The Style Inspector toolpane opens by default in the Style Editor. The purpose of the Style Inspector in the Style Editor is to show all of the attributes controlling a selected style and identify the source or origin of those attributes; including those directly applied to the style, those inherited from a parent style, and those inherited from the browser.

 

When you create a new style, or select an existing one, the controls (toolbars and dialog boxes) in the Style Editor only show formatting attributes that are directly applied to the style. Formatting attributes inherited from the document body style, a default style or style element, or from the browser do not appear in the Style Editor controls, which makes it difficult to identify the attributes that control a style and change them. Therefore, if a non-default paragraph style inherits 6 points of spacing before and after the paragraph from the default paragraph style, those values do not appear in the Spacing dialog box for the non-default style.

 

Note: Colors appear in the Style Inspector with a color preview and their RGB values (black = 0, 0, 0 and so on).

 

Since attributes from a default style or the browser do not appear in the toolbar controls, you may not know the source of the attributes affecting a style, nor how to remove or modify them. The Style Inspector shows the attributes by source so that you can make appropriate changes.

 

Note: Some attributes may appear in the Style Inspector that are not directly changeable. These are attributes that are built into the style sheet itself. For example, the default browser border style for a table is a double line style, but the style sheet attributes are set to create table styles with a single solid line style.

 

The Style Inspector toolpane is divided into the following categories:

The toolpane is dynamic and the reported attributes change as you select other styles or in the case of complex styles such as tables, other elements of the style. The Style Inspector is read only; you cannot make changes to it.

 

Note: The Style Inspector also appears in the Web Page Editor to help you distinguish between formatting that results from a style as opposed to directly applied formatting. See Use the Style Inspector in the Format Content with Styles section of the Enhance Content with Web Pages chapter for more information about using the Style Inspector in a web page.


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