Overview
In this chapter, we demystify the styles dropdown box so you can quickly and easily create good-looking, formatted content. Epoz pretty much forces you to edit content using styles, so it is important to learn how to use them properly.
Styles are preset font settings that you apply to words and paragraphs. For example, you can apply the "Title" style to your title instead of manually editing its font properties by hand.
Why Use Styles?
Right now you might be asking yourself why you should use styles. You've never had to use them in the past, and you don't like using someone else's concept of style on your web content. Most people feel this way until they find out how much more productive they can be using styles.
Advantages
Consistency
Styles allow all of your web content to have a consistent look and feel. The titles of your web pages always use the same font and are aligned the same way, for example. This can make your content easier to read and use.
Content & Structure, Not Formatting
When you use styles, you can focus on the content and structure of your document and forget about formatting. This might not sound like a big advantage, but you'd be surprised at how much faster and eaiser it is to author a document when you don't have to worry about font sizes.
So how should you format your content using Epoz? You really shouldn't, actually. Epoz should be used to denote the type of content you're creating, not how it should look. Are you typing a heading? Then use the "Heading 1" style. A subheading? Try the "Heading 2" style. Normal text? The "Paragraph" style works well for that.
If you find that you need to do a lot of formatting in your content, then you may want to enter you content as HTML instead (or upload an HTML file into your content manager). Epoz does not replace an HTML editor if that is truly what you need.
Ease Of Use (No, Really)
It might take a couple of documents, but soon you'll see how much easier it is to use styles.
Different Style Options
Normal
It doesn't appear that this style does anything. I wasn't able to affect any of my styles by choosing this one. If you have applied some other style to your text and want to make it look more "normal", then you may need to use the "Paragraph" style. If you would like to remove manual formatting like bolding or underlining, then you should use the "Unformat" button (see the Epoz Button Index).
Paragraph
This is the style that you should use with all non-heading or formatted text. It gives your text some space and a standard font.
Heading 1
All "top-level" headings should use the "Heading 1" style. This style is equivelant to the H1 HTML tag.
Heading 2
This style should be used for subheadings of headings that use the "Heading 1" style. This style is equivelant to the H2 HTML tag.
Heading 3
This style should be used for subheadings of headings that use the "Heading 2" style. This style is equivelant to the H3 HTML tag.
Heading 4
This style should be used for subheadings of headings that use the "Heading 3" style. This style is equivelant to the H4 HTML tag.
Heading 5
This style should be used for subheadings of headings that use the "Heading 4" style. This style is equivelant to the H5 HTML tag.
Heading 6
This style should be used for subheadings of headings that use the "Heading 5" style. This style is equivelant to the H6 HTML tag.
Formatted
This style should be used for text that is pre-formatted, meaning that you don't want Epoz to break-up your line. The "Formatted" style is commonly used with computer commands and code.
How To Use Styles
Formatting Paragraphs
All of the styles that Epoz uses are paragraph styles, meaning that they are applied to entire paragraphs. This means that you don't have to select all of the text that you want to format; you simply click within the paragraph that you want to format and then choose your style from the dropdown list.
Why would you apply the "Heading 1" style to an entire multi-sentance paragraph? Well, you wouldn't typically. If you have a multi-sentance paragraph, then you should really only be applying the "Paragraph" style to it. As far as Epoz is concerned, however, a paragraph is string of words that aren't separated by a carriage return (which you get by pressing the Enter key). So, for example, the following would be considered paragraphs:
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This is my first sentence. This is my second sentence. This is my third sentence, and all of this is one paragraph.
This is the first sentence in my new paragaph.
As you can see, every time you hit the "enter" key, you create a new paragraph.
Basic Example
Here's how you would create a Plone document with a heading, a sub-heading, and some text.
First, create an a document item in Plone and type the following three lines.
Next, place your cursor within the first line. The first line is the title, so you should format it using the "Heading 1" option. While your cursor is still within the first line, choose the "Heading 1" style from the dropdown list. Your content should now look like this:
The second line ("Chapter 1") is a sub-title/sub-heading, so you should format it using the "Heading 2" option. Place your cursor within that line and choose the "Heading 2" style from the dropdown list. Your content should now look like this:
Note that the second line is a little smaller and different from the first line. Each different heading style looks a little different.
Finally, we need to format out non-heading content. The only style option that you have for non-heading content is the "Paragraph" style. After placing your cursor within the third line, choose the "Paragraph" style from the dropdown. After that, your content should look like this:
Conclusion
Congratulations on formatting your first document using Epoz! Hopefully this tutorial has whetted your appetite and will help you get started.