Styles dependant on preceding styles

[Matt]

I would like to have a style change behavior based on what style was
preceding it. For example, it would be great if the body paragraph
that follows a block quote or a header would have no first line
indent. As it is, I apply a different body paragraph style (Body Text
2) whenever I need to acheive this, but there should be a way to
modify Body Text so that it automatically behaves correctly.

I know that this can be done in CSS, but it is a behavior that is not
supported by Internet Explorer so I am afraid that they might not have
thought about it when designing Word. Here is an example of this,
using adjacent selecters:
http://www.brainjar.com/css/using/adjacentdemo.html

Thanks

Matt

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can choose any other style as the "Style for following paragraph" of a
given style. So set Body Text 2 as the "next style" for your headings and
block text. I use Body Text for this, with all heading styles set to use
Body Text as the next style. If I am indenting subsequent paragraphs (that
is, if I'm using a first-line indent instead of space between paragraphs), I
set Body Text First Indent as the following style for Body Text.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Matt]

Maybe this isn't the right way of thinking about things, but I was
under the impression that styles should primarily serve a descriptive
/ structural purpose. It seems a little bit inelegant to have to
create a seperate style that is solely based on formatting ("do not
apply first line indent"). As a practical matter, it would be a bother
to change styles around if you reorganized the paragraphs but the
content is the same, with the same structural purpose of being a Body
Text paragraph.

I guess this would count as a I-hope-there-is-a-way-in-future-versions
topic, but using this should do as a workaround.

Matt

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

No, a style is a container for a set of formatting. Although it's usually
more useful to name the style based on its purpose rather than its
formatting (that is, Heading 1 rather than Arial Bold 16 pt), the formatting
is what counts. And in fact you do have two separate "purposes" here, too:
"first paragraph following a side heading" and "remaining body text
paragraphs." Needing to retag styles as a result of editing is obviously a
drawback, but it is one I encounter less often than some because I don't
fully format text until editing is complete (being mostly an editor rather
than a writer).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.