Magnum One/Magnum One (Mid-American Digital) (Disc Manufacturing).iso/d3/wputil35.arc/STYLES.ARC/STYLES.ASC

Text File | 1991-02-28 | 19KB | 438 lines

                        USING STYLES IN WP 5.1
                        ======================


The following text is based on messages that have been exchanged
within WPSGA:


WHY STYLES, NOT MACROS?
-----------------------

Q:  I started to learn styles, but I still don't see why it is worth
the time and effort, (and for me it does require time and effort).
There must be something I am missing. I have created macros to make
lecture notes, outlines, examinations, envelopes, letters, etc. Please
tell me what styles can do for me that I can't do equally well with
macros, which I have been using ever since WP 3.0. (Norman N Silverman
72230,2647)


A:  Norman, Styles are designed for setting up a standard document
formats, letting you easily change those formats at some later date,
even after the document has been written. For example, suppose you
have two formats in a document: one that uses left/right margins of
1", and another that uses left/right margins of 2.5". At some later
date, you find out that the second format really ought to be 2.25".
With styles, just change the definition, and the entire document is
changed accordingly. You don't need to go through the document and
manually change the margins.

That's the advantage of styles. The disadvantage is that they tend to
take up lots of space, and balloon some documents to enormous sizes.
If you know you won't be changing the formats at some later date, a
macro is probably just as good. (Gordon McComb 73155,353)


A:  INTRODUCTION

There are plenty of good uses of styles and a few poor uses, I think,
so I thought I would demonstrate one of those uses.

    DEMONSTRATION

If you are writing a document with heading such as these I've put in
here, chances are that those headings have certain characteristics
that are different from the body text of the document. In my example
here, they are capitalized, indented, and separated from the text by a
double line.

Now, imagine that you want yours to have similar characteristics,
perhaps small caps, Helvetica font, bold and double spaced. Now I can
create a paired style for headings which includes the necessary codes
to give the text the above characteristics. I turn the style on,
anything I type with styles on has those characteristics. When I turn
the style off, everything reverts to the body text characteristics.

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    CHANGING YOUR MIND

Finally imagine that when you print it, you decided that the Helvetica
font looks terrible, and you want the heading to be in a large Bookman
font and not bolded. By simply changing the font from Helvetica to
Bookman and removing the bold code in the style definition, you
automatically change the characteristics in every heading in the
document. It's a ten second operation.

Macros work just fine when you don't want the option to change your
mind. They just insert the codes and leave. Styles put the codes in,
and still give you to option of changing them globally.

The other thing about styles is that they allow you to easily
standardize a format among a group of people. For example, I have a
list of correspondence styles, report styles, etc. If I had other
employees and I wanted to make sure my documents were of a uniform
look, I would give them all copies of the same styles to use, which
would keep my "look" the same. (Bruce Rodgers [WPSG op] 70416,115)


A:  Since I don't have a clue what sort of examples would reach you
best, I'm posting three (3) examples illustrating ONE reason why
styles are beneficial:

Styles go where a Replace cannot tread:

1) The letterhead upon which I produce letters, pleadings and memos is
created in WP using styles. My secretary creates 12 letters for my
signature when I notice that they are all created using someone else's
letterhead style. And the mail person will be here to get the mail in
five minutes!

2) I'm drafting an 15-page agreement that divides the proceeds from a
deal among three persons in percentages of 30/30/40 where two of them
agree to invest 50% of their share and the other 25% into some new
enterprise. This agreement must be specific as to the dollar amounts
and the amount can easily be calculated, only... I've promised to
ready such a document for their signature this afternoon, and I
normally finish it, but it seems I cannot now recall which of the
three will be investing the 25%!

3) A rather lengthy document is formatted using single spacing and
before each heading is a style containing a Conditional End of Page
which prevents WP from separating the heading from the first couple of
lines of a paragraph. I am now informed that the document must be
double-spaced which renders ineffective the CEOP-3s, CEOP-4s and
CEOP-5s embedded into the document.

In Case #1, a style controls what letterhead graphic will print; in
Case #2, a set of styles marks places within the document for
insertion of the names of PersonA, PersonB and PersonC, their
respective percentages and each of their calculated investments; in
Case #3, each style performs a unique role in the document.


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By accessing the Style menu, one can effectively replace one
letterhead graphic for another, complete the particulars in the
agreement and replace the CEOPs with CEOP-5s, CEOP-7s and CEOP-9s,
respectively. (Karl M. Rowe 70154,266)


REPLACING THE CURRENT STYLE
---------------------------

Q:  Is there an easy way to take stuff formatted with one style sheet
and do a quicko-chango conversion to another style sheet? ...like
"replace style TITLE with style LEVEL ONE HEAD...?? Or do I have to
delete the old styles, page by page, call up the new style sheet, and
re-format the entire thing?

They want to do this new manual by using the "Master Document"
feature, whereby independent files can be called into a master
document structure. This manual is going to be 300 to 400 pages long,
and will consist of about 120 independent files. Is WP up to the task?
(Richard Reese 71241,2731)


A:  On some projects I've switched between two different styles, like
a DRAFT for preliminary work and a FINAL which add special formatting
and fonts. As long the style names are the same, you can switch
between different style files.

