Solved: Word 2010 Styles Recommended Uses Link?

[Paul_Hossler]

A lot of the Styles are obvious and have been around a long time (Normal, Heading, List Bullet, etc.)

There are some that are new or less common ones (especially those :banghead: darn Table styles), Body Text 2 and Body Text 3, etc.

Is there a link that has the "MS Party Line" on the way that the MS Word team thought / intended that they be used?

Not a show stopper, but I was curious about some of the less common ones, so I thought there might be something like "Recommended Uses for ..." floating around

Paul

[Frosty]

Paul,

I don't have a direct answer to your question (I know of no list explaining why styles were named a certain way, and the expected use of those styles). As my primary firm is in the process of moving to Office 2010, I've been doing a lot of research to try and understand the behind the scenes thoughts regarding some of the new features related to styles (quick styles, priority, style sets, themes, etc). I've found the below links extremely useful for that understanding.

But other than that... I think the ultimate answer might be "well, umm... we named it 'Intense Quote' because we thought you'd use it when you... umm... wanted to quote something... umm... intensely" ;)
http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-word/archive/2010/01/28/the-why-behind-our-styles-and-lists-designs.aspx
http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-word/archive/2008/10/28/behind-the-curtain-styles-doc-defaults-style-sets-and-themes.aspx#fbid=o2ZJAch4wh4
http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-word/archive/2008/10/16/behind-the-curtain-styles-order-of-operations.aspx

[Paul_Hossler]

"well, umm... we named it 'Intense Quote' because we thought you'd use it when you... umm... wanted to quote something... umm... intensely

Well, that made my day right there.:rotlaugh:

In my templates, I typically have 2 styles called _Headings and _Text. The main styles are BasedOn them, so by configuring those 2, many (but not all)settings will 'ripple' the way I want

My current macro project is to use those 2, and to apply changes to 'lower level' styles using adjustments from the .BasedOn for each style

I have all 5 million built in styles in the macro, and that got me curious.

Thanks for the links

Paul

[Frosty]

That's an interesting architecture... looks like MS got their ideas from you in terms of setting up document defaults > table styles > paragraph styles > character styles > direct formatting.

Just be aware that you're essentially mimicking this architecture, but then bypassing what MS has stated is the new "order of operations" -- which, when you boil the fat off the explanation, essentially allows a paragraph with normal style applied to look different inside a table cell than it does outside the table cell.

If you create your "base style" in a paragraph style (rather than a document default), then you're circumventing the methodology behind using table styles.

It's more of an fyi-- as the new table styles may not matter to you at all. But that's the gist of what I got out of those links. My understanding is very much a work-in-progress however.

[Paul_Hossler]

Example:

_Heading = Arial, Bold 16
H1 = Arial, Bold, 16 - based on _Heading
H2 = Arial, Bold, 14 - based on H1 (size manually applied)
H3 = Arial, Bold, 12 - based on H2 (size manually applied)

If I change
_Heading = Bookman, Bold 16

then
H1 = Bookman, Bold, 16 - based on _Heading
H2 = Bookman, Bold, 14 - based on H1 (size manually applied)
H3 = Bookman, Bold, 12 - based on H2 (size manually applied)

(Standard stuff)



but

If I change
_Heading = Arial, Bold 24

then
H1 = Arial, Bold, 24 - based on _Heading
H2 = Arial, Bold, 14 - based on H1 (size manually applied)
H3 = Arial, Bold, 12 - based on H2 (size manually applied)

the Font changes since I didn't apply any manual formatting, but the size remains

My macro allows me (or they will) to do 'relative' adjustments, including the manual formatting

e.g. Call Points (H1, _Heading, -4) to make

H1 = Arial, Bold, 20 ( _Heading size 24 - 4)

Sometimes I have too much time on my hands

Paul

[Frosty]

I think the issue you run into with that, conceptually, is that everything you're applying is *after* a potential table style.

