look of
multiple elements, making it unnecessary to format each and every element in the template,
time and again, when the company's layout preferences change. See "Styling templates with
CSS files" below.
Layout properties
Colors and fonts make an important contribution to the look and feel of your template. See
"Colors" on page317 and "Fonts" on page322.
Text and paragraphs have a number of formatting options that are not available for other
elements: font styles and line height, for example. See "Styling text and paragraphs" on
page298.
Boxes and a number of other elements can have a background color and/or background image;
see "Background color and/or image" on page313.
Several elements, such as boxes, images, paragraphs, and tables, can have a border; see
"Border" on page315.
Boxes, images, tables, text and other elements can be rotated; see "Rotating elements" on
page305.
Spacing (padding and margin) helps to position elements relative to other elements in the
template; see "Spacing" on page326.
The best way to position elements depends on the output channel for which the template is
intended; see "How to position elements" on page302.
The locale setting influences how dates, numbers and amounts of money are displayed; see
"Locale" on page325.
Styling templates with CSS files
The Layout toolbar and the Format menu offer many possibilities to style every piece of a
template. However, styling every single element, one after another, is a lot of work and, more
importantly, can result in a template with a messy mix of styles that isn’t easy to maintain and
lacks consistent design. Therefore the preferred way to style templates is with CSS files:
Cascading Style Sheets. This topic explains how to do that.
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