How do I import one style into another style?

[mahengrui1]

Hello, now the document has 2 styles, how do I import some attributes in one style into another style? For example, style A has Fonts Arial but style B has not, I wanna import the Fonts Arial into style B.

This requirement aims to bonus Hierarchical style feature I guess, as then I can avoid certain attributes overwrited when dragging the hierarchical tree to select new parent style. Thanks!

[ajlittoz]

Please try to improve your question to make it easier to understand.

Apparently you want to make some style depend on another one, so that modification to the “ancestor” is forwarded to the “descendant”. If this is want you want, it is effectively a “hierarchical” approach to styling. You can see the hierarchy in built-in style by choosing Hierarchical from the drop-down menu at bottom of the side style pane.

The relation between styles is created by:

• right-clicking on the “ancestor” name and New
  This creates a copy linked to the ancestor with all attributes inherited from it
• adding a style name in Inherit from of Organizer tab
• dragging a style in the side pane over some other style
  If the dragged style is a local head of a hierarchy, the whole sub-tree is also inserted in the dependency (because the existing inheritance links are not modified during the drag-and-drop operation).

Note that the “ancestor” must pre-exist in both cases.

Also, the inheritance will work as long as you don’t modify an attribute in the “descendant”. Any touched attribute breaks the inheritance chain. The only to restore the inheritance is to press Reset to Parent which erases all attributes in the tab.

[mahengrui1]

Improved. Thanks!

[ajlittoz]

Not that much! A few remarks:

• You don’t “import” an attribute
  When styles are linked by an ancestor-descendant relation, attributes explicitly set (or more generally “touched”) in the descendant no longer inherit from the ancestor. Therefore only “transparent” attributes in the descendant participate in inheritance. I call “transparent” attributes you have not “touched”. Setting an attribute, then after making up your mind, restoring the apparent initial value does not put back the attribute in “transparent” state; it simply forces the value the same as in the ancestor. But if you change it in the ancestor, it will not propagate to the descendant because the value was forced.
• When you drag and drop a style over another one, you simply change the relationship
  This means the dragged style will inherit only for the “transparent” attributes. So to “avoid certain attributes to be overridden after the operation”, set them explicitly. This will mask the inheritance.