Special Styles

Most of the styles in the TYPESPEC template are easy to understand, but a few require special comment.

I’ve renamed the Normal style to Normal,Text 1 in case I ever want to import my document into QuarkXPress, which also uses a style named Normal that isn’t always compatible with Word’s Normal style.

Some of the styles end in “NI,” which stands for “no indent.” Use these to mark text that should have no paragraph indent. For example, use Block Quote Start NI to mark the first paragraph of a block quotation that begins somewhere in the middle of the paragraph you are quoting. Use Normal Text 1 NI after a block quotation to mark text that does not begin a new paragraph but continues the thought of the text before the block quotation. Using these styles is the equivalent of writing “No paragraph” or “No indent” on a paper manuscript.

After you’ve marked a paragraph with one of the “NI” styles, you’ll need to be sure the following paragraph is marked with a different style, or it, too, will have no indent. For example, if you’re marking a block quotation that contains two paragraphs, you might mark the first paragraph with Block Quote Start NI and the following paragraph with Block End (which does include a paragraph indent).

Here’s an example of the whole process:

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Needing advice on how to handle the indenting of a block quotation, Jill found these guidelines in The Chicago Manual of Style, sections 10.20 and 10.25:

If the quotation includes the beginning of the opening paragraph, it should start with a paragraph indention. If the first part of the paragraph is omitted, the opening line ordinarily begins flush left (not indented). . . .

If, following an extract or block quotation, . . . the resuming text is a continuation of the paragraph that introduces the quotation, the resuming text should begin flush left. If the resuming text is a new paragraph, it should be given regular paragraph indention.

Agreeing completely with this analysis, Jill decided to follow it to the letter as she began editing the massive tome.

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In this example, the first paragraph is styled with Normal,Text 1. The second paragraph (the first paragraph in the block quotation) is styled with Block First NI. The third paragraph (last in the block quotation) is styled with Block Last. The final paragraph is styled with Normal,Text 1 NI.

The reason for using the First and Last styles is so that the leading above, between, and after the paragraphs comes out right. In addition, if the block quotation above had contained four paragraphs, the second and third would have been styled with Block Middle.

I hate to mention what you have to do to style poetry, but I will, in this little two-stanza “poem” made up of style names:

Poem First NI

Poem Middle

Poem Middle NI

Poem Middle

Poem Middle NI

Poem End

Poem Start NI

Poem Middle

Poem Middle NI

Poem Middle

Poem Middle NI

Poem Last

Styling the poem in this way allows you to use different leading before the poem, between lines, between stanzas, and after the poem, and it also allows you to adjust the indentation for each kind of line, or even to use no indentation.