Run (Character) Styles

Character styles are styles which apply to the contents of one or more runs of text within a document’s contents. This definition implies that the style can only define character properties (properties which apply to text within a paragraph) because it cannot be applied to paragraphs. Character styles can only be referenced by runs within a document, and they must be referenced by the rStyle element within a run’s run properties element.

A character style has two defining type-specific characteristics:

• The type attribute on the style has a value of character, which indicates that the following style definition is a character style.

• The style specifies only character-level properties using the rPr element. In this case, the run properties are the set of properties applied to each run which is of this style.

The character style is then applied to runs by referencing the styleId attribute value for this style in the run properties’ rStyle element.

[Example: Consider a character style titled "Test Character Style" which defines; font = Courier New, font color = yellow; underline. The resulting style definition would be:

<w:style w:type="character" w:styleId="TestCharacterStyle">
<w:name w:val="Test Character Style"/>
<w:priority w:val="99"/>
<w:qformat/>
<w:rsid w:val="00E77BF0"/>
<w:rPr>
<w:rFonts w:ascii="Courier New" w:hAnsi="Courier New"/>
<w:color w:val="FFF200"/>
<w:u w:val="single"/>
</w:rPr>
</w:style>

Notice that the character properties applied using this style are under the rPr element. The document content for a paragraph with a run of this style would be:

<w:p>
<w:r>
<w:t xml:space="preserve">The following text is in the </w:t>
</w:r>
<w:r>
<w:rPr>
<w:rStyle w:val="TestCharacterStyle"/>
</w:rPr>
<w:t>character style</w:t>
</w:r>
<w:r>
<w:t>.</w:t>
</w:r>
</w:p>

The rStyle element in the second run links that run with the style definition, inheriting the formatting properties for that run. end example]