I have looked but alas I have not found the solution – if it is there, I am sorry for missing it and posting a new question.
What I want is a shortcut that allows me to change the font color of a selected word.
For example: “The dog is in the car.” If I select “car” and use my shortcut (e.g. command-1) then the word “car” is not in red.
Why? I do a lot of translating and being able use font colors to remind me about certain things.
Evidently, I can choose color, select, etc. but that takes time.
I can do this for the whole paragraph with a style, but not for an individual word.
You need to set a character style, not a paragraph style. There is a drop-down in the style creation dialog where you find the option. I’m not at my computer at the moment, so can’t include a screenshot.
Whether you choose to tick the two ‘include’ boxes really depends on whether you always want red text in the font and size you first created the character style in, or whether it should just apply the colour, so experiment which is best for you. BTW, the dialogue is substantially the same on Windows, though the shortcut keys will be different.
Press Ok and you’re done. Now all you need to do is type the shortcut when you want red text. You may find it helpful to create a second style based on a ‘normal’ colour so you can quickly toggle the ‘Red Text’ style off again once you’ve finished writing redly…
I have been using this method for a while now but there is a problem. even when I only choose save character attributes, and untick save font family and font size, the italics disappear when I apply the style.
Italics fall very much under the definition of “character attributes” (along with boldness, underscoring, colours, etc.). There is no way to opt out of applying character attributes when using a character style (there wouldn’t be anything left to do).
Ok, I found a way to switch to revision mode via a key combo using Mac’s keyboard shortcuts, but this doesn’t solve the problem since I cannot select part of text and change its color.
And Mac does not recognize the menu command for “Gray Text” possibly because it is not in the dropdown menu.
I presume in general you mean other than the shortcut already provided for Format ▸ Color...? I’ve always used that in conjunction with swatches tab, where you can easily make lists of your favourites. But if you aren’t too picky, the crayon tab works fine. Granted I rarely use colour without some purpose behind it, like giving text implied intent with styles, or revisions. So the extra work that entails after bringing it up is probably of less impact to me. The most I use this panel for is colouring inline annotations.
With revision levels, once you do have the feature enabled, check out the submenu when you have text selected. There is a command (Mark Revised) you can put a shortcut on, that only appears under those two conditions.
Now as to the larger question as to why the right-click menu has a fully fleshed out Text Color submenu while the main Format menu has nothing, and thus no hooks to add shortcuts to specific colours… I have no idea.
