Most visual attributes of C1PrintDocument elements (such as fonts, colors, padding, and so on) are controlled by styles (C1DocStyle class). A render object's style is accessed through its Style property and is used when drawing the object. Also a style can be passed as a parameter when rendering content with one of the Render shortcut methods (that is, without creating a render object).

One of the most important characteristics of styles is inheritance. All styles in a document form a hierarchical tree. Except for the root document style (Document.Style), each style has a parent. When a new style is created, all of its attributes are inherited from the parent by default. This means that if an attribute in the parent style changes, that change is automatically propagated to all child styles unless that attribute has been specifically overridden in a child. This style attribute inheritance makes many tasks very convenient. For example, keeping documents' looks consistent becomes much easier and making sweeping changes in the documents is a snap.

When a new render object is created, its style is created together with the object. The parent of that new style is the root document style. It is important to keep in mind that while the object itself may be nested inside another object (for example, a row in a table), the hierarchy of styles is different – new styles in almost all cases (an exception is discussed below) inherit their attributes directly from the root document style. This allows you to conveniently fine-tune styles of individual document elements without inadvertently affecting the way nested elements look. Thus, typically if you want to change the look of the whole document (for example, set the default font), you would change the root document style. If, on the other hand, you want to modify just one element (for example, highlight a paragraph of text by making its text the color red), you would set the appropriate attribute of the style of that specific text paragraph.

A notable exception to that rule is tables. Table style rules are discussed in more detail in the Tables section.

Here is a full list of all 1^st level attributes contained in a style, with a very brief description for each (for more detailed descriptions, see the reference section):

 

Attribute Name	Controls
Spacing	How much space is left around the element's border.
Padding	How much space is left inside the element's border.
Font	Text font.
Borders	Lines drawn around the element.
BackColor	Background fill color (covers padding but not spacing).
BackgroundImage	Background image (covers padding but not spacing).
BackgroundImageAlign	Background image alignment (including tile and stretch).
AlignChildrenHorz	How nested elements are aligned inside element.
AlignChildrenVert	How nested elements are aligned inside element.
AlignInParentHorz	How this element is aligned inside its parent.
AlignInParentVert	How this element is aligned inside its parent.
TextColor	Text color.
TextAngle	Text tilt angle.
TextAlignHorz	Horizontal text alignment.
TextAlignVert	Vertical text alignment.
LineSpacing	Text line spacing.
WordWrap	Whether text lines can be wrapped.
ImageAlign	Foreground image alignment.
ShapeLine	Line used to draw shapes (rectangles, ellipses, and so on).
ShapeFillColor	Color used to fill shapes.
BorderTableVert	For tables only – vertical borders between table elements.
BorderTableHorz	For tables only – horizontal borders between table elements.

Send comments about this topic to ComponentOne. Copyright © 1987-2010 ComponentOne LLC. All rights reserved.