Section 3.2. Creating and Using Styles | iWork 05: The Missing Manual

3.2. Creating and Using Styles

When you create a word processing document in Pages, you usually use a small assortment of formatting styles over and over again throughout the document. In a short piece, reformatting your titles or the occasional quote is no big deal; just highlight each and then use the Inspector or the Font panel to make it look the way you like.

But consider the longer document. What if your manuscript contains 49 headings, plus 194 sidebar boxes, captions, long quotations, and other heavily formatted elements? In such documentsthis book, for examplemanually reformatting each heading, subhead, sidebar, and caption would drive you nuts. Thankfully, Pages' Styles can alleviate the pain.

Here's the concept: you format a chunk of text exactly the way you want itfont, paragraph formatting, color , margins, and so onand then tell Pages to memorize that collection of formatting elements as a style . A style is a prepackaged collection of formatting attributes that you can reapply with a click of the mouse.

Repeat the process for all the styles you need: headings, sidebar styles, picture captions, whatever. You end up with a collection of custom-tailored styles for each of the repeating elements in your document. Figure 3-2 gives you a taste of how helpful styles can be.

Figure 3-2. Suppose you want to write, say, a technical manual containing headings, subheads, captions, and so on. To maintain consistency in your document, use Pages' Styles to format your page elements. With just a few clicks, you can transform plain text and be certain that your headlines, captions, and the rest, maintain their uniformity throughout the document. Pages applies the font, size , style, color, margins, and so on all at once, freeing your mind to concentrate on the words themselves .

Once you've created your styles, you've done the hard part. Now, as you type along, you can choose styles as you need them. Since you're no longer formatting by hand, Pages guarantees consistent page elements throughout the document. As you go through your document during the editing process, if you happen to notice you accidentally styled, for example, a headline using the subhead style, you can fix the problem by applying the correct style with a single click.

Styles aren't just for paragraphs. Pages can remember three different kinds of styles that you'll find useful for different purposes.

Paragraph styles : If you want to establish a consistent look for a long document, Pages' Paragraph styles are the tool of choice. From Pages point of view, a paragraph is any chunk of text that ends with a paragraph breakcreated when you press Return. Therefore, you can apply a paragraph style to a paragraph of text, a headline, a picture caption, and so on. Once you decide on a headline style for your document, there's no need to remember that the font is Bauhaus Demi-bold, 34.5 pt. in Eggplant. Choose Headline style and Pages takes care of the rest. Paragraph styles apply to entire paragraphs or groups of paragraphs. If you're going to later make use of Pages' automatic table of contents creator, you must format the headings and subheadings in your document using paragraph styles. (See Section 3.6 for all the details on how Pages can quickly help you generate a table of contents.)
Character styles : Pages can memorize character-level formattingfont, size, color, and so onas Character styles. You might use this, for example, to save a version of your body style font in red bold italic for those occasions when you want to super- emphasize a word. You can apply character styles to a word or group of wordsor even a single character.
List styles : Pages can create bulleted, numbered, or lettered lists with List styles. List styles apply to a group of paragraphs. You could create one list style that uses a small red bullet, and another that uses a full-color image as the bulletsay, your logo. You can also create outlinesa type of complex, hierarchical listusing this kind of style.

All Pages templates contain a set of preconfigured styles you may not even be aware of. To see the available styles, choose View Show Styles Drawer (or click the Style button in the toolbar and choose Show Styles Drawer) and the drawer slides out from the side of your document window. The Styles Drawer always shows Paragraph styles, but you can choose to show or hide Character and List styles by clicking the buttons at the bottom of the drawer (Figure 3-3).

3.2.1. Applying Styles

You can apply styles by choosing them from the Styles Drawer, or by using the Style, List, and Character pop-up menu buttons in the toolbar. The standard toolbar button set includes the Style and List buttons. If you make frequent use of character styles, consider adding the Character button to the toolbar (see Toolbar Customization Section 1.2).

To apply a character style, highlight some textfor example drag across a word or twoand then click one of the character styles in the Styles Drawer.

