Using Styles in Storyist and Word In this post RobertS asked about transferring a file from Storyist to Word for editing and back into Storyist. The best way to do this is to set up Word to match the formatting that Storyist applies automatically. That way, you need to engage in a minimal amount of intervention. Not doing so, in addition to making busy work, is likely to result in the loss of italics and other specialized formatting. Here is a quick recap of what styles are and how to make use of them during file export and import. This discussion assumes you are writing a novel, as screenplays have different styles in Storyist and are more often exported to Final Draft, not to Word. The basic process, however, is the same. What Are Styles? Styles are collections of formatting instructions that ensure a consistent look for your chapter title headings, body text, section separators, and other parts of your manuscript. Styles typically come in two types: paragraph styles, which govern the font, font size, text alignment, and other formatting for entire paragraphs; and character styles, which apply to individual chunks of text within paragraphs. Here I am discussing paragraph styles. A typical Body Text paragraph style might be Times New Roman Regular 12 pt., double-spaced, left aligned, first line indented 0.5”. Styles in Storyist If you open a new file based on Novel in Storyist, you get a template that includes “My Manuscript,” a short discussion of standard file formatting for submission to an editor or a publisher. Look at the top of the screen, and you will see the words “Section Text.” Hover over those words, and you will see double arrows. That is the Storyist style list (also available by clicking on the Format Menu and choosing Style). In Storyist, but not in Word, styles also determine how your manuscript outline appears in the Project View: they organize your manuscript, so you need to use them to ensure that your text works the way you want it to. The typical Storyist manuscript uses three styles: Chapter Title, Section Text (which corresponds to Body Text), and Section Separator, the # character centered on a line by itself, which Storyist reads as ending one section and beginning a new one. These styles are predefined for you. If you would like to change one, triple-click on a paragraph that has no additional formatting, use the Inspector change the font, alignment, indent, spacing, etc., to get the results you want, then choose Format > Style > Redefine Style from Selection. All text defined with the same style will take on the new formatting. If you have italics and bold in other paragraphs, that text will remain italicized/bolded. You can create new styles in the same way: choose a paragraph of plain text, change the formatting, choose Format > Style > Create New Style from Selection and make sure that the box next to Apply this style on creation is checked if you want the paragraph you worked on to have the new style (make sure it is not checked if you want the paragraph to retain its old style). So styles in Storyist are pretty simple. If you expect to end up with an e-book file, by the way, there is not much point in changing the standard formatting other than to apply bold, italic, or underlining, because the e-book conversion will wipe out your special formatting. When you get ready to export the file from Storyist, choose File > Export and pick the option to export the file as RTF. Storyist will keep your styles intact. Styles in Word Many Apple programs, including Text Edit and Pages, ignore styles in RTF files. Therefore, you do not want to use one of these programs to edit your Storyist file. Word and Open Office recognize styles in RTF files and respect them, but only if you have already told Word what to do with Chapter Title, Section Text, and Section Separator. If you haven’t, then Word treats everything as Normal or Default Style, which means that your formatting information may eventually be lost. To prevent this, before opening your RTF file in Word, open a new Word document and type some dummy text: Chapter One My first sentence. # Select Chapter One and format it to match the formatting you use for Chapter Title in Storyist, then click in the Styles section of the Formatting Palette (choose View > Formatting Palette if you don’t see it), and with your text still selected, click on New Style. Name your new style Chapter Title. It will be predefined by Word with the formatting you just chose. Do the same thing with “My first sentence,” but call the style “Section Text.” Then select # and center it, add any formatting you need to, and create a new style called Section Separator. Word will not apply the styles when you create them, but that doesn’t matter. Select your three sentences and erase them, then choose Insert > File and navigate to the RTF file you exported from Storyist. It should arrive with all its formatting intact, with one exception. Word has its own list of fonts, whereas Apple maintains a separate list that Storyist uses. So your italics may look as if they have doubled (they have). If you plan to print the file from Word, you can search for italic and convert it to not italic, and the text will look normal again. But if you plan to read the file back into Storyist, do not make the conversion, or the text won’t look right when you read it back in. Hope this helps. Marguerite
