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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

 

Use value format styles

Note: This feature is in limited availability. Contact your Customer Success Manager for access.

You can use value format styles to apply styles to cells, subcell links, source links, destination links, placeholders, and chart labels. To learn more about formatting values, view Format values and numbers.

You can apply a specific format style to values in cells and text links.

To apply a value format style: 

  1. Select at least one cell or link in the file.
  2. In the Properties panel, open the Value formatting tab.
    Value formatting panel
  3. In the Value Format Style dropdown, select style to apply to the values.
     
Note: The Automatic format style is automatically applied to values, unless another style is specified.

Alternatively, you can select Value formatting in the Edit toolbar once you’ve selected a cell or link.
Value formatting in toolbar

After value format styles become available in your workspace, previously applied value formats will be labeled as (Legacy). Previously applied legacy value formats can continue to be modified in the Value Formatting panel and aren’t connected to the file’s style guide. To change the applied legacy value format to a value format style connected with the style guide, select a value format style from the Value Format Style dropdown.

Note: You can’t reapply a legacy value format once value format styles have been enabled.


Legacy value formats

You can also review how value formats are applied for both Value format styles (styles connected to the style guide) and Value formatting (legacy value formats) in overlays. To learn more about overlays, go to Use text style overlays.

Note: Value format styles overlays are only available in Spreadsheets and tables in Document and Presentations.

To edit an existing value format style:

  1. From the Value formatting panel, open the Value Format Style dropdown.
  2. Click Edit value format styles to open the Style Guide Editor.
    Open style guide editor through dropdown
    You can also access the Style Guide Editor through the Edit toolbar and clicking Edit value format styles.
    Open style guide editor in toolbar
  3. In the Style Guide Editor, you can make edits to each value format style in the Style Editor.
  4. Click Publish in the toolbar to save your changes.

     

To create a new value format style for your style guide:

  1. In the Style Guide Editor toolbar, click the New Style icon.

  2. Select a value format style type from the menu.

    Note: Depending on the style type you choose, the options available for configuration in the Style Editor panel may be different from each other.

    Select style type

  3. Name your style and click Add to add your new style.

You can use the Move Up or Move Down icons to move the style within the outline in any order you want. 

PromoteDemote.png

When the changes are published in the style guide, the outline order of the value format styles will be replicated in the Value Format Style dropdown in the file. This allows you to easily group similar styles together.
Moved.png

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 file.
  2. From the toolbar, select Import.
    ImportToolbar.png
  3. Choose the style guide file you want to import. This will have a .style extension.

  4. Select an option for importing.

    Replace all: This will replace all existing styles with the imported styles.

    Custom import: This allows you to choose which styles you want to import, and whether you want to overwrite any existing styles that have the same name or add the imported styles to the current style guide. Selecting this provides the following options:

    - Replace all styles in group with imported styles: This replaces all styles in the selected group with the styles from the import style guide.
    - Add imported styles to group: All styles from the import style guide are added to the selected style group.
    - Custom: This allows you to select which existing styles are to be updated. You can customize the imports for each style group

  5. To finish, click Import.
Note: Replacing styles can't be undone. However, you can edit styles in the Style Guide Editor after the import.

Here are some examples of importing actions that you can do:

  • Replace all value format styles with imported value format styles.Replace all value format styles
  • Add imported list styles to existing list styles.Add list styles to existing
  • Add selected imported value format styles and replace selected value format styles.
    Adding and replace value format styles

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...