To apply a paragraph style click once inside an existing paragraph, and then click any of the paragraph styles in the Styles Drawer, or click the Styles button in the toolbar and choose a style from the pop-up menu. If your insertion point is not inside a paragraph, then the new style applies to whatever you type next .

You apply list styles in the same way: highlight the paragraphs to be included in the list and then choose a list style from the Styles Drawer or choose one from the List toolbar button pop-up menu. If you're just beginning a list, choose your style first and then start typing the list.

As an experiment, take a few minutes and apply some of the canned styles to text in one of your documents. You'll quickly realize the power of styles and how, with just a little advanced planning, they can simplify your formatting chores.

Note: If you apply the same type of style to an element you've already formattedfor example, paragraph stylePages replaces the first style with the new one. In other words, one paragraph style replaces another paragraph style. You can, however, create compound styles using the three different style types (paragraph, character, and list). You could, for example, create a numbered list where each item's formatted with a different paragraph style, and individual words within the paragraphs are formatted with a character style.

Figure 3-3. Your collection of stylesboth the canned ones that came with the template you're using and any you've createdare waiting in the wings in the retractable style drawer. To apply a style, simply select some text in the document and click the style name . If you don't see Character or List styles in the drawer (or see them and wish you didn't), click the Show/Hide buttons at the bottom-right corner of the drawer. Click the Add (+) button and use its pop-up menu to create new styles from a selection. Pages keeps Paragraph styles always on display. If you've amassed more styles than can fit in the window, a scroll bar appears. You can adjust the size of the Style Drawer's panes by dragging the button marked with two horizontal lines next to the Character and List styles headings. Adjust the width of the drawer by dragging its outside edge.

To remove a paragraph style, simply replace it with another style or replace it with the Free Form stylethe default basic text style for the current template. Or, if you just applied a style, choose Edit Undo Paragraph Style to reverse your style change. Removing character styles or list styles works the same wayexcept you choose None in the character and list panes of the Styles Drawer.

3.2.2. Style Overrides

Once you've applied a style to a paragraph, it doesn't mean you can't tweak the paragraph. You're free to go ahead and apply italics, bold, or other character formatting to some of the words in the paragraph; or you could change the paragraph alignment, line spacing, background color, or other paragraph formatting options. When you apply any additional formatting on top of a style, you're creating a style override.

Pages keeps track of places you've applied style overrides and uses the arrow to the right of the style name in the Style Drawer to let you know. If you select text to which you've applied a style override, the arrow turns from its normal black to red.

You can return a paragraph to its basic style by removing the overrides if, for example, you decide the improvements you were trying to make to the paragraph just didn't work out. Place your insertion point within the paragraph to select it, click the red arrow next to its style name in the Styles Drawer, and choose Revert to Original Style (or just double-click the style name). Pages removes the overrides, returning the paragraph to its underlying style.

You can apply overrides to character and list styles as well. The only difference is that when removing the overrides, you need to select all the characters (for character styles) or all the paragraphs (for lists styles).

3.2.3. Importing Styles

Once you've created styles in one document, you can easily import some or all those styles into another Pages document. This ability makes it easy to give related documents a similar look and feel, even though they may contain quite different elements.

Choose Format Import Styles to import styles into your document .

The Open dialog box appears.
Navigate to the Pages document containing the styles you want to import and double-click its title (or select the title and click Open) .

Pages displays a window listing all the styles in the document (Figure 3-4).
Use the scroll bar to view all the styles. Press while you click to select several styles. Or, to import all the styles, click Select All. Click OK, and Pages performs the import .

If you turn on the checkbox for Replace duplicates, Pages replaces the styles in your document with those it's importing that have the same name. If you don't turn on the checkbox for Replace duplicates, then when Pages imports styles with the same name, it adds a number to the name of the imported style. For example, if you import a style named Headline into a document that already has a Headline style, Pages names the newly imported style Headline 2.

