Creating and manipulating named styles

The previous chapter describes how a certain format can be applied to one or more paragraphs at once. However, in many cases similar formats are applied to the content over and over again. To reduce maintenance effort and storage space, named styles can be defined for such formats.

Named styles are not applied directly to a document when created. Instead they are saved to the style sheet of a document. To use named styles two steps are necessary:

1. define a named style by setting all its formatting attributes and saving it to the style sheet
2. select a portion of the document in the editor and pick a named style for it from the style selector in the tool bar

Once a named style is saved in the style sheet, it will appear in the style selector in the tool bar of SimplyHTML. It is necessary to define named styles only once for a combination of document and style sheet. The style sheet for a document is maintained automatically by SimplyHTML and saved whenever a document is saved.

Creating a named style

To define and save a named style

- select 'Named style...' from menu 'Format'
- set formatting attributes in the paragraph style dialog accordingly
- select an element type for the new style (selector located above list of named styles)
- press button 'Save as...'
- enter a name for the style and press 'OK'

Important: Styles are created only for the element type that is currently selected (paragraph, link, heading, etc.). Only changed attributes are saved to the style sheet.

Changing a name style

To change settings for an existing named style

- select 'Named style...' from menu 'Format'
- select the element type (selector located above list of named styles)
- select the named style to change settings for in the list of existing named styles
- change formatting attributes in the paragraph style dialog accordingly
- switch back to the 'Paragraph' tab if you are on tab 'Font'
- press button 'Save'
- press button 'OK'

The named style for the selected element type (paragraph, link, heading, etc.) will be overwritten with the new settings. At the same location named styles can be deleted from the style sheet too.

Deleting a named style

To delete a named style

- select 'Named style...' from menu 'Format'
- select the named style to change settings for in the list of existing named styles
- press button 'Delete'

Caution: Deleting a named style will cause content portions formatted with that style to be rendered in an unpredictable style. Be sure to delete only unused styles. Keep in mind that a named style could be used in another document sharing styles with the currently edited one.