Understanding style sheets may be your best DTP friend...
As people purchase the new Macs and new software, upgrading causes a period of adjustment that is never easy and always daunting. There are those software features you've become so comfortable with you use them involuntarily without even thinking. Then you dive into the new package only to become discouraged because nothing seems to work the way you expect it to. Such is the case with some readers who have bought the new Macs and migrated from ClarisWorks to AppleWorks.
Probably one of the most important and time-saving features of any word processing or desktop publishing program are stylesheets. These allow you to process complicated styling attributes to your text with a single click, and aid you in keeping an intelligent consistency to your document. If you haven't used AppleWorks stylesheets, or you've had some problems making the leap to AppleWorks from another program, keep reading.
ClarisWorks was probably the easiest program ever to set stylesheets. You would set up the paragraph or headline just the way you wanted it, then pull down the menu and select "Define Styles" and hit enter. It was as simple as that. You could assign a key stroke to the style, then trickle through your document setting styles at blazing speed. As you might expect, stylesheets in AppleWorks is far more complicated and new users are immediately confused with the interface.
The easiest way to get started is still to first do sample formatting of the target section of text.
General: If your text is a single or short burst of text then it should be a "Basic" styling. If it is styling that also includes indents, tabs, leading, etc., then it should be "Paragraph" styling. (The other selections are specialized for their own modules in AppleWorks. They work basically the same.)
Do not use "Based On" yet. That allows for more complicated style sheets and will only serve to confuse you in the beginning.
When you click OK, your new style will appear in the Stylesheet window.
Highlight the text you wish to apply the style to, then double-click the desired style. Bingo. Remember you can drag through text, or double-click to highlight a word, triple-click to select the line, or quadruple-click to select the whole paragraph.
A nice feature of the newer versions of the software is the ability to compound styles. In the old days you have to style the text, and then copy/apply the paragraph formatting from two different areas of the interface. With the new stylesheets, it's still a two-step process, but at least someone wised up and realized they should both be together in the styles window.
Make sure "Allow Compound Styles" is selected. So, now you can apply a specific style to an entry, then apply a second style to the paragraph in which the first styled text appears.
Hopefully if you've planned the structure and style of your document properly in advance you won't need to remove a style. However, the occasion will arise and when it does you'll be ready.
Since programmers seem to think everyone will be writing doctoral dissertations on the social history of civilization, they've included every imaginable style possible -- and jammed them into a rude, oversized palette. I think it's a carry-over from the days when they thought number of type faces in their fonts menu was directly equal to their manliness. (Or "womanliness" whichever the case may be.) Too bad you can't just start with a blank palette and then add the styles you need just for this document. (All programmers should study Bare Bones Software's BBEdit's structure for tips on interface design.)
AppleWorks lets you delete styles not used in the document. So, before creating any, just select all those you don't want and click the "Cut" button. You may even want to 'save' that empty document as a template for stationery so you won't have to go through this again.
Many find that editing existing styles is easier in a new document than creating new ones. It does offer a consistency from project to project that you don't need to memorize new style names.
Just open the style palette again, select the style to be edited, and click "Edit" -- the cursor will become an "S" and the palette goes into edit mode. Now, click the down-arrow for the style and you'll see a list of attributes assigned to that style. You can now use the standard menus to reformat that style. You can also copy/paste attributes from other styles, or 'cut' them away. When editing is complete, click the "Done" button-- the cursor returns to normal and the styles are updated in the document.
If you have a strategy, styling a document will be easier and quicker. Additionally, you'll have a style trail you can modify or back out of if you wish.
Always try to keep the number of different styles in a document to a minimum. Over-styling is a frequent problem with beginners or amateurs. Write clearly, then apply just the minimum styles to support the information, and help the reader gain a clear understanding without effort.
Keeping the above in mind, and then developing your own collection of stylesheets will have that old mouse building documents like the pros in no time!
Until next time, happy mousing.
Fred Showker, Editor/Publisher UG Net News
Fred Showker is co-editor of "MUG Info Manager," the User Group Network News service, and a founding Apple User Group Advisory Board (UGAB) member. He was an original founder of the User Group Forum on AppleLink Personal Edition which became America Online in 1988 ... read more
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