Delete and replace styles list in control board
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franklinreid
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2011 1:19 pm
Delete and replace styles list in control board
I am working on some older documents that have different styles than I use now and would like to open a fresh document which has no styles so I can add my own set. How do I do this? Or how do I delete all the styles in the list?
Hi Franklin,
First note that the “Normal” style of any document is its default style, and can never be deleted. You can only modify its properties.
Also when you delete a style, the associated paragraphs automatically take on the formatting of the parent style. So if you delete all the styles in a document except the “Normal” style, all the document paragraphs will automatically become associated with the “Normal” style, and be reformatted accordingly. This might not be what you want.
What you need to do is to modify the styles of your older documents so that they display more suitably. Here is how I would go about this.
A. Create a new document with “Ctrl+N” (or any other preferred way). Don’t bother about the document styles yet.
B. Open one of your older documents. Press “Ctrl+A” to select its whole contents.
C. Switch to the new document you just created (in A above), and press “Ctrl+V”. This copy/paste has one purpose, to get rid of the unused styles in your old document: if there were any unused styles in the older document, they will not pasted into the new.
D. Now you still have a new document with the same contents and styles that it inherited from the older document. You need to change the properties of the styles in this new document. You can do this manually or semi-automatically.
<b>Semi-automatically</b>.
If you have another document that already uses adequate styles, import these styles into your new document, and replace same name styles with the new. If some of the imported styles are not already present in the new document, choose whether to import them or not, depending on your perceived future needs. Note that the toolbar at the bottom of the Control Board Styles panel has an “Import styles” button (third from right).
<b>Manually</b>.
1. Select a paragraph associated with one of the document styles. Use the commands on the Atlantis main Formatting toolbars and main menus to change the formatting of that paragraph as suitable: Format > Font, Paragraph, List, Tabulation. This method gives you instant visual control on how the paragraph will look under its new “styling”.
2. When you are satisfied that this paragraph has adequate formatting properties, click “Update highlighted style to match document selection” on the toolbar at the bottom of the Control Board Styles panel (fourth button from right or left = middle button).
3. Select a paragraph associated with another one of the document styles. Repeat steps 1 and 2 right above.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 above until all the styles have been updated.
5. Now that you have created one new document with adequate styles, you can use the semi-automatic method and simply import these adequate styles into your old documents, or new documents that you have created with the copy/paste method described above in steps A, B, and C.
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert
First note that the “Normal” style of any document is its default style, and can never be deleted. You can only modify its properties.
Also when you delete a style, the associated paragraphs automatically take on the formatting of the parent style. So if you delete all the styles in a document except the “Normal” style, all the document paragraphs will automatically become associated with the “Normal” style, and be reformatted accordingly. This might not be what you want.
What you need to do is to modify the styles of your older documents so that they display more suitably. Here is how I would go about this.
A. Create a new document with “Ctrl+N” (or any other preferred way). Don’t bother about the document styles yet.
B. Open one of your older documents. Press “Ctrl+A” to select its whole contents.
C. Switch to the new document you just created (in A above), and press “Ctrl+V”. This copy/paste has one purpose, to get rid of the unused styles in your old document: if there were any unused styles in the older document, they will not pasted into the new.
D. Now you still have a new document with the same contents and styles that it inherited from the older document. You need to change the properties of the styles in this new document. You can do this manually or semi-automatically.
<b>Semi-automatically</b>.
If you have another document that already uses adequate styles, import these styles into your new document, and replace same name styles with the new. If some of the imported styles are not already present in the new document, choose whether to import them or not, depending on your perceived future needs. Note that the toolbar at the bottom of the Control Board Styles panel has an “Import styles” button (third from right).
<b>Manually</b>.
1. Select a paragraph associated with one of the document styles. Use the commands on the Atlantis main Formatting toolbars and main menus to change the formatting of that paragraph as suitable: Format > Font, Paragraph, List, Tabulation. This method gives you instant visual control on how the paragraph will look under its new “styling”.
2. When you are satisfied that this paragraph has adequate formatting properties, click “Update highlighted style to match document selection” on the toolbar at the bottom of the Control Board Styles panel (fourth button from right or left = middle button).
3. Select a paragraph associated with another one of the document styles. Repeat steps 1 and 2 right above.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 above until all the styles have been updated.
5. Now that you have created one new document with adequate styles, you can use the semi-automatic method and simply import these adequate styles into your old documents, or new documents that you have created with the copy/paste method described above in steps A, B, and C.
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert
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franklinreid
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2011 1:19 pm
Thanks Robert for this explanation.
I already use the Semi-automatic method quite often. But it simply adds the styles to those included. I would like to create a template that has only one style--Normal. From there I can add the text from the other file, which I assume will all be changed to Normal. I then can open an existing file with all the correct styles and then import from it into the new document. Then I save it with the name and that retains the starter template for the next time.
I just don't know how to create or find a template with only the Normal style. I was hoping I could just open the New file and then delete the entire list of styles, leaving only the Normal style, a delete all function.
I will re-read your comment to see if I missed anything.