Warning: If you import styles with "Replace duplicates" turned on, not only does Pages replace those duplicate styles in the Styles Drawer, but it also reformats all occurrences of that style in the document. This can be a great convenience if your intention is indeed to reformat those styles in the document. Or it can come as an unpleasant surprise when you scroll down your document to discover your carefully formatted subheads have somehow morphed into a different style.

Figure 3-4. Choose Format Import Styles and select one of your Pages documents in order to import its styles into the current document. Pages displays this Styles import sheet from which you can pick and choose the styles youd like to importor just choose Select All to bring them all in. Be careful with the Replace duplicates checkbox. When it's turned on, Pages replaces same-named styles in your Styles Drawer and modifies the text in your document wherever you've used those styles.

Note: If you import a document created by Microsoft Word or AppleWorks 6, Pages imports the styles contained in those documents as well. They show up in the Styles Drawer alongside Pages' styles.

3.2.4. Creating Styles by Example

Whether you're modifying an existing style or building a new one from scratch, Pages lets you "create by example"in other words, you format the text in the document the way you want it to look, and then tell Pages to memorize that formatting as a new style.

3.2.4.1. Modifying existing paragraph styles

To begin modifying a style, choose a paragraph in your document you'd like to see formatted with your new style, or just type a new paragraph so you have some text to work with.

Place your insertion point in the paragraph and choose View Show Styles Drawer (or click the Style button in the toolbar and choose Show Styles Drawer) .

Pages presents the document's styles collection.
Click the style that's closest to the one you want to create .

Pages formats the selected paragraph in the style you chose.
Now make all the modifications to the paragraph, tweaking the font, size, color margins, even tabsmold it to your whim .

You can use any of the character and paragraph formatting options described in the previous chapters: text alignment, spell checking language, background color, and so on.
When you've perfected your paragraph's formatting, click the arrow to the right of its name in the Style Drawer. That arrow is now red, indicating you've applied style overrides .

The pop-up menu offers two ways to handle the new style you've created:

Choose Redefine Style From Selection and Pages changes the style you began with, incorporating all your modifications. When you choose this command, Pages also applies the modified style to all occurrences of that style in the document. In other words, choose to redefine the style only if you have no more use for the style on which you based your modifications.

Alternatively, choose Create New Paragraph Style From Selection to create a brand new style for your drawer, based on the paragraph you've just altered . Pages doesn't make any changes to the style you began with. Give the new style a name. If the "Apply this new style on creation" checkbox is turned on, Pages assigns the new style to the paragraph you've been modifying; turn off the checkbox and the paragraph retains its original style, with the style overrides you've added. Click OK and the new style appears in the Style Drawer.

3.2.4.2. Creating new paragraph styles

The process for creating brand new styles is very similar to the one described above. Begin by selecting a paragraph and applying the Free Form style; or by choosing the Free Form style and then typing a new paragraph. Apply all your formatting modifications and when you're satisfied with the result, click the + sign button at the bottom of the Styles Drawer (or click the + sign button and, from its pop-up menu, choose Create New Paragraph Style From Selection).

Type a name for the new style and decide whether or not to apply it to the current paragraph by turning the checkbox for "Apply this new style on creation" on or off. Click OK and Pages adds the new style to the Styles Drawer, now at your service to use anywhere in your document.

3.2.4.3. Modifying character styles

Character styles are Pages' memory bank for character formatting attributes: font, size, color, character spacing, and so on. Pages templates come with one or more character styles turned on that you can use as a starting point to create more of your own. You'll find character styles useful when you want to modify a word or group of wordsor even a single characterwithin a paragraph, without affecting the style of the paragraph itself.

Choose View Show Styles Drawer (or click the toolbars Style button and, from its pop-up menu, choose Show Styles Drawer) .

If the character styles pane isn't showing, click the Show Character Styles button at the bottom-right of the Styles Drawer to reveal it. Select some words in a paragraph, or type some new text and select a few words. Click the character style that's closest to the style you want to create.
Apply all the character formatting attributes that you want to the selected text: font, size, color, bold, italic, strikethrough , and so on (see Chapter 1 for all the details on character formatting) .

