## Working with Styles

Styles are a handy way to make uniform changes to the look of your comic - want all panels to have a particular color and width to their border? Want captions to have the same background gradient fill? These are all editable in a single place - the Styles Attributes in the Details tab. All the styles settings in a comic are called a "stylesheet".

You can save and load stylesheets independently from a comic - allowing you to easily create multiple comics with a standard look. If you want ALL elements to be created in a particular style then Update the 'default' style.

### Creating a new style

1. Create a new comic
2. Place an element (for example, a panel) on the page.
3. Bring up the Details interface by choosing View->Show Details or by clicking on the Details" tab.
4. All the attributes for the object, and the style for the object are displayed - lets change the background colour to red.
5. Change the color and watch the panel background color change. Notice now the pencil icon next to the style name. This shows there is a variation to the style.
6. Press the 'Save As' button, and a pop-up menu asks you to name your new style. Lets call it "Big Red". Press OK.
7. You can now use this style for other elements.

### Updating a style

1. Create a new Panel by dragging it out from the Library
2. Now set it's style to the new red filled style we just created by choosing it in Style Attributes (In Details). You can see the style we just made.
5. Make a change to the panel, for example, lets make the frame thicker.
6. Now there is pencil icon next to our style. That means we have made a variation.
7. We like our change, and we want all elements with the same style to change as well, so we click "✓ Update"
8. The asterisk* now dissapears. Also our first panel now has a thick border as well - it uses the same style

### Reverting to a style

At any point you can revert back to the original style chosen by selecting 'Revert'. A pop up menu will remind you that you will loose your changes to the style - to prevent this you should update the current style or create a new style.

### Stylesheets

Once you have collected a group of styles you like, then you might like to use this entire collection in a new comic, or in an existing comic. You might also like to make this new set of styles your default stylesheet, so, for example, if you find you always like your Balloons to be a particular way, then you can make them the default.
Stylesheets contain all the available styles for all available objects, like balloons, panels etc.
Here's how you go about creating a stylesheet with a custom balloon style as an option.

1. Create a new style and drag in a caption/balloon - you have to get out of text edit mode because otherwise the font picker is changing the selected characters rather than the caption element style.
2. Click on the font style picker for the caption
3. Pick a new font size.
4. Update the style (under Details)
5. Next caption to be dragged in has the new font size by default.

This will then be the default for that comic.
You can now go to File->Save Stylesheet to create a stylesheet with the collection of updated styles for all objects. If you'd like to apply this to any existing comics, then you can go File->Load Stylesheet and load the appropriate stylesheet. For example, you might make a stylesheet which has a series of "ghoulish"Balloons and Panels. When you Load this in an exisiting document, the styles of any object which has the same name will be replaced with the new style, and there will be a new selection of styles (the ones you made) available for all objects.
If you want these styles applied always to a new comic, then you have to change the master stylesheet.

1. Configure the defaults as you want for the various elements - basically set up a page and drop elements on it - configure the default style for each as you like them (then update them in details).
2. File->Save Stylesheet... (name something memorable!)
3. Quit Comic Life completely and relaunch Comic Life
4. In Preferences (Comic Life > Preferences...) choose the saved stylesheet.
5. Then create a new Comic document. All New comics will use that stylesheet.