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Use style guides for documents

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If you need to reuse the same formatting options repeatedly, you may consider creating a style guide. You can customize the following style types to easily apply the formatting to your document:


Note: Only document owners can create and edit styles, but anyone can use them.

 

Use paragraph and heading styles

When you first create a file, you’ll find three pre-populated heading styles.

To apply a paragraph or heading style:

  1. Select your text in the file.
  2. From the Edit toolbar, open the Styles menu.
  3. Select a style to apply it to the text. Use the search bar to find a specific style.

Opening styles menu

Hover over different styles to get details such as font, alignment, and line spacing.

Note: The Normal style is automatically applied to text unless another style is specified. You can designate different Normal styles for text and tables.

 

Use list styles

You can create numbered, bulleted, or outlined lists in your document to organize your content. To learn more about these lists and how to customize them using the Paragraph Properties panel, read Create and edit lists. 

To apply a list style:

  1. Click on your file to where you want to add your list.
  2. From the Edit toolbar, select bullet or numbered list. (Outline list will be under numbered list.)
  3. If you want to select a different format of a list, click the arrow next to the icon and choose from the dropdown menu.

You can also create a list in your document manually by entering a number or letter on a new line, followed by a period and a space. This automatically creates the first list entry.

To edit an existing list style:

  1. From the Edit toolbar, click the dropdown arrow next to bullet or numbered list.
  2. Select Edit numbered list styles or Edit bulleted list styles.
    Edit bulleted list styles
  3. From the left panel, select the style you want to edit. A blue line on the left side of the document shows which style you’re editing.
    Left panel selected style
  4. In the Style Editor panel, select a List Level to edit.

    ListLevel4.png
  5. Checkbox formatting that you want to edit.
  6. Click Publish in the toolbar to save your changes.

 

Use table of contents styles

With the style guide, you can create a table of contents that will automatically update when changes are made. It'll be built with headings selected from the style guide. To learn more on how to use table of contents, read Create a table of contents.

To insert a table of contents style:

  1. Place your cursor in the area where you want to insert.
  2. In the toolbar, select the Edit tab and click More.
  3. Click Table of Contents.
    Insert a table of contents
  4. In the Table of Contents Properties panel, select the heading types that you want to use to build the table. By default, the first heading that appears in the style guide is already selected.
    Build a table with document headings section

An automated table of contents is made up of headings that are in the style guide. If you want to make changes to the formatting within the table of contents, then you'll need to edit the headings. To learn more on how to edit headings, view the Edit tab in Use paragraph and heading styles above.

To create a new table of contents for your style guide:

  1. In the Style Guide Editor toolbar, click the New Style icon.
  2. Select a table of contents style type from the menu.
    Create table of contents in style guide
  3. Click Add to add your new style.

From here, you can edit your new style using the settings in the right panel.

 

Use table styles

You can add tables to your file and customize their text style through the style guide. This allows you to have custom tables that can be easily inserted without having to reformat their contents each time. 

To learn more on how to use tables, view the Use tables section.

To insert a table:

  1. Click on your file to where you want to add your table.
  2. From the Edit toolbar, select Insert Table . 
  3. Select Inline or Floating.
    Insert a table

To edit a table style:

  1. Open the style guide.
  2. Select Table Styles in the outline panel.
  3. In the Style Editor panel, you can make any edits to the format of the table.
    Edit table style in style guide
  4. Click Publish in the toolbar to save your changes.
Note: If you use a style in your document and later change its attributes, those changes are automatically applied throughout the document.

You can only have one table style in the style guide. There'll already be one defaulted to you called Table (Normal).
Table style default

 


Add notes to styles

Once you add a new style, you can create notes that appear as custom tooltips next to the style in the Styles menu.

To add a note:

  1. From the Style Guide Editor, select a style in the left panel.
  2. Open the Notes section in the right panel.
  3. Add your note in the text box.
    Notes text box in panel
  4. From the toolbar, click Publish to save your changes.

To view your note in the document editor, hover over the style in the Styles menu. A Note section should appear with your custom note.

Seeing custom notes

 

Lock styles

After applying styles, any formatting changes manually applied to the text take priority by default. Document owners can lock specific style attributes to prevent these manual changes.

To lock a style attribute:

  1. From the Style Guide Editor, select a style from the left panel.
  2. In the right panel, find the attributes you want to lock.
  3. Click the lock icon to prevent changes to the selected attribute.
    Locking individual attributes

Import and export styles

If you have a style guide you’d like to reuse, you can import and export it using the options in the toolbar.

To export a style guide:

  1. From the Style Guide Editor toolbar, click Export.
  2. Select a location to save your file. Style guides are saved in the .style format.

To import a style guide:

  1. Open the Style Guide Editor for your document.
  2. From the toolbar, select Import.
  3. Select a file with a .style extension. This updates the style guide in your current document.

Note: Importing a style guide replaces the existing styles and can't be undone. You can edit styles after import.

Use text style overlays

You can have multiple overlays that display information about your text such as which style is applied. This allows designers to review and fix styles conveniently within Workiva.

To view text style overlays:

  1. In the View toolbar, select Show overlay.
    Show overlay
  2. In the dropdown of the overlay panel, you can choose between authorship and text styles.
    Authorship - Shows who contributed in a specific section. You can change the section by clicking your cursor into a different one.
    Text styles - Shows the type of text styles used throughout the file.
    Overlay dropdown options

A legend is used to show which style type is used in the file. Each style type will be highlighted with its own color.
Overlay text legend

Note: Text style overlays don’t work on sub-cell text. Only the style applied to the cell will be highlighted with an overlay.

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If you need to reuse the same formatting options repeatedly, you may consider creating a style guide. You can custo...