Viewing Style Settings and Formatting for Specific Content

Whenever you click on certain content or select it in the XML Editor, the Style Inspector adjusts, showing the following information:

  • Name of Style

    If you click next to the style name, the content for the parent tag will be selected and its style and properties will be shown in the window pane instead.

  • Local Formatting If the selected content has any local formatting, this is indicated under the red “Local style attributes” area.

    If you want to keep the look of the content, but use styles instead of local formatting, you can create a new style class based on the formatting. This can be done by using in the local toolbar or the right-click menu. See Creating Style Classes.

  • Style Properties and Values Below any local attributes, the Style Inspector shows all of the properties and values that are explicitly set for the style.

  • Stylesheet(s) To the right of the style name, you can see the stylesheet where the properties are set.

    If you hover over the stylesheet name, you can see its path.

    If stylesheets have been linked (see Linking Stylesheets), you might see properties that are coming from more than one stylesheet.

  • Inherited Properties In addition to the style for the selected content, you will also see parent styles in the Style Inspector. These are tags that the current tag is placed within; therefore, the style for the selected content will inherit style settings from those parent styles, as well as using its own settings. Every tag you add to a content file (i.e., topic, snippet, template page) is found within the <body> tag, so at the very least, your style will be inheriting property values from the body style. But your tag might also appear within other tags, therefore inheriting from those styles as well. For more information, see Inheritance.

    If you see a property that is crossed out, it means the value was being inherited but has been overridden in the child style.

    If you see a property in gray, it means the property is inherited but is not currently being used by the content in the child tag.

  • Property Description Similar to the Stylesheet Editor, a description of each property is shown at the bottom when you click on it.