I totally get (and agree) with using the BasedOn stuff when setting up styles. However, it would be (I think) better to set up your document template in the following manner:

1. Manage Styles > Set Defaults
+Headings font to Arial
Then have your _Heading style font name be +Headings, instead of something specific.

And then the macro which adjusts _Heading (and any styles based on it) should only handle things you can't set in the Set Defaults area of the Manage Styles dialog.

Of course, the problem with this system is that MS hasn't exposed a programmatic ability (that I've seen) to change the default values.

But... it does allow your style system to play well with themes and styles sets. If you "hard code" your font name and font size into something after the document defaults, then the application of various style sets won't have the same level of impact in the documents.

Again, if you find something I say to be inaccurate-- let me know. This is what my understanding is currently, but I'm really not an expert on the way styles work in 2010 (and what options are as a developer) yet, so I'm still trying to formulate a best practices.

Basically-- your methodology was a best practice because in the old days, the document "defaults" (as they existed) were hard coded into the application... so everything we did afterwards to manage styles was exactly what you're doing. But because MS has now exposed a more root level of the style based on a style based on a document default type thing-- I'm not sure if what you're doing would be considered a best practice anymore.

The reason I'm exploring all this is because there seems to be a different/better way of doing template design -- again, according to microsoft -- although the old way will work too, I think, except that you won't get to take advantage of the new table styles (which, to me, are simply a more robust form of what used to fall under the whole Table Autoformat functionality.

[Paul_Hossler]

1. Manage Styles > Set Defaults
+Headings font to Arial
Then have your _Heading style font name be +Headings, instead of something specific.


Had not thought about doing it that way

Might be a simpler approach

Certainly worth investigating

Thanks for the tip

Paul

[Paul_Hossler]

OK -- I gotta be missing something here.

I go to 'Set Default' and the +Body style I'd like to set to Bookman.

I see things like space before/after, etc.

Where would I / How would I say that +Body typeface should be Bookman?

I see that I can use +Body as a .BasedOn for other fonts, right now I can't get out of the starting gate

Paul

[Paul_Hossler]

Found it!!! -- Under "Change Styles" and Fonts

Trying to use a macro to set H1 = .Font.Name = "+Heading"

Doesn't seem to like it

Paul

[Frosty]

Yeah, I really don't have my mind wrapped around all of what is available and what isn't, programmatically.

You can also find it on the Page Layout tab, under Fonts. MS thought this was such an important feature, they violated their ribbon design principle and made it available in two places. But conceptually, I think it belongs in the Themes area, rather than the Styles area, because using the +Body and +Headings is part of setting up a scheme properly.

Try saving your own Theme Font, Theme Colors and then saving the current theme. You'll need to restart Word to see how it changes what is available to you from within the ribbon... but again, I don't know what MS has exposed.

Of course, technically, since this stuff all resides in the xml of the document, you could theoretically write directly to that. Which would be fun, of course ;)

[Paul_Hossler]

Which would be fun, of course


LOL -- Some month when I don't have anything to do
I'll be sure and try that :yes



If I record a macro (Change Styles, Font, ...) it's empty

I also sorted out MY problem in the macro (dumb user mistake), but I do think MS could have made the message a tiny bit clearer :banghead:

I do think I'm making progress (thanks again), but I'm curious as to the original question about see how MS intended all the fonts to be used

Paul

[Frosty]

Yeah, that macro recorder not so helpful on some of this stuff. A bunch of it is methods which you have to hunt around for on the document object. I'm shocked--shocked, I tell you--that you encountered an unclear MS error message!

ApplyQuickStyleSet2 (they added the 2 in 2010 -- for some additional enumeration options)
ApplyDocumentTheme (but not ApplyTheme, even though both appear in the Object browser, ApplyDocumentTheme does not appear in the help -- but that's the one you want if you're applying a document theme).

And then there are a bunch of read-only properties like the DocumentTheme class, which is going to take me some time to figure out what's going on there.

Still working out a lot of the quirks and kinks...