Quote:
Originally Posted by theducks
That is why there is the 'Delete Unused Styles' feature; 2500 lines => 300 (which is still overkill, since many really duplicate others in attributes. It must be the KISfS thinking: 'You must use the Copyright styles only on the copyright page'.  |
Ducks:
Usually, it's something minor in the reader's view--for example, vertical space before or after, or a paragraph that's flush left, but needs space before/after, like a Copyright page. The usual "no-indent" style paragraph used in the body of the book generally won't have vertical space after, for example--so you can do it the lazy way (blank/empty paragraphs with an nbsp) or you can do it with a style.
At our shop, we
do use named styles for these types of instances, because it's simply cleaner coding. It's not really OCD...it's just easier. If the client comes back and says, "oh, gosh, I meant to say, I wanted all those lines on the copyright page centered," and you've used a style that was used for the first para of each chapter, plus an empty para, you can't simply edit the style--you have to make a new one, regex the copyright page, etc. Simply saves time in the long run, and of course, we do have a House stylesheet.
Have
I ever used a perceptibly-empty paragraph, due to tiredness, frustration, whatever? Oh, yes. More than I'd like to admit. (And I live in dread of getting caught by my Crews, who have had the lecture often!). But seriously, it's not "correctness" thinking...it's just faster in the long term. It's decidedly not faster in the original coding, but I can truthfully say we get a lot (a lotta lotta) books with formatting elements strewn liberally throughout--emails, facebook posts, Tweets, notes to friends, newspaper clippings...those can really drive up your CSS style count.
Hitch