One of the most powerful aspects of Artboard is its ability to go way beyond simple stroke and fill styles. The Style Inspector is used to create and edit expert "stacked" styles, comprised of various style components, such as gradients, arrows, and pattern fills.
The Style Inspector is also used to save custom styles to the user's Library collection.
Play with the Style Inspector's many style components to build "stacked" styles and you'll be an expert in no time flat. See Available Style Components for more information.
'Clone' makes a copy of an existing style so you can make changes to it and continue drawing without affecting the original. This makes it easy to adjust some properties, such as a stroke’s width or color, while retaining other style component settings as desired.
1. With the Style Inspector open, make an existing style the active style (it should show in the Style Inspector 'Preview') by doing one of the following:
2. Click the 'Clone' button in the Style Inspector to copy to the style.
3. Edit the style properties as desired.
4. Continue drawing (subsequent objects have the same style properties until they are changed).
HINT: Styles in the built-in Mapdiva collection cannot be over-written – to enable editing styles in the built-in collection, use "Clone" to make a copy of the original.
Styles you create while you draw are called "ad hoc" styles unless they are added to your user library. Unless you want to save a style for future re-use, there is no need to rename or add these styles to your Library collection. Simply create styles as desired and continue drawing.
Saved styles are “master styles” and when saved they are, by default, set as not editable to prevent unintended changes.
HINT: Styles in the built-in Mapdiva collection cannot be over-written – to enable editing styles in the built-in collection, use "Clone" to make a copy of the original.
Styles are "built" by combining various style components.
For example, to build this cased line with a center dash, three strokes of varying widths are defined and stacked. Here we combine a black solid line, a narrower magenta solid line, and a green dashed line. The black stroke is defined first, then the magenta, then the green line. The list shows the order that components are drawn, so the last (bottom) item in the list is drawn last, which will appear 'on top' of components already drawn. Drag to rearrange the stacking order of style components.
HINT: To edit a style component it must be enabled (check box). Disabled components can neither be edited, nor show up when the style is used to draw an object. If desired, individual components of a style can be uniquely named by double-clicking in the master list of the Style Inspector.
Each style component carries its own adjustable properties. You can copy and paste a component (and its associated property settings) to the same or other styles.
Optionally, use the Style Inspector to name your styles and add them to "My Collection…" for future use.
New styles are immediately available in the Styles & Clip Art Palette where you can use them for drawing.