Multiple stylesheets on one document

Arbortext Editor uses a batch formatting process driven by a stylesheet that is designed to quickly and consistently format all documents that follow the same DTD -- including documents that have not yet been written. This is a different from interactively formatting every document, such as in Microsoft Word and desktop publishing systems, and it takes some getting used to. However, since interactive formatting is inconsistent, labor-intensive, error-prone, more time-consuming, and more expensive, the advantages of batch formatting are soon evident --  and appreciated.

If you intend to publish a book, you need one stylesheet that formats the entire book with all its chapters as well as front and back matter. More about that later.

First, if a particular chapter should be formatted differently from others, that chapter needs to be distinguished so the different formatting can be automatically applied. A Styler stylesheet can be coded to recognize the following distinguishing conditions: an element's content; its context (location within the document structure); its position (first chapter, last chapter, etc.); an attribute setting (such as <chapter role="special">); or the results from XPath or scripting.

Re: developing a book stylesheet, hopefully you will find that one of the chapter stylesheets contains enough of the desired formatting to make a good starting point. Styler documentation is available from its Help menu. I suggest you also search Styler Help for "modules," which may be useful to you. Also, note that .style files can be edited in Arbortext Editor, including copying and pasting tags from one .style file to another, just like in an .xml document.

Your book stylesheet can be used to format the Edit window display when a chapter is authored, even if the chapter is in a file entity. However, I believe authors deserve a stylesheet designed just for the authoring process, a stylesheet that uses a font designed for screen display in an easily readable size that minimizes the need for time-wasting zooming and scrolling. In Arbortext Editor, Format>Select Stylesheets... provides a way to specify different stylesheets for authoring and publishing. The set stylesheet command can also be used for this purpose.

Good luck!

Suzanne