<concept xml:lang="en" id="GUID-80F83F9C-2B58-5238-AE38-1193BAE72CB0"><title>How to use styles</title><prolog><metadata><keywords/></metadata></prolog><conbody><p>Paragraph styles are encapsulated by the <xref href="GUID-76C10266-F6E3-354F-B26C-C0207710D603.dita"><apiname>RParagraphStyleInfo</apiname></xref>, <xref href="GUID-37304E7C-A6B0-3766-B4C3-0A40EEF40018.dita"><apiname>CParagraphStyle</apiname></xref> and <xref href="GUID-BC8CFDE5-403A-3D78-AEFB-3E78775ED90A.dita"><apiname>CStyleList</apiname></xref> classes. These three classes should be used as follows:</p> <ul><li id="GUID-C7F5A392-96DD-5A0B-92F0-76CAC951997B"><p>All styles are based on the global paragraph and character format layers. A <codeph>CParagraphStyle</codeph> object should be constructed specifying these normal layers.</p> </li> <li id="GUID-A627B292-0011-5317-811B-D39B2D3B9810"><p>To set the paragraph format of a <codeph>CParagraphStyle</codeph> object, use the <codeph>SetL()</codeph> function that it inherits from its base class <xref href="GUID-C5A6B3D4-1BDE-35B4-AC6B-DF517A4D4147.dita"><apiname>CParaFormatLayer</apiname></xref>.</p> </li> <li id="GUID-A6F45D0B-4087-5C5B-BA8A-F3C17A4617E1"><p>To set the character format of a <codeph>CParagraphStyle</codeph> object, use the <xref href="GUID-37304E7C-A6B0-3766-B4C3-0A40EEF40018.dita#GUID-37304E7C-A6B0-3766-B4C3-0A40EEF40018/GUID-E47452D3-9ED7-32FA-9488-7226984F628F"><apiname>CParagraphStyle::CharFormatLayer()</apiname></xref> function, which returns a non-null pointer to the <codeph>CCharFormatLayer</codeph> object, and then call its <codeph>SetL</codeph> function.</p> </li> <li id="GUID-F03318C1-A195-5011-896D-F1FD2E531C5D"><p>Paragraph styles inherit attributes from the normal style. Attributes explicitly set in the <codeph>CParagraphStyle</codeph> object override the attributes from the normal style.</p> </li> <li id="GUID-5B75407B-E9D4-5226-BFDE-677A2C4131FA"><p>Append all user defined styles to a <codeph>CStyleList</codeph>.</p> </li> <li id="GUID-371EB753-60AA-596C-B806-064669DF6468"><p>To do this, construct an <codeph>RParagraphStyleInfo</codeph> object, specifying the <codeph>CParagraphStyle</codeph> to be appended, and optionally, a style for the following paragraph. Any number of <codeph>RParagraphStyleInfo</codeph> s can be appended to the style list.</p> </li> <li id="GUID-FB12142A-F7A8-5AEB-8ACA-2038C2DA4F5B"><p>Pass the style list to the constructor of a <xref href="GUID-39945DA4-B362-3DF6-BF9E-DD079EEA7934.dita"><apiname>CRichText</apiname></xref> object. </p> <p>In this case, the rich text object owns the style list. If the rich text object is not passed an instance of a <codeph>CStyleList</codeph> upon construction, it may still use styles, by calling <xref href="GUID-39945DA4-B362-3DF6-BF9E-DD079EEA7934.dita#GUID-39945DA4-B362-3DF6-BF9E-DD079EEA7934/GUID-C25FC00C-E229-3557-9A1A-9F0AA6A8E6B3"><apiname>CRichText::SetStyleListExternallyOwned()</apiname></xref>. However, in this case, the style list is not owned by the rich text object. It will not be deleted when that rich text object is deleted, and must be stored and restored separately from the rich text object.</p> </li> </ul> <p>Styles may be specified as usually applying to one paragraph only. For example, after a user has just typed in a heading in a word processor, they will expect the style of the following paragraph to be normal text, not another heading. This 'following style' can be set either in the constructor of <xref href="GUID-76C10266-F6E3-354F-B26C-C0207710D603.dita"><apiname>RParagraphStyleInfo</apiname></xref> or set using <xref href="GUID-BC8CFDE5-403A-3D78-AEFB-3E78775ED90A.dita#GUID-BC8CFDE5-403A-3D78-AEFB-3E78775ED90A/GUID-C2991AD8-DD5C-3C4C-B483-59089A22BD54"><apiname>CStyleList::SetStyleToFollow()</apiname></xref> after it has been appended to the style list.</p> </conbody></concept>