Explain the parent/child relationship with styles.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

You can create a new paragraph or character style from an existing paragraph or character style by basing one on the other. When you base one style on another, you pick up all of the formatting choices of one style and modify them to quickly make a new style. Doing so creates a parent/child relationship between the new style and the existing style. The original style becomes the parent and the new style based on the parent becomes the child. A link is formed between the two styles. The parent and child styles are identical at first, but you can further modify the child style to differentiate it from the parent. However, if you make a change to the parent style, that change will automatically be reflected in the child style. For example, if you change the font from Times New Roman to Calibri in the parent style, the font also changes to Calibri in the child style. Every paragraph that is formatted with both parent and child styles in the document will automatically change to the Calibri font. To create a child style based on a parent style, click the Based On list arrow in the General category of the New Paragraph Style or New Character Style dialog box, then choose the parent style that you want to base the new (child style) on. To base a style on an existing style without creating the parent/child relationship, select the style, click the Panel menu button, and then click Duplicate Style. The new style will be an unlinked duplicate that you can then modify to your needs.