Creating New Type Styles

Creating New Type Styles

Creating New Type Styles

You can create two kinds of styles, character and paragraph. Use a paragraph style for an entire paragraph of text. Use a character style for a character, word, phrase, or part of a paragraph. After establishing character and paragraph styles, apply them to your text.

Paragraph style attributes:

  • Leading
  • Indents
  • Justification
  • Drop caps
  • Letter and word spacing
  • Text flow settings
  • Character attributes and colors

Character style attributes:

  • Font
  • Type size
  • Font style
  • Capitalization style
  • Baseline position
  • Kerning
  • Colors

To Create a New Style:

  1. Choose Text | Type.
  2. In the Type palette, choose the paragraph and character formatting you want to use for the new style.
  3. Click the Styles tab to bring it to the front.
    • Example: Displays a sample of text with the current formatting settings applied.
    • Description: Lists the current character or paragraph attributes. The C and ¶ icons toggle between descriptions of character and paragraph attributes.
  4. Click Create.
  5. In the Create Type Style dialog box, enter a name for the new style.
  6. Click the Character or Paragraph icon.
  7. Select any additional settings.
  8. Click Save.

To Create a Style Based on Already Formatted Text:

  1. Place the insertion point in the text that contains the formatting you want to use to create the style.

  2. Choose Text | Type.
  3. In the Type palette, click the Styles tab.
  4. Click Create.
  5. In the Create Type Style dialog box, enter a name for the new style.
  6. Click the Character or Paragraph icon.
  7. Select any additional settings.
  8. Click Save.

Create Type Style Dialog Box

Character or Paragraph

Click a button to specify what kind of style you want to create.

Based on

If there are existing styles, choose a style name on which to base the new style. To disable this feature, choose None. (See Using Style Families.)

Include

Select the attributes to save as part of the style. You can include ink settings (fill and stroke attributes that have been applied to existing text) in character and paragraph styles. These inks don’t affect the current inks for vector objects.

For paragraph styles, you can also include font attributes and tab settings.

If a text selection has a frame or background ink, you can’t include these attributes in a style. In addition, when text doesn’t have a stroke, you can’t include strokes in a style.

Style name

Type a name for the style.

Using Style Families

When you base a style on an existing style, the new style “inherits” the attributes of the parent style. When the parent style changes, Canvas X Draw also updates all related styles. In addition to inherited attributes, the style possesses its own attributes, which you specify.

A style’s own attributes always take precedence over attributes inherited from the parent style.

You create a style, Body2, based on a parent style, Body1. The fonts are the same, but the type sizes are different. Body2 uses 10 point type, while Body1 uses 12 point. If you change the font for the parent style, the font also changes for Body2. However, if the point size changes for the parent style, Body2 does not change, because Body2’s own attributes take precedence. To make Body2 always use the same point size as Body1, you must set the point sizes equal, base Body2 on Body1, and save the style again.

In addition, if you later change Body2’s font, this style will no longer inherit fonts from the parent style. Body2’s font will override Body1’s font setting.

Careful planning will save you from time-consuming corrections when basing styles on each other. In some cases, changing a parent style’s attributes may cause unwanted changes throughout the style family; e.g., if you base ten styles on Body1, and later decide that you want Body1 (but not the whole family of styles) to be double spaced, you must first change the leading for Body1, then remove the leading setting from each of the other ten styles.

See also:

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