RE: Character Tag Instructions Correct?

[Thomas Neuburger <thomasn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

About tags, the logic of their effect can be a bit tricky.

Applying a character tag (or any other tag in Frame) applies all the 
properties of that tag to the selection -- in other words, the whole tag is 
always applied, including the tag name.

However, since many character tags are defined with As Is for some or most 
properties, those properties "pass through" when tags are applied.

Think of a tag as a mask, in which some properties are changed (where the 
mask has content) and others are allowed to be transparent (where the mask 
has holes -- with As Is). Applying successive tags is like applying 
successive masks -- the cumulative effect depends on where the "holes" or 
transparencies are (i.e., where As Is appears) in each mask in the stack.

For example, say I have a tag called Italic that's defined as angle=Italic, 
and As Is everywhere else (including weight), and another tag called Bold 
defined as weight=Bold and As Is everywhere else (including angle).

If I apply the Italic tag to text that's 12pt Helvetica, Regular angle, 
Regular weight (plus other properties), only the angle is changed (because 
of As Is in the rest of the tag definition); in addition, the selection 
goes from a "no tag" state to having the Italic tag.

If I next apply the Bold tag to the same selection, weight changes to Bold, 
the tag changes to Bold, but the italic effect persists -- because the Bold 
tag is defined with Angle=As Is. (If the Bold tag were defined with 
angle=Regular, the italic effect would go away.)

If I now reapply the Italic tag (as defined above), nothing changes but the 
tag, which changes to Italic -- the text looks the same. The angle is 
already Italic, and the bolding persists due to weight=As Is in the Italic 
tag definition.


To remove the formatting (but not the tag), you can click Plain on the 
toolbar or select Format / Style / Plain. (Plain removed any formatting 
that can be applied though the Format / Style menu.)

To remove the *tag* however, you have to click Default Para Font in the 
Character Catalog. Note that clicking Plain produces an override if the 
paragraph font is defined as italic. Plain is not the same as Default 
Paragraph Font. (Whew -- enough logic for a philosophy major.)


Some advice about As Is -- think carefully how to use As Is when defining 
tags. Good planning can save some surprises later, as well as some rework.

Also a warning -- if you click in tagged text, the Character Designer picks 
up all of the formatting, not just the tag's definition. If you copy this 
formatting, you'll get more than the tag -- you'll also get the formatting 
that As Is passed through. (And if you do an Update All, you'll overwrite 
(and likely trash) the tags definition.)

To see just the tag definition, select the tag from the Character Tag 
pull-down list in the Designer. Many of us have mis-defined tags by not 
watching out for these gotchas.

Cheers,

Tom Neuburger

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Martha J Davidson wrote:

>At 09:35 AM 6/7/2002 -0400, Durkin, Maryellen wrote:
>>You and the contractor are saying the same thing; just in different ways. 
>>You're way uses the Default Para Font character tag exclusively; the 
>>contractor is leaving which tag to use up to the writer.  For instance, a 
>>writer may want to change a BOLD character tag to an ITALIC character 
>>tag; not necessarily does the writer always want to just turn the tagged 
>>text back to the default font.
>
>I thought if you have a character tag and apply another one, they are both 
>now applied; formatting from the first character tag does not go away. The 
>only exception to this is Default Para Font, which removes all of the 
>formatting applied from any character tag. That's not quite the same thing 
>as what Ada's contractor said.
>--
>Martha Jane {Kolman | Davidson}
>Dances With Words
>mailto:editrix@nemasys.com
>
>"We must become the change we want to see in the world."
>         --Gandhi


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