If you hold the option key down and double click on the word “selection” anywhere in this file, your insertion point will jump to the end of this file where the command “Open Selection” is explained. This illustrates how you can create hyper-text like links in Nisus.
Note: You should read this file and then print it out for reference. You can make changes in the file to see how we have used graphics and text to create it. Making changes, however, may upset the arrow positions and make the file difficult to understand. When you are making ruler changes remember that in Nisus you can undo and redo any number of changes.
Purpose: This document will introduce you to Rulers, User Styles, Paragraph Styles, Named Rulers and Style Sheets.
Make sure your Master Ruler is showing. To show it or hide it click here.
The First Line Indent icon always controls the position of the first line of the paragraph. The Left Line Wrap Icon controls the point at which all but the first lines of the paragraph will wrap. For indented paragraphs (as in File 1 above) the First Line Indent icon is to the right of the Left Indent icon. In File 2 their positions are reversed.
Margin Limits
The grey regions on the master ruler represent the Margin Limits. They can only be changed by going to Layout Page (Click the Layout Page icon) and dragging the boundaries box (dotted line surrounding the text). Changes can be made within the printer limits.
Rulers, Headers/Footers
The format of each paragraph is controlled by a ruler. To see the ruler icons (or hide them when they are showing) click on the Show Paragraph Rulers Icon. (Similarly, to show or hide attached headers/footers you can click on the Show Headers/Footers Icon). To change a paragraph format, place your insertion point, or your selection region, in that paragraph. Alternatively, you can select the ruler icon (in the left margin) and then make the change. These two methods produce slightly different effects — you should try them both. The Insertion Point method changes only that paragraph and inserts a Protective Ruler to preserve the formats of the paragraphs following. The Ruler Icon method changes all paragraphs controlled by that ruler.
When the rulers are showing, copy and paste paragraph formats by selecting the ruler and using Copy and Paste as usual.
Paragraph Styles
Paragraphs, even in different parts of the document, which are formatted with identical rulers can be edited all at once in the following way:
• Select one of the rulers.
• Press and hold the Command key and…
• Use the Master Ruler to make any change and watch it reflected in all paragraphs which use a copy of that ruler.
Named Rulers
You can name the ruler controlling your paragraph as follows:
• Click in the ruler naming box (see figure above).
• Type the name.
• Hit the Return key or click back in your document.
All named rulers in your document appear on the ruler pop-down menu (see the figures above). Any named ruler can be used in subsequent paragraphs simply by choosing its name from this ruler pop-down menu. If you edit any named ruler, the editing changes apply to all rulers with the same name throughout the document. If you have identical copies of a ruler in different places in your document, you can name them all at once as follows:
• Make sure the ruler icons in the left margins are showing (click the show rulers icon if necessary).
• Select the ruler icon in your paragraph.
• Click in the ruler naming box (see figure above).
• Type the name.
• Hold the command key down and hit the Return key.
User Styles.
On the Styles menu you will find the item Define Style… Use it to create a custom named style which is a mix and match of any character attributes. Once you have created a style, its name will appear on the styles menu and you can use it like other styles. To edit a User Style that you have created:
• Choose the menu item Define Style…
• While the resulting dialog is in front choose the style name you wish to edit from the Editing Style pop up menu.
• Choose all the attributes you wish the style to have.
• If you want it to be a paragraph style (affecting all text in a paragraph) type in the name of a ruler into the Ruler Name box. You can name the ruler in your document after or before naming the style. The ruler name can be the same as the style name or it may be different.
When you edit a user style, all text using it gets changed to the new attributes.
Style Sheets
You can create Nisus Stationery documents which contain named rulers, and/or named user defined style as follows:
• Open a new file.
• Choose Insert Ruler from the Format menu.
• Edit the ruler the way you want it to be.
• Name it.
• Repeat the steps above to create all the named rulers you want.
• Define the user named styles you wish to have in the document.
• Apply all the defined styles to any text in the document.
• Choose Select All from the Edit menu.
• Delete everything.
• Choose Save As… and click on the Nisus Stationery icon before saving.
Note: in this Demo version of Nisus you cannot save, and therefore will not be able to save the created file. To check how stationery files work, open the supplied file called Stationery example; it will open as Untitled, but with all the attributes of the saved document.
In Nisus the combination of named Rulers and User Styles covers the functions of Style Sheets, with additional flexibility. The principal usefulness of style sheets is the ability to edit the style and have all the text in that style change to the edited attributes. The principal limitation of style sheets when implemented in other word processors (notably Microsoft® Word) is that they can only be applied to whole paragraphs, not to parts of a paragraph: they include paragraph formats as well as character attributes in one package. By separating the character attributes from the paragraph attributes, Nisus' User Styles/Named Rulers features gives you total flexibility: if you add a named ruler to a user style it becomes a paragraph style; if you don’t, it remains a character style. When any user named paragraph or character style is edited, all text in that style changes appropriately. Paragraph attributes in Nisus are controlled by rulers.
You can experiment with a Stationery file that contains a variety of Paragraph level user style attributes by selecting the text that appears in this box: Stationery Example and choosing Open Selection from the File menu.