In your case, you should make a copy of the company style, change the
names of the styles to match those you have previously used in the
document, then attach this edited style library to the document. The
style names in the document will be the same as they were before, but
now the perimeters for those styles will be the company ones. (Ted
Pedersen 76010,650)


A:  I would do it the other way 'round (from Ted's suggestion). I'd
change the names of the styles in your documents. Word Perfect will
ask if you want to "rename style in document" -- answer "Yes." Then,
retrieve the "official" style sheet into your document and the current
style definitions will be replaced with those from the "official"
style sheet. That way you and the company will have the same
nomenclature.(Alan H. Pesetsky (NYC) 75675,1535)


A:  The other four suggestions are basically right. I would go with
Alan's means of renaming your original styles, say Y to rename styles
in document, then Retrieve the company style, which will give you the
"replace styles?" prompt. That will be much easier than editing each
style separately.

On Master Documents, just be aware (in addition to the auto numbering
problem, which could be worked around by defining a new paragraph
number at the beginning of each subdocument, but only when your
numbering scheme was secure) that if you enter new text which you want
to be kept as a new subdocument, in order to break it out from an

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existing master, you'll have to block, save, and delete the new
section, then collapse the master doc, and put in a subdocument code.
(William "Bill" Marvin 76346,1341)


CONDITIONAL END OF PAGE AND STYLES
----------------------------------

Q:  I'm having trouble getting Conditional End of Page to work in a
style.  How do I go about it?


A:   CEoP should work in the style, but note that the code needs to be
placed on the line *above* the first line that you want to keep
together.

Actually, I can't think of any codes you can't use in a style,
although there may be some. But there aren't many if any.
Unfortunately, I don't know of any definitive source describing what
is possible and what isn't.

Although most codes can be used, styles do have certain rules about
how the codes effect the text, depending where in the style the code
is placed. If you want to know these rules, then check out page 674 in
the manual. (Bruce Rodgers [WPSG op] 70416,115)


A:   CEOP codes definitely work in styles. The trick is that the CEOP
codes has to be on the line BEFORE the line containing the [Comment]
code, so the codes might look something like this:

[CEOP: 8][HRt] [Bold][Underline][Comment][bold][underline]
(Gabrielle Dowling 76336,735)


A:    Thanks; but that's definitely getting on the kludgy side,
especially considering that advance codes' effects don't show up on
the editing screen. Upon reflection (famous words), in my briefing I
usually do have a blank line before a heading. Using outline styles in
conjunction with the line spacing change has the side benefit of
allowing an extra single space code at the beginning of the document
to edit drafts with single space display; removing that code restores
all the text outside of the paired outline styles to be double spaced.
The codes would be: CEoP, Hrt, LnSpace 1, Mark ToC, Tab (as needed),
Indent, [BOLD], AutoPar Num (proper level),Tab, [COMMENT], End Mark,
[bold], LnSpace 2, Hrt. (William "Bill" Marvin 76346,1341)


Q:  I think the CEoP code is utterly silly. Having to count a number
of lines I want to keep together is a pain. Wouldn't the Block Protect
feature be easier? Even better, why not have codes that (1) keep an
entire paragraph together, and (2) keep a paragraph on the same page
as the next one? (Dave Marsh 72510,2326)


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A:  Block protect will not do the same thing that CEOP does. For
titles, you usually want the title, blank line, and first two lines of
the paragraph to stay together on a page. The rest can break and go to
the next page.

If you didn't have CEOP and used block protect, this would work (at
first). But if someone edited those first two lines of the paragraph
and added several lines of text - say, in the middle of line 1 - then
the block being protected would expand. Now the title, blank line, and
first SEVERAL lines of the paragraph are staying together - too much!
(Bill Bruck 71171,414)


R:  << Now the title, blank line, and first SEVERAL lines of the
paragraph are staying together - too much! >>

Agreed, Bill. My thought was using the Block Protect feature once
you're ready to print the final copy. If you made changes later, the
Block would have to be adjusted like other page formatting features
that would have been pushed away from the top of the page.

Granted, this wouldn't be necessary with CEoP and anything that saves
work and minimizes the possibility of errors is a blessing. I just
think counting lines is crude these days. I'll live with it, though
<g>. (Dave Marsh 72510,2326)



OUTLINE STYLES -- Automatically Change Level
--------------------------------------------

Q:    If I can figure out how to make the outline style automatically
change level, would it still change the paragraph number level, since
that follows a hard return? I guess so, since the whole style level
would change, and it wouldn't matter if there were some tabs in front
of the leading Hrt.  (William "Bill" Marvin 76346,1341)


A:  I think I've figured out a way to do what you want!: When you have
an outline style active, you can use Ctrl-V enter to get a new
paragraph without new paragraph number. Obviously, you wouldn't want
to have to do this a lot, so: create a soft keyboard on which {Enter}
= {Ctrl-V}{Enter}. You could make a little macro to switch to this
keyboard. So, you can keep outline style on, and use the macro to
switch to the new keyboard for the sections you don't want to have
numbered. (Gabrielle Dowling 76336,735)


R:  It sounds like that might do the trick! I see it as part of
several associated keyboard definitions. First, we'll need {Enter} to
actually be {Enter} the rest of the time, so the "little" macro will
need a system and/or state check so that it would produce
Ctrl-V,{Enter} only when outline was on in the main editing screen.


