Styles

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BobH
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Styles

Post by BobH »

The discussion the other day with Chris and Charles Kenyon got me interested in styles.

I read the treatise that Charles wrote and provided a link for. My ability to absorb it was equivalent to my ability to drink water from a fire hose. Not at all the fault of Charles' treatise but my lack of the basics needed to understand it.

I decided that I would learn best by experimenting. My first thought was to create a style for a page that would wrap text around an image if I added one. Using lorem ipsum and a meme from my stash, I created the page then selected the page and created a style. The style appears when I choose the Design tab. I have to click the down arrow that expands the window but I can see a custom style and choose it.

My intent is to create a style that I can use when I want to drop an image into text and incorporate that into a custom NORMAL.dot file. That way, whenever I'm creating a document and want to include an illustration, I only have to paste it somewhere, move it where I want it to appear, then choose the manner in which text will wrap. Without an image, text would appear, well, normally :flee: or at least according to whatever style of formatting was chosen - by using a style. I think I got the point about not using direct formatting to facilitate modifications.

Although I have not made a personal NORMAL.dot file yet, this worked!!!! - Thank you, Charles!!!

My question is, "Is this a 'proper' use of a style?"
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Styles

Post by ChrisGreaves »

BobH wrote:
26 Jul 2022, 00:01
My question is, "Is this a 'proper' use of a style?"
yes.

and no.

To my mind, any use of a style is Proper, since you can't do a thing in MSWord without using styles, even if you are not aware that styles exist! Charles has pointed this out.

That said, I would recommend crawling before you walk before you run.

Make a copy of a document that you use on a frequent or regular basis; play with that copy.
Locate some text that, up to this time, you have formatted using local formatting (Format, Font, Bold sort of thing)
Suppose that you are in the habit of selecting text and clicking on the Bold button; then you have applied Bold formatting to many different parts of your document.
Create a character style named, perhaps "csStress" and give it the formatting for Bold.
Now apply csStress to a chunk of selected text,
Apply csStress to a different chunk of selected text,
Then change the style csStress to be a bright red font; or change it from Bold to Underline.

Finally, go back over your document, and wherever you had applied local formatting for Bold, apply your csStress style instead. This is the amount of work that you would have to slog through if your boss announced "We don't Bold any more, we Underline". What a job you have in front of you!
But because from now on you have csStress in place, if tomorrow your boss changes his mind and prefers Italic to Underline, then all you need do tomorrow is change your csStress style to be Italic.

Your loving nephew, Chris
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Charles Kenyon
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Re: Styles

Post by Charles Kenyon »

No in that wrapping is an element of the image's formatting, not the paragraph style.
I did give a garden hose link as well to one of Shauna Kelly''s excellent pages. http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/stylesms.html

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BobH
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Re: Styles

Post by BobH »

Thanks Charles and Chris!

I shall continue to try to extend my knowledge and use of styles.
Bob's yer Uncle
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Intel Core i5, 3570K, 3.40 GHz, 16 GB RAM, ECS Z77 H2-A3 Mobo, Windows 10 >HPE 64-bit, MS Office 2016