Paragraph and character styles offer an alternate, more structured way to construct export styles. Instead of doing all your formatting in-line in the parse strings, you can define blocks of formatting separately that you can then apply to paragraphs and strings of text when you need them. These styles will also appear in your word processor's paragraph and character style lists.
Why use paragraph styles?
First, paragraph styles are more flexible when exported. If the user wants to use a more complicated template than is possible in Factsmith, they can simply redefine the paragraph styles in their word processor, instead of changing all of the formatting manually. If the export style is CITE-compliant, users can copy evidence into any CITE-compliant template, and it will be reformatted automatically.
Second, paragraph styles are easier to work with in Factsmith, and more reliable when exported. Instead of endlessly tweaking the flow of formatting codes and worrying about where the closing tags go, you can simply define a paragraph style, and have all the formatting in one place.
Third, paragraph styles are more compatible with other software. For example, paperless debate software packages like Verbatim commonly use paragraph styles to identify different cards. Thus, using paragraph styles makes it easier to integrate Factsmith evidence into other systems, should the need arise.
What's the different between a paragraph style and a character style?
Paragraph styles apply to an entire paragraph: they reset all formatting for that paragraph and replace it with their own. Paragraph styles are an appropriate place for setting indents, paragraph spacing, boxed borders, and font settings that apply to the entire paragraph.
Character styles apply to a string of text inside of a paragraph. They do not reset all previous formatting, but instead add some extra formatting to that particular string. Character styles are an appropriate place for small formatting tweaks that only apply to parts of a paragraph, like underlining or setting a different background color for emphasis.
Creating and editing paragraph and character styles
Paragraph and character styles are defined from the Styles tab of the style editor (pictured on the right.) To select a style to edit, use the dropdown boxes on the right of the dialog. To create a new style, click the Add button below the appropriate text ("Paragraph style" or "Character style") and enter the name you want. To rename or delete a style, select it from the appropriate list and click Rename or Delete.
The textbox shows the style itself, which consists of a list of formatting codes. (Note that you only include the start codes, since the formatting will be automatically reset when the next style is used.) You may put any standard formatting code in a paragraph or character style, but not codes that insert something (like <line>, <tab>, <pagenum>, etc.)
Using paragraph styles
To use a paragraph style, use the <style=NAME> formatting code at the beginning of the line you want to format (replacing NAME with the name of the paragraph style to use.) This will reset all formatting and apply the formatting from the paragraph style.
All subsequent paragraphs will also use this style, until they are set to another style. To reset all formatting and end paragraph styling, use <style=Default>. You can still use regular formatting codes at the same time as paragraph styles, if you want to do more elaborate formatting inside a paragraph.
Using character styles
To use a character style, use the <charstyle=NAME> formatting code before the text you want to format (replacing NAME with the name of the character style to use.) This will apply the formatting from the character style to subsequent text.
To end the character styling and return to the previous character formatting, use <charstyle=Default>. Even though character styles are additive, you can only use one character style at a time, so it is recommended that you always close out character styling with <charstyle=Default> before beginning a new character style.
(Note that this is case-sensitive! <charstyle=Default> is not the same as <charstyle=default>; you need to capitalize "Default" for the exporter to understand what you mean.)