As you apply the first of these style overrides to your selected characters, the arrow next to the style's name in the Styles Drawer turns red. When you're finished formatting, click the red arrow and choose Create New Character Style From Selection to create a brand-new style. (Skip down to step 5 if you want to choose Redefine Style From Selection.) Pages displays the New character style dialog box.
Give the new style a name, and then click the flippy triangle labeled "Include all character attributes" to reveal the checklist of attributes for this style (Figure 3-5) .

When it opens, every checkbox is turned on, but you can choose to turn off certain items in order to, for example, apply all the character formatting except font color or except the spell checking language.
Finally, choose whether or not to apply this new style to the selected text using the checkbox at the bottom of the window, and then click OK .

Pages memorizes all of this character formatting information and your style's new name shows up in the Character Styles pane of the Styles Drawer.
Or choose Redefine Style From Selection in step 2 above, to incorporate all your new formatting into the style you began with .

Choose to redefine the style only if you don't need any of the original style's formatting in your documentPages changes any existing occurrences of that style into the new one.

3.2.4.4. Creating new character styles

You don't have to start with an existing character styleyou can create your own from scratch. Begin by selecting some text and formatting it using any character formatting modifications you want, just like in the previous example. When you're happy with the result, click the Add (+) button at the bottom of the Styles Drawer and, from the pop-up menu, choose Create New Character Style From Selection.

Continue on with steps 3 and 4 above, to complete the character style creation process.

Figure 3-5. The "New character style" sheet appears when you select Create New Character Style From Selection via the Add (+) button in the Styles Drawer, or the downward-pointing triangle next to a character style's name. Click the flippy triangle next to " Include these character attributes" to reveal the on/ off switches for the various character formatting attributes you're about to include in your new style. Turn off the checkboxes for any attributes you don't want to include. Use the Select All or Deselect All buttons to make your checking and unchecking task simpler. Click the Select Overrides button to see only the attributes you've modifiedleave those items' checkboxes turned on if you want your style to affect only those items when you apply the style.

3.2.5. Finding and Copying Styles

When you're working on a long document, just finding every occurrence of a style can be a challenge. Imagine you want to replace one style with anotherfor example, replacing a headline style with a new larger headline style and using the existing headline style for your subheadings. In this case you wouldn't want to modify the existing style because you need to keep it to use in different places. Instead, Pages can find and highlight all the occurrences of a given style in your documentand then, with one click, you can apply a different style to those occurrences.

To do so, choose View Show Styles Drawer and click the downward-pointing arrow next to the name of the style you wish to replace. (Those arrows dont appear until you move your cursor over the style name.) From the pop-up menu, choose Select All Uses of [style name]. Pages highlights all the occurrences of this style in your text. Click the name of any other style in the Style Drawer, and Pages does the formatting switcheroo.

You can change styles on a case-by-case basis, by selecting the styled text and choosing a new style from the Style Drawerbut you can also copy and paste paragraph and character formatting styles. You may find the copy and paste technique faster when you're editing your document, but its main benefit is that it copies not only the style, but also any style overrides that you've applied to the paragraph or character.

Better yet, you can copy and paste styles between documents . In other words you can pick and choose styles from any of your Pages documents and paste them into a new document. Not only does such a maneuver reformat the selected text in the document, but Pages adds the copied style to the Style Drawer, making it available for formatting any other parts of the document.

Tip: Consider adding the Copy style and Paste style buttons to the toolbar if you find yourself frequently copying and pasting paragraph styles. (Although the buttons don't indicate it, they copy and paste only paragraph stylesnot character styles.)

To copy a paragraph style, place your insertion point anywhere within the paragraph and choose Format Copy Paragraph Style; to copy a character style, select some formatted text and choose Format Copy Character Style. Then place your insertion point in another paragraph or select some text you wish to style and choose Format Paste Paragraph style (or Format Paste Character Style).