Styles are possibly one of the least understood aspects of both Word Processing and braille transcription, yet they can save a great deal of time when used properly.
In visual terms, a Style usually affects the general appearance of Text in a document. It can also be used in other ways, for example, to add a Page Break before a Chapter Heading.
There are many useful things. For example, if you want to create a Table of Contents automatically, it is best to use "Heading" Styles contained in your document.
By being able to make changes to the Style itself. All occurrences of that Style in your document will therefore change. This is obviously quicker than changing say 30 individual Chapter Headings.
If you look closely at the text here, you will see that there are three different appearance of font. At the top of the page is the Word "Styles" in a large bold font with lines above and below. This is a Style called "Heading 1". Each question asked here is in a smaller bold font, and these use a Style called "Heading 5". The rest of the text is in a Style called "Normal".
A Style tells DBT how to lay out the braille on the page. For example, a main heading in braille usually starts on a new page, is centered, and has a blank line after it, where sub-headings are usually not centered, but begin at the 5th braille cell on the page. Normal text paragraphs begin with two blank cells, and do not have any space in between as printed paragraphs often do. (Note: Page layout in braille can vary according to the recommendations of the appropriate National braille authority).