Thanks again,
Franklin
I already use the Semi-automatic method quite often. But it simply adds the styles to those included. I would like to create a template that has only one style--Normal. From there I can add the text from the other file, which I assume will all be changed to Normal. I then can open an existing file with all the correct styles and then import from it into the new document. Then I save it with the name and that retains the starter template for the next time.
I just don't know how to create or find a template with only the Normal style. I was hoping I could just open the New file and then delete the entire list of styles, leaving only the Normal style, a delete all function.
I will re-read your comment to see if I missed anything.
Thanks again,
Franklin
If you change all your old paragraphs to Normal one way or the other, they will all be reformatted in exactly the same way. In other words, you will lose all that made them distinct from each other. Importing styles then won’t help much: only the Normal style might be changed, but the other imported styles will not be associated with any paragraph. You would have to reassociate each paragraph with the appropriate style manually. Let’s take an example. Suppose that one of your old documents uses 3 styles, i.e. the Normal style, the Heading 1 and the Heading 2 styles. If you reassociate all the paragraphs with the Normal style, you lose the association between some of the paragraphs and the Heading 1/Heading 2 styles. If these paragraphs are actual headings, you will have to reassociate each of them manually with the appropriate Heading styles. This is overkill, just to change the characteristics and/or names of some styles.
There is no “Delete All styles” in Atlantis. It would be a rather hazardous move.
Here is what you could do.
1. Create a document with what you call the “correct” styles. All of them.
2. Save this document as a template (“File | Save Special > Save As Template…”)
3. Open one of your old documents, and save it under a different name (something like “Doc01(revised).rtf”). This is to keep a copy of the older version in case you need to come back to it.
4. Import all the styles from the template you created in 2 above into “Doc01(revised).rtf”. When importing, replace all the old styles with the new (click the “Yes to all” button).
5. The paragraphs in “Doc01(revised).rtf” which are associated with styles whose names are identical to the ones in the template will automatically be reformatted according to the properties defined in the template.
6. The paragraphs in “Doc01(revised).rtf” which are not associated with styles whose names are identical to the ones in the template will <b>not</b> be automatically be reformatted. You’ll need to reassociate them with the appropriate “correct” styles. Let’s take an example.
Let’s suppose that you have a style named “italics” in “Doc01(revised).rtf”. This “italics” style is inherited from your older version of this document. You want to use a newly-imported style called “emphasis” instead. Here is how to go about this:
a. Select the style named “italics” in the Control Board Styles panel.
b. Click the rightmost button on the panel bottom toolbar (“Select paragraphs associated with highlighted style”).
c. When all the paragraphs associated with the “italics” style are selected, keep the selection AS IS (don’t click in the document window).
d. Select the style named “emphasis” in the Control Board Styles panel.
e. Click the second button from right on the panel bottom toolbar (“Apply style to document selection”). All the paragraphs which were still associated with the “italics” style will be reassociated with the more “correct” “emphasis” style.
f. Repeat steps a to e above for each of the old styles that you want to replace with new more “correct” styles.
When all the paragraphs have been reassociated with new styles in such a way, the older styles will still be listed in the document style sheet. If you want to remove them altogether, use the copy/paste method into a new document I described in my previous message. You’ll automatically get rid of the now unused older styles.
This might sound complicated, but it isn’t really, once you get the hang of it.
There is no “Delete All styles” in Atlantis. It would be a rather hazardous move.
Here is what you could do.
1. Create a document with what you call the “correct” styles. All of them.
2. Save this document as a template (“File | Save Special > Save As Template…”)
3. Open one of your old documents, and save it under a different name (something like “Doc01(revised).rtf”). This is to keep a copy of the older version in case you need to come back to it.
4. Import all the styles from the template you created in 2 above into “Doc01(revised).rtf”. When importing, replace all the old styles with the new (click the “Yes to all” button).
5. The paragraphs in “Doc01(revised).rtf” which are associated with styles whose names are identical to the ones in the template will automatically be reformatted according to the properties defined in the template.
6. The paragraphs in “Doc01(revised).rtf” which are not associated with styles whose names are identical to the ones in the template will <b>not</b> be automatically be reformatted. You’ll need to reassociate them with the appropriate “correct” styles. Let’s take an example.
Let’s suppose that you have a style named “italics” in “Doc01(revised).rtf”. This “italics” style is inherited from your older version of this document. You want to use a newly-imported style called “emphasis” instead. Here is how to go about this:
a. Select the style named “italics” in the Control Board Styles panel.
b. Click the rightmost button on the panel bottom toolbar (“Select paragraphs associated with highlighted style”).
c. When all the paragraphs associated with the “italics” style are selected, keep the selection AS IS (don’t click in the document window).
d. Select the style named “emphasis” in the Control Board Styles panel.
e. Click the second button from right on the panel bottom toolbar (“Apply style to document selection”). All the paragraphs which were still associated with the “italics” style will be reassociated with the more “correct” “emphasis” style.
f. Repeat steps a to e above for each of the old styles that you want to replace with new more “correct” styles.
When all the paragraphs have been reassociated with new styles in such a way, the older styles will still be listed in the document style sheet. If you want to remove them altogether, use the copy/paste method into a new document I described in my previous message. You’ll automatically get rid of the now unused older styles.
This might sound complicated, but it isn’t really, once you get the hang of it.