where are style files in the finder?

hi folks

i am building a small group of styles to apply in different circumstances to new rtfs as i make them.

in the ruler or via the format menu, i can access the dialogue for saving a style, etc. but what i would now like to do is access the styles in the finder to, for example, rename some styles and edit the order in which they appear in the style menu.

so my question is — where can i locate the style files in the finder? i’ve looked through /library/application support/devonthink pro 2 but can’t seem to find anything relevant.

thanks

The toolbox for the text editor and the styles are shared across the OS-they are not unique to DEVONthink. The styles that you create in DT are also available in TextEdit, the styles you create in TextEdit are available in DT, or any other application that uses the text editor. I don’t know where the templates are stored, but they will not be in the DT application support folders.

RTF styles are not controlled by DTPO. Styles are stored in .GlobalPreferences.plist in your OS X user library. Seriously - don’t touch that file :exclamation:

To modify the style favorites menu you have to be in any RTF editor in OS X (DT, TextEdit, etc.). You can “rename” by applying a style, saving it to favorites with a new name, and deleting the old name. That’s also the only way to arrange the menu because styles are always show alphabetically.

Thanks for this! When I upgraded to Leopard I did a clean install and discovered that all the styles I’d created in those applications had disappeared and I had to start all over. I never found anybody who could tell me where they were stored.

Does this mean that one could save that file and put it into the prefs folder in a future OS upgrade?

Perhaps the safer method would be to create a TextEdit document with a paragraph formatted with each style that you want to save. When you upgrade in the future, open the document, select each paragraph, select ‘Styles>Other…’ and add each style to favorites.

Greg’s procedure is the best way.

It is possible to edit the file, if you’re really curious and only if can restore your machine from inadvertent errors. Browse for info on .nsfavoritestyles.

This is the kind of thing I’ve learned the hard way to avoid. :slight_smile: What Greg suggests is what I did after I recreated all the styles I’d lost. I guess I’ll stick to that.

Thanks korm — I am aware that the styles are system-wide via TextEdit etc.

Thanks for your advice that the only “risk-free” approach is to use the style format editor.

Interestingly, I am unable to find <.GlobalPreferences.plist> or <.nsfavoritestyles> anywhere on my system. What is the direct folder path for each?

Thanks for your help!
:slight_smile:

.GlobalPreferences.plist is an invisible file (hence, the dot) in your user preferences folder (~/Library/Preferences). In any Finder Open or Save dialog (but not in an ordinary Finder window) navigate to that folder and use shift-cmd-[period key] to toggle on/off the display of invisible files.

NSFavoriteStyles (apologies, I typed it wrong) is the name of the key in that plist where the styles are kept. Look in Bing or Google for info on copying the styles. Be Careful :neutral_face:

thanks korm!