Character Style Problems (Plural)

[RKanarek]

Greetings,

I’ve noticed that character styles aren’t working properly ‒ I think. You decide.

N.B. The text of this post is from the attached TM Pro 2021 document.

Problem #1:
I attempted to use the Edit ➡ Replace function to change a character with one character style to a character with another character style. The attempt failed. I was trying to replace the “+” in “H+” (hydrogen ion) with the same character but with the character style “Superscript,” a character style I created so that I could control the formatting of superscripts. By my reasoning it should have worked, but it didn’t. Am I mistaken, or were SM’s programmers?

Problem #2:
An inspection of my character style “Superscript” will reveal that it is only meant to change a character’s vertical position. It should not make any other changes whatsoever. If, however, one applies it manually, it will make unauthorized/undesired changes.


Kind (holiday) regards (to all),
Richard Kanarek

[SuperTech]

As you want to create the new style from Normal with only one change, please follow these steps:

1. Right-click on Normal in Character style list > click on "New from text".
2. Define new style's name.
3. Under spacing, check the option of Superscript and define position percentage > Click OK.
4. Repeat above three steps with considering the new style as parent and define Subscript property.
5. Apply newly created character styles to the characters and check.

For your reference, I have updated your document by following the above steps. Please check the attached updated document.

Character Style Problems (Plural).tmdx

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[RKanarek]

Dear Super,

Thanks for the reply! I certainly appreciate the time and effort it took.

The issue I had tried to report was that the Format → Character Style function seemed to be broken: when creating a new character style, the function applies “character style” attributes that are blank/not-specified in the new character style’s dialog. Another issues that I didn’t report was the odd places from which newly created character styles acquire the attributes they will apply. For example, going to the Format → Character Style menu, then clicking on any existing character style, and then creating a “new” character style will produce a character style with a blank attributes dialog that never the less applies the character attributes possessed in the character style last selected. Again, I had assumed that this was because the character style function was broken. In actuality, it seems that the character style just functions radically differently than the paragraph style function, and that there are peculiarities with the new-paragraph/new-character style functions that I was previously oblivious to! On the slight chance that anyone else cares, I will elaborate.

Revision:
A new paragraph style imports its attributes from whatever paragraph it is “based on” (which may be the style itself). Just like the character style function (and as a surprise to me), a new paragraph style will be “based upon” the last paragraph style one visited even if that style was in the style menu and not in the text.

All the paragraph’s attributes are imported into and shown on the paragraph style’s dialog, and can be inspected and modified as one wishes.

Character Styles:
A new character style also imports its attributes form whatever character style it is “based on.” However the character style’s attributes are not displayed in the character style’s dialog. Instead the dialog is left completely blank; only CHANGES to those “based on” settings are shown. This lead to my confusion.

My extremely limited testing suggests that the way to obtain the effect I desired ‒ to create a character style that changes only particular character attribute(s) of selected characters while leaving all other attributes unchanged ‒ is by making a new character style “based on:” the “(floating)” [sic] character style. The “(floating)” character style (without the quotes, but with the parentheses) does not appear among the existing character styles, but does appear among the character styles that a new character style can be “based on.” It seems that “(floating)” in TextMaker is, by my reasoning, akin to transparencies in .PNGs: character styles “based on:” “(floating)” seem to only change character attributes selected in the dialog, leaving other character attributes unchanged.

I welcome corrections or confirmations. Bonus points to anyone who can provide a precise official explanation of the attributes of and differences between the undocumented character styles “(floating)” and “(floating, paragraph)”.


Kind regards,
Richard Kanarek

[SuperTech]

Yes, you are correct. Please check the more details on our online user manual.

[RKanarek]

Dear Super:

I just realized I forgot to say thanks for your reply. Thanks!

Also, while I'm sure you fine folks have plenty to do already, perhaps you folks might consider updating the PDF-manual/offline-help when you update the online manual. Just a suggestion.

Cordially,
Richard

[SuperTech]

We update all our manuals time to time, but complete update takes sometimes. I have forwarded your suggestion to our product management team...