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Then, I'd like to invoke the outline style with one keypress, so we'll
need something else (is Shift-Enter separately definable?) to be
{Enter} when desired. One of the new system variables could give that.
(William "Bill" Marvin 76346,1341)


STYLES VS. TEMPLATES?
---------------------

Q:   I just finished the tedious task of installing some more DIGI
fonts like the one you use in your ALL_PRS article. If I want to
"copy" that layout, how do I do that? Do I call it a Style or make a
template? I know it's a simplistic question, but I haven't created
styles yet, since my documents have not yet gotten complex. I've just
decided to add headers to my letters, but I still use a template and
save the doc. under a new name. Do you find Styles a better way to go?
(Neil R. Ross 71230,3576)


A:   I've recently started to use Styles for lots of things. Certainly
for just about all font changes in the body of a document. For things
standard headers, I really don't think it makes much difference -- as
long as you use the same PRS file for all your printing. When you
start using multiple PRS files, Styles start making a lot more sense.

If you are going to use templates, I suggest you modify your method a
little: Write a macro which creates a document (by sticking some code
in it <like footer options, whatever>) and THEN imports the template.
That way you won't accidently overwrite your template. (Paul Friedman
(WPSG Op) 76424,1252)


SPACE BETWEEN STYLES
--------------------

Q:   I am trying to specify a set amount of white space before certain
styles. For example, one style of paragraph might have 6 points of
white space between it and the previous paragraph while another would
have only 3 points. Since the space is dependent on the style going
into effect I can't use a paired style to add the space at the end of
the style. I have tried a fixed line height followed by a hard return
as the first codes in the styles.

This works fine if page breaks are determined by the flow of text. But
if a hard page break is entered, the white space appears at the top of
the page. Is there any way to suppress or override this extra spacing?
Or is there a better way to add white space before a style of
paragraph?  (andrea ferguson 75766,3357)


A:   To accomplish what you need without having to create 2 sets
styles (one with hrts/advance, one without) -- you need to put an
advance code (or a style containing only an advance code) INSIDE the
style on code for the heading, as follows:

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[Style On:Head][Style On:Advance][Style Off:Advance]This is the
headline text[Style Off:Head][HRt]

Re the problem with editing -- the writers certainly shouldn't have to
keep checking the file. -- it would be a real waste of time and
probably lead to a lot of improper formatting.


Instead, when all editing has been input, the {Advance} codes can be
put in where necessary. To prevent confusion, the working copy might
be given the extension .dft, to be changed to something else (.doc,
.pro, etc) once, and only if, the final stuff has been put in. That
way, no one would accidentally send out an improperly formatted
document.

Also, while I'm pretty sure there's no way to tell which style is
active with a WP macro, it is possible to capture x characters of the
style name to a macro variable using shell macros. So, if you have
Office 3.0, you could write a macro to automate this process.
(Gabrielle Dowling 76336,735)



CREATING A STYLE BASED ON AN EXISTING STYLE
-------------------------------------------

Q:  Can WP 5.1 styles be nested. That is, can I use an existing style
such as the Right Par style that comes with WP in the definition of a
new style, or must I copy the code over and effectively duplicate it?
(David A. Gray 76437,1456)


A:  Yes, the attributes of one style can be incorporated into another
style, or the attributes of 2 styles can be combined into a new style.
Here's how you'd go about it.

For 1 (incorporating formatting codes of 1 style into a new style):

Format a segment of text with the style you want incorporated into the
new style, or go to an existing segment marked with that style, so
that you have something like this:

[Style on: Subhead]This is the marked text[Style off: Subhead]

In reveal codes, block the text segment from the [Style on] code
through the [Style off] code, then press [Alt-F8], [C]reate. Enter a
name for the new style. If you look at [C]odes, you'll see that the
formatting codes from the old style have now been put into the new
style. You're then free to add or change any of the codes you want,
and of course the old style won't be affected.





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For 2 (combining 2 styles into a new style:

Block a segment of text, as per the example above, then press
[Alt-F8], cursor to the style you want added. The text will now look
like this:

[Style on: RghtAln][Style on: Subhead]This is the marked text [Style
off: Subhead][Style off: RghtAln]

Note: it won't matter if the order of the styles is not exactly like
this, i.e. if you have [SO: RghtAln][SO: Subhead][SOff:RghtAlnt]
[Soff:Subhead] it'll still work.


Then, in reveal codes, block the text from the first [Style on]
through the second [Style off], press [Alt-F8], [C]reate, and give the
style a name. Again, when you look at [C]odes, you'll see that the
formatting codes from each style have been incorporated into the new
style.  (Gabrielle Dowling 76336,735)




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Note:  Some messages have been edited for the purpose of clarity.