Hello,

I'm using PageStream 4.1.5.6 (Amiga) to update a 250 page manual. I've
encountered a problem (bug?) that I can't fix. I entered a <Return> on
the last letter of an italicized word and the italics propagated to the
rest of the text in the chapter (27 pages). I tried highlighting all the
text and changing the text style to plain but it has no effect. How do
I change the text back to plain? This problem has occurred before but it
only propagated a font size change to 3 pages and I was able to delete
and retype the text. That's not a solution I want to apply to 27 pages!

Regards,
--
Jeff

Hi Jeff,

My recommendation is to use the "Send to Editor" feature* to see and directly edit the formatting tags. On the Amiga, PgS was (is?) bundled with PageLiner, but that feature can be set to (most) any text editor**. In the text editor you can see the formatting codes. I pretty much only use styles which are called by either @P<stylename>: (for paragraph styles) or @C<stylename>: (for character styles). For example, @PNormal: means that the paragraph style named "Normal" applies to text following it.

Directly applied formatting, which is what it sounds like you did, works essentially the same way, though it has been so long I've forgotten exactly what the tags are. I *think* it is <I> for italics, but very importantly, PgS doesn't have an *end* tag. What happens is that <I> toggles the use of italics. So in this email the text from the first tag to the second would be italics. Things can get "funny" in a hurry though with formatting changes right at the end or beginning of paragraphs where styles change.

For articles of any size I have found direct styling to be problematic which is a large part of why I use styles for basically all formatting. My experience has been that I experience fewer issues doing it this way, though there are still some occasions where things are awkward.

I *do* use directly applied styling, but generally only for frameless text objects.

Tim Doty

* Put the text cursor in the document and either have no text selected or select all, then from the menu Edit > Send to Editor.

** In preferences, select the Editors section and make sure the appropriate script is selected -- on the Amiga I think this is SendTextToEditor.rexx -- that script handles exporting the article, starting an editor to edit it, and re-importing the text.

On Jan 2, 2013, at 3:37 PM, Jeff <jeg11@comcast.net> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm using PageStream 4.1.5.6 (Amiga) to update a 250 page manual. I've
> encountered a problem (bug?) that I can't fix. I entered a <Return> on
> the last letter of an italicized word and the italics propagated to the
> rest of the text in the chapter (27 pages). I tried highlighting all the
> text and changing the text style to plain but it has no effect. How do
> I change the text back to plain? This problem has occurred before but it
> only propagated a font size change to 3 pages and I was able to delete
> and retype the text. That's not a solution I want to apply to 27 pages!
>
> Regards,
> --
> Jeff
>
>

Jeff,

I guess that you are using Text Styles.
I've seen that happen before (not sure with what, but see my comment on
Paste), but not to the extent that you are having.
I think that you can select the text and apply the plain font to it. You
only loose all attributes (italic, bold, or different size of the font)
you applied to some text parts. If that's bad, you have to decide.

Are you sure it was only the Return? Wasn't it a Paste?
If it was a Paste, then you let the still selected text intact (the text
after the paste isn't what you want it to be), and apply now the correct
Text Style to it. Now the text after the selected text is normal again.

You can still load a backup (if you make automatic backups!). You can
see where they are hiding in Preferences / item General, in Saving &
Backup, at Path:

Hope this helps,

Theo

Op 2-1-2013 22:37, Jeff schreef:
> Hello,
>
> I'm using PageStream 4.1.5.6 (Amiga) to update a 250 page manual. I've
> encountered a problem (bug?) that I can't fix. I entered a <Return> on
> the last letter of an italicized word and the italics propagated to the
> rest of the text in the chapter (27 pages). I tried highlighting all the
> text and changing the text style to plain but it has no effect. How do
> I change the text back to plain? This problem has occurred before but it
> only propagated a font size change to 3 pages and I was able to delete
> and retype the text. That's not a solution I want to apply to 27 pages!
>
>
> Regards,

--
PageStream Pro 5.0.5.8 on Windows 7 Pro 64 bits (Dutch), Python 2.7.3 and PySide 1.1.1 (all 32 bits, unless stated otherwise)
AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 215 Processor at 2.70 GHz and 4 GB RAM