Hello,
This question was already asked here Impress: How to add text style but closed without any answer.
Is there a way to create and use “named” character styles as one can do in writer?
I’m new to Impress, and direct formating seems to be the only way to format characters 
→ Hopefully I’m missing something! Any pointers?
Thank you in advance!
Text in Impress and Draw are only drawing objects not text like it is in Writer. You can apply drawing styles to the contents of a text box but not styles separately to the individual letters. So yes, you are confined to direct formatting for characters.
You can insert a Writer file as an OLE object but that might be harder to manage than direct formatting
Thank you EarnestAl for your answer!
but, erf… How disapointing! 
I guess Impress is only good for one time presentations then! 
It is a big leap to that conclusion. Character formatting is only a small proportion of text formatting in the wild, most text conforms to paragraph styles. Styles for text boxes could be regarded as the drawing equivalent of paragraph styles and can definitely be re-used.
SomeTextStyles.odp (18.9 KB)
Yes, you’re right, I see my misunderstanding 
Thanks again!