Subject: Re: Styles
From: Randy Kramer (rhkramer@fast.net)
Date: Wed Feb 14 2001 - 06:55:01 CST
Forgive me for stating what is probably obvious to anyone reading this
list. Everything you say is correct (AFAIK), but the statement "the
character style overrides the paragraph style" might be a little
confusing to any non-programmers reading your note.
A character style will override the character style attributes specified
in the paragraph style, but will not affect the "non-character"
attributes of the paragraph style (like indentation, line spacing, lines
before or after, and the named paragraph style (or the outline level
;-). (And, this is what programmers would expect based on your
statement, since the character style does not include paragraph style
attributes.)
For example: Assume Header 1 is specified as bold, 14 pt. Arial, all
caps, indented 0.5", single spaced, 12 points before and after (the
"paragraph"), (and outline Level 1 ;-).
Then apply a new character style (ExtraBig), which is 18 pt. Arial,
bold, underlined, all caps.
The style of the paragraph will still be Header 1, indented 0.5", single
spaced, 12 points before and after (and outline Level 1), but the
characters will be displayed (and printed) as 18 pt. Arial, bold,
underlined, all caps.
The named style displayed in the Word style combobox for any character
or selection of characters (up to and including the entire paragraph)
will be ExtraBig. If the cursor is within the paragraph, but not
selecting anything, then the style is displayed as Header 1.
(Note: Description is based on behavior in Word97.)
Randy Kramer
Tomas Frydrych wrote:
>
> > I think there would be some value in my original assertion: that nested
> > styles in a paragraph were allowed, with the child overriding only the
> > font attributes of the parent. But I'm not sure it would be worth the
> > complexity, especially if it is not needed for loss-less transfer of
> > formatting between AbiWord and other word processors.
>
> You need to maintain a distinction between paragraph and
> characters styles. You should not be able to have two para styles
> applied to the same paragraph, that beats the very purpose of
> styles, i.e., a set of formating is represented by a single name;
> merging multiple paragraph styles would have the same effect as
> formating without styles; if you need to apply formating that
> corresponds to a union of two existing styles, you create a new
> style with such formating.
>
> Further, if you only allow the font formating to be changed/merged,
> then really you should use a character style for the second style,
> that is why there are two types of styles. In Word's behaviour,
> which I thing is very sensible, the character style overrides the
> paragraph style.
>
> I use styles extensively, and in my view Word's concept of styles
> is difficult to improve on: it is simple, unambiguous, and allows you
> carry out a uniform change of appearance in a 300 page doc in a
> few mouse clicks.
>
> with best regards
>
> Tomas
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