Guide

Text styles

Name a set of text formatting once — size, typeface, weight, colour, alignment, spacing — and every block you give it to follows when you change it.

What it is

A text style is a named set of formatting that blocks point at instead of carrying their own. Give ten headings the style "Heading", then change the style's size once, and all ten change. A style lives in the template it was made in, so it travels with export, history and duplication.

Styles apply to Text, Markdown and List blocks. Other blocks — Image, Table, Label + value, Ruled form, Page number, Form control — either have no single text setting or style each part separately, so they cannot take one. The editor says so rather than letting you pick a style that would do nothing.

Key options

No style — the block goes back to carrying its own formatting. Its look does not change.
New from this block — turn the block's current formatting into a named style, and give the block that style. Nothing on the page moves.
Reset to style — throw away the changes you made on top of the style and take the style's values again.
Update style — push the changes you made on this block into the style, so every other block using it follows.
Manage styles — rename a style, or delete it.

How to use it

Format one block the way you want it.
With that block selected, open the Block tab and choose New from this block under Text style. Give it a name.
Select the other blocks that should match — one, or several at once — and pick the style from the Text style list.
To change them all later, edit any one of them and choose Update style, or edit the style itself under Manage styles.

What the editor tells you before you commit

Picking a style with a mixed selection says how many blocks it reaches: "Applies to 4 of 6 selected blocks. Image and Table are skipped." The blocks it cannot reach are never changed quietly.
Deleting a style says how many blocks use it, and offers two outcomes. Keep their current look (recommended) copies the style's formatting onto those blocks, so the page stays exactly as it is. Revert them to unstyled removes the formatting with the style.
Renaming a style changes only its name. Nothing on the page moves, because blocks point at a style by an internal id, not by name.

Each of these is one undo step.

Good to know

Giving a block a style clears the formatting it was carrying. That is what makes the style visible: a block created from the palette already has an explicit size, weight and colour, and those would otherwise win over the style forever. Word behaves the same way. Your text, data fields, conditions and box settings are untouched.
Anything you change after applying a style stays. The block then shows, for example, "Heading · 2 changes", and Reset to style puts it back.
Two styles cannot share a name in one template.
A downloaded Word file does not contain Word's own named styles. The document looks right in Word, PDF and HTML — headings are the right size, weight and colour — but a Word user opening the .docx will not find "Heading" in Word's style list, because each piece of text carries its formatting directly. If you edit the downloaded file in Word, treat it as formatted text rather than a styled document.
Styles cover text only for now. Background fill, borders, padding and rounded corners are still set per block.

A worked example: three styles for a contract

Make one paragraph look like a chapter heading: 16 pt, bold, your accent colour. With it selected, choose New from this block under Text style and name it "Heading".
Make a body paragraph 10 pt in your normal colour and save it as "Body".
Make a small grey 8 pt note and save it as "Fine print".
Select every other heading and choose "Heading"; every other paragraph and choose "Body".
The client asks for a bigger heading: edit "Heading" once (Manage styles, or change one heading and choose Update style) and every heading follows.

If something looks wrong

The style list shows nothing for this block. Only Text, Markdown and List blocks take a style.
A block did not change when I updated the style. The block carries changes of its own ("Heading · 2 changes"); press Reset to style to take the style's values.
A block changed size when I applied the style. Applying a style clears the formatting the block carried, so the style's values show.
The Word file has no "Heading" in its style list. Correct; the look is right but each piece of text carries its own formatting.
The text colour does not change in a table. A table formats each cell separately; it does not take a text style.