Style Inheritance?

As you say one style should be based on another and changes flow through from the original style to the styles based on it where they have points in common, such as the same font.

Unfortunately to my knowledge Pages lacks this ability, and as you say this is another surprising omission which comes from the programmers' view of what they think the user "wants".

Even though I suspect the user would want what they have come to expect as standard from most every other Word Processor or DTP application.

365nice wrote:
Its a shame its almost there…

As nice as many of the features in Pages are, this sums up my opinion for many of the other features.

I am always hanging out, hoping that the next version will become good enough.

I see your need, and I definitely think you should mention it at http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html .

However, personally, I am quite happy that there is no style inheritance. I use it in MS Word, but I usually end up in some twisted knot, that is difficult to sort out, before I get it right. Apple usually tries to protect us users from intricate problems, so it is quite understandable that they did not implement style inheritance.

Magnus,

Yes it is possible to go overboard and make it very hard to follow, but a single layer of inheritance is not hard to comprehend.

Typically all your text styles would get their font information from the 1st paragraph style and all the heads would get theirs from the Head style.

All the rest would be sizing, colors, indents and leading variations etc.

As the OP suggested this would allow a clean and simple change of fonts quick and easy instead of painfully drawn out. Particularly as Pages uses a very clumsy way of updating a style ie having to save a changed style over the same name previous style.

Now that is a recipe for disaster and migraines

It's really easy to change the used font.

--\[SCRIPT changeFontsInTemplate]
(*
Define an application (theApp)
Define the template to modify (theTemplate)
Define the couples of oldFontName, newFontName
Run the script.
It will modify the template accordingly.
For safe it will also create a gzipped backup of the original Index-xxx.xml file.

Yvan KOENIG (Vallauris, FRANCE)
16 octobre 2008
*)

(* you may set it to "Pages" or "Numbers" *)
set theApp to "Pages"

(* you may define the template of your choice *)
set theTemplate to "Letters:Classic Letter.template:"

set listepolices to {}
(* define your couples oldFontName, newFontName *)
set couple to {"Didot-Bold", "Arial-BoldMT"}
copy couple to end of listepolices
set couple to {"Didot", "ArialMT"}
copy couple to end of listepolices

(* define the paper size "index-iso.xml" or "index-trad.xml" *)
set nomIndex to "index-iso.xml"

set chemin to (path to applications folder as text) & "iWork '08:" & theApp & ".app:Contents:Resources:Templates:" & theTemplate

set cheminIndex to chemin & nomIndex
tell application "Finder"
set flagGz to exists file (cheminIndex & ".gz")
set flag to exists file (cheminIndex)
if (not flagGz) and not flag then error "No " & nomIndex & " file available !"
if flagGz then
if flag then delete file (cheminIndex)
if not (exists file (chemin & "backup_" & nomIndex & ".gz")) then my duplique(chemin, nomIndex & ".gz")
do shell script "gunzip " & quoted form of POSIX path of (cheminIndex & ".gz")
else
if not (exists file (chemin & "backup_" & nomIndex)) then
my duplique(chemin, nomIndex)
do shell script "gzip " & quoted form of POSIX path of (chemin & "backup_" & nomIndex)
end if
end if -- flagGz
end tell -- Finder
set leTexte to ""
try
set leTexte to read file (chemin & nomIndex)
end try
if leTexte is "" then error "Unable to read : " & cheminIndex & " !"

repeat with l in listepolices
set leTexte to my remplace(leTexte, item 1 of l, item 2 of l)
end repeat

write leTexte to (cheminIndex as alias) starting at 0
do shell script "gzip " & quoted form of POSIX path of cheminIndex

-- ==================

on remplace(t, TID1, TID2)
local l
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to TID1
set l to (text items of t)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to TID2
set t to l as text
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
return t
end remplace

-- ==================

on duplique(d, n)
local dup
set p2ti to path to temporary items
tell application "Finder"
try
set dup to duplicate file (d & n) to p2ti
end try
try
set name of dup to "backup_" & n
end try
duplicate file ((p2ti as text) & "backup_" & n) to (d as alias)
end tell
end duplique
end

-- ==================
--[/SCRIPT]

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE jeudi 16 octobre 2008 18:04:53)