Document Styles - Overview

Document styles contain information about the overall graph sizes and margins that are used to display all graphs. In a sense, you can think of the document styles as pertaining to the "blank sheet of paper" onto which the graphs are drawn. Note that specific graph components such as line patterns, point markers, or the relative sizes of the x- and y-axes in 2D graphs are contained in Graphics styles. Document styles can be created and managed in the Documents/Graphs: Settings options pane of the Options dialog (before graphs are created) or, when working with existing graphs, Graph: Window and Graph Layout options panes in the Graph Options dialog.

Note that when styles are applied to graphs, they modify the graphs themselves, and those modifications will be saved along with the respective graphs. Thus, if you, for example, e-mail to a colleague a graph customized by applying a particularly elaborate and customized graphics or document style, then that graph will appear on your colleague's computer customized in the same manner as you intended, even though on your colleague's installation of STATISTICA, the styles used to achieve the customization may not be defined.

For an example of how to create, save, and then apply a document style to an existing graph, see Creating a Document Style.

Exchanging graphs that have styles applied to them. Once a (document or Graphics) style has been applied to a graph (either during creation of the graph or after the graph has been created), the graph features addressed by the style are determined by the style. The specifications of the resulting graph, however, are stored in the graph not only in terms of references to the respective styles, but also their absolute values. This means that a graph with an applied style can be sent to another STATISTICA user, and its features will be correctly interpreted even though the user has not defined an equivalent graph style.

Saving styles. Document styles (along with Graphics styles and complete sets of globally defined graph options) can be saved, exported, or imported through the Configurations options, available by selecting Options from the Tools menu. In general, styles can also be imported or exported using a simple shortcut method by using the graph itself as a carrier of the respective document (or Graphics) style. Refer also to the Graphics Styles topic Importing and Exporting Styles to learn more about how to create (Graphics) styles from existing graphs.

See Creating a Document Style for additional details concerning document styles.