Formatting using predefined formats (Autostyles)

An Autostyle is a collection of formatting settings. The settings are saved based on each control type. You can apply an Autostyle to a document or control to change its formatting or appearance. If you have a document with a look or style that you want other documents to have, you can create an Autostyle for the document, or for specific controls on the document, and then efficiently apply the same look or style to other documents by applying the Autostyle to the other documents/controls.

When you apply an Autostyle to another document, the system copies formatting information from the Autostyle onto the target document. It replaces formatting settings for all document sections and controls (including Grid/Graphs) on the target document with the corresponding settings in the Autostyle. If the target document has a section or control for which there is no corresponding document section or control on the original document, it applies the default format for the control type. If an Autostyle has multiple controls of the same type in one section, the format of the first control of this type in that section is used.

You can create your own Autostyles or use the Autostyles provided by MicroStrategy. A document Autostyle is different from a report Autostyle. A document Autostyle is a document object and can only be applied to documents. A report Autostyle is an Autostyle object and can be applied to reports and to grids within documents. Both types of Autostyles contain formatting information. For each preconfigured report Autostyle, a matching document Autostyle exists.

For a multi-layout document, an Autostyle is applied only to the current layout, not the entire document. For background information on multi-layout documents, including which settings apply to the document as a whole or to individual layouts, see Creating multi-layout documents. If the Page Header and Page Footer are shared among layouts, any formatting changes applied to those sections are applied throughout the document. Page Headers and Page Footers are shared by default (for steps to change that, see Using a separate Page Header and Page Footer for a layout). For descriptions and examples of the Page Header and Footer, see Page Header and Page Footer.

Creating and saving a document Autostyle

To create a document Autostyle, apply the formatting that you want to a document's controls and sections, then save the document in the AutoStyles folder whose path is as follows:

project name\Public Objects\AutoStyles

Documents saved in the AutoStyles folder are still documents, and not Autostyle objects.

Saving the Autostyle document in the AutoStyles folder allows you to select the Autostyle document when you create a document using the Document Wizard. An Autostyle document saved elsewhere is not available to the Document Wizard.

If you save documents in any other location, such as the My Objects folder, for example, you can still apply them as Autostyles to other documents through the Document Editor.

Applying an Autostyle

The following steps show you how to apply an Autostyle to a document, how to apply an Autostyle to a Grid/Graph control, and how to assign a default Autostyle to all Grid/Graph controls within a document. When you assign a default Autostyle to all controls in a document, all Grid/Graphs you insert into the document are automatically formatted according to the default Autostyle.

You can use an Autostyle provided by MicroStrategy or one that you created yourself. Applying an Autostyle pastes the formatting information from one document to another. It changes the formatting of all the sections and controls of the target document in one action. For a multi-layout document, an Autostyle is applied only to the current layout, not the entire document, as described in Formatting using predefined formats (Autostyles).

Use MicroStrategy Developer to apply a document Autostyle; use either MicroStrategy Developer or Web to apply a Grid/Graph Autostyle.

To apply an Autostyle to a document

Open the target document using the Document Editor in Design View.
If the document contains multiple layouts, click the tab of the layout to modify.
From the Format menu, select Apply Autostyle. The Select Autostyle dialog box opens.
Locate and select the Autostyle to apply to the document.

Autostyle documents created by MicroStrategy are available in the Public Objects\AutoStyles directory. User-created Autostyle documents may be located in this folder as well, but could have been saved in another folder instead.
Click OK. The formatting is applied to the document.

To apply an Autostyle to a Grid/Graph

In MicroStrategy Web, open the document in Design or Editable Mode.
Select a Grid/graph in the document.
From the Autostyles drop-down list on the Grid/Graph toolbar, select an autostyle. The formatting from the autostyle is applied to the selected grid. The Autostyles drop-down is shown below:

To assign a default autostyle to all Grid/Graph controls in a document

In MicroStrategy Web, open the document in Design or Editable Mode.
From the Tools menu, select Document Properties. The Properties and Formatting dialog box opens.
From the left, under Document Properties select Document.
Select an Autostyle from the Default Grid Autostyle drop-down list.
Click OK to apply the changes.