WriteFlow Help
Index

# The WriteFlow Output Styles 1

In WriteFlow, you can not as easily change the appearance of your text, as you might be used to in other Word processors. We see this as a feature, because WriteFlow uses a strict seperation from structural information and formatting information in your document. Let us try to explain.

In WriteFlow, every text you write has to have a Text Style, as you know it from Microsoft Word, but in WriteFlow, this Text Style is linked to what we call "Element Type". When you write in an empty document, WriteFlow automatically creates a new Element for this text.

The WriteFlow Elements are marked with the Element Tags, which allow you to instantly see the beginning and the end of an Element. Every element can be addressed individually to attach keywords or a note, or to change the Element Type. The Element you see above is a "Default" Element. You can easily change the Element Type in the Inspector, or even better in the Command Tool with the "Define as..." command.
Now, every Element Type has a Text Style. You can change the Text Style directly in the Format-Inspector, or here:

Here you can create new Element Types by clicking on the "+" on the bottom of the middle colomn of this window. You have do so every time you want to use text for which you do not already find the matching Element Type. If you want to write for example text aligned to the right, you'll have to create a new Element Type and with it you'll need a new Text Style as well. Normally you'll always create a new Text Style for every new Element Type, as you can see in the following window:

You can see that this will create a new Element Type for all the Output Styles available. While the Element Types are universal, the Text Styles are not. Depending on the Output Styles, you can attribute different Text Styles to every Element Type. The Element Types are the underlying structure, while the Output Styles are bundles of Text Styles which define the actual appearance, much like in CSS. We needed this to have more information about the way you want to use the text in a document, especially to know if you want to use some special text as a quote.

It surely takes some time to get used to it, but you'll appreciate the cleanlyness of the appearance and the possibilty to address the Elements by just moving the cursor into them.