What’s New in Styleworks: October 2026
By Tom Waddell, Chief Engineer
I have a confession. I'm a software developer, and developers love solving problems. We love solving problems so much that sometimes we invent problems just so we can solve them. In Styleworks, Preference List Headings solved a problem the software had, not a problem editors had. You just wanted to write down your preferences in your style sheet for automation with PerfectIt. Instead, we made you learn our filing system first.
I heard about it, at conferences and through customer support. People kept getting stuck at exactly this point, unsure why a perfectly reasonable style sheet wasn't working. So this release addresses that feedback. Preference List Headings are gone, and Styleworks now recognizes your style preferences automatically, by default.
Here's what's changed, why it matters, and how to get the most out of it.
The Problem with Preference List Headings
In earlier versions of Styleworks, structuring a style sheet meant thinking like the software, not like an editor. Before you could record a preference for PerfectIt, you had to add a Preference List Heading above it, just to tell Styleworks "everything below this line is a preference list." Miss a heading, misplace one, or reorganize a section, and things broke in ways that weren't obvious until you tried to export.
For anyone building a style sheet, this was friction in exactly the wrong place. When you are thinking in terms of "how do we want this word spelled?" or "should this be hyphenated?" you don't want to be thinking about document scaffolding. The Preference List Heading forced you to structure documents around the software instead of how you want your style sheet to work.
What’s Changed
Styleworks now removes Preference List Headings entirely. There's no special heading settings to configure before Styleworks will recognize your preferences; it just works. In practice, this means:
Every line is processed by default. You no longer need to mark a section as a preference list before Styleworks will recognize the preferences inside it.
You opt out instead of opting in. If there's a line you don't want exported to PerfectIt – whether it's a note to yourself, a heading for your own organization, or an example you're still drafting – you select it and choose Ignore Line from the action menu (click the six-dot handle to the left of the line). Choose Stop Ignoring Line whenever you want it back in.
Existing style sheets are migrated automatically. If you have style sheets built with the old structure, Styleworks handles the transition for you and lets you know what's changed.
Tutorials and syntax guide have been updated to reflect the new processing workflow.
Instead of structuring a document around our processing rules, you write your style sheet the way you'd write it for a colleague, and Styleworks figures out what's a preference and what isn't.
Other Improvements Worth Knowing About
Preference List Heading removal is the headline change, but this release also includes several smaller fixes that editors will notice day-to-day:
Improved Info Bar. Better display when your preference expands to multiple terms for PerfectIt.
Alphabetical sorting. Sorting your style sheet entries alphabetically works correctly again.
Exporting with blank lines. Style sheets that start with blank lines no longer fail to export properly.
Getting Started with the New Workflow
If you're updating an existing style sheet, you don't need to do anything right away. Styleworks migrates your document and shows a short message the first time you open it. From there:
Add or edit preferences directly. There's no need to add a heading first.
If a line shouldn't be exported (a note, a draft, a section you're not ready to publish), click the six-dot handle beside it and select Ignore Line.
Use Stop Ignoring Line any time you want that content back in your exported style sheet.
That's the whole model now: write what you need, and tell Styleworks what to skip. Everything else is handled automatically.
Why This Matters
Style sheets exist so that editorial decisions are consistent and easy to apply. By removing Preference List Headings and switching to automatic processing with simple opt-outs, Styleworks gets out of the way of the actual editing work.
If you maintain a house style for a publication, a client, or your own editing practice, this update is worth trying. Open your house style, try the new Ignore Line workflow, and see how much less structure-wrangling it takes to get from "we decided this" to "PerfectIt is checking for it."
Try it now: Log in to Styleworks and open any existing style sheet. The migration and new workflow are already there waiting for you.
Keep talking to us: This change exists because you told us where Styleworks was getting in your way. If something still feels clunky, or there's another way this workflow is fighting you rather than helping you, let us know through support or catch us at the next conference.
Tom Waddell
Chief Engineer
Since joining PerfectIt in 2015, Tom has led his team’s transformation of PerfectIt from a niche add-in to a tool that’s used by tens of thousands of professionals around the world.
Tom’s skill is in listening to editors and building for the needs of language professionals. With the launch of Styleworks, he’s introducing a new way of working with styles to the editing community.