Introducing Styleworks: A New Way to Build Styles for PerfectIt

By Daniel Heuman

Today, we’re launching a product that we’ve been working on for a long time. It’s called Styleworks, and it makes building house styles and style sheets for PerfectIt easier than ever before.

For nearly two decades, PerfectIt has offered powerful tools for creating and customizing styles. But we’ve always known there was a catch: it was complicated. The process required a technical mindset that felt at odds with the creative, nuanced work that editors do. And for Mac users, there was no way to build or adapt styles at all. We made you a promise that we would do better.

I’m delighted to finally reveal what we’ve been working on.

Rethinking styles from the ground up

We've done a complete rethink on how editors build styles for PerfectIt. I wish I could tell you that Styleworks was my idea. But the truth is, it was all Tom Waddell, our Chief Engineer and Joint Head of Product.

The problem that Styleworks solves is one Tom spent years watching unfold at editing conferences and workshops. He saw editors doing the same work twice. They would meticulously record their style preferences in a style sheet (a document that serves as the editorial memory for a project). Then, if they wanted software to help check those preferences, they had to translate everything into a completely different format: a rigid set of instructions that a computer could understand.

As an engineer, Tom saw this couldn’t be right. It's a classic problem in software development called DRY, or "Don't Repeat Yourself." It felt wrong for editors to maintain two separate versions of the same knowledge. The style sheet, the editor’s own record of decisions, should be the single source of truth. The software should work from that.

That’s the core idea behind Styleworks. We’ve rethought how we handle style preferences from first principles. We’ve designed a product that lets editors record their style preferences naturally (and you only have to do it once).

And that’s not all! Styleworks has been built for both Mac and Windows users, making it possible for Mac users to build PerfectIt styles for the first time. You can even use Styleworks if you don’t have PerfectIt.

A major step forward in workflow

For years, editors have had to maintain two version of the same information: a style sheet for themselves and their collaborators, and a separate set of rules inside PerfectIt. Every new preference, every client update, and every style decision had to be recorded twice. It’s repetitive and time-consuming.

Styleworks changes that. When you record a style decision in Styleworks, you’re creating both your stylesheet and your PerfectIt-ready checks at the same time. There is no second system to update and no need to recreate your work elsewhere. Every style decision is captured once and automatically becomes a PerfectIt check.

An easier way to work with PerfectIt

Styleworks helps in two ways compared to PerfectIt’s old style sheet editor:

• The interface

• One-to-many preferences

These are explained below.

The interface

The first is that the interface is easier. Here’s how that difference looks when you break down the number of clicks involved for a preference like “color”.

One-to-many preferences

Sorry, this one is technical! But I promise that it’s easier than it sounds (and that’s the point).

In PerfectIt’s old style sheet editor (and in every other tool with features for house styles), users have to translate each preference into the rules that the tool understands (which always comes back to finding one term and suggesting another). Even a simple decision like preferring “flavor” over “flavour” means thinking about spelling variations, related words, and the different ways those terms might appear in a document. So you need a separate rule for “flavours” and “flavourful” and perhaps even “flava”!

Styleworks removes the need for listing those many variants. You just list one. you simply record your preferred term. Styleworks understands what that preference means and automatically prepares the checks that PerfectIt needs. A single decision can cover plurals, related words, and other spelling variations without you having to enter each one individually.

So when you write “flavor”, it knows to also look for “flavours” and “flavourful”. It even knows that “flava” would be taking it too far and it won’t search for that unless you specifically tell it to! If you’re wondering about how it does that, it’s an algorithm built the traditional way. There’s no AI involved.

For most independent editors, Styleworks will be all they need to build and maintain styles for PerfectIt. For teams where you’re sharing styles or working with particularly complex editorial requirements, we’ll continue to offer a more tailored approach.

Read Tom’s Creator’s Note to find out more about the story behind Styleworks and how to use it.

Our vision for the future

Styleworks is a major step forward, but this first release is just the beginning.

Today, Styleworks is the fastest and simplest place to build style sheets and house styles for PerfectIt. Over time, we’ll continue making it easier to create, manage, and maintain styles throughout the editing process.

As with any new way of working, it can take a little time to discover everything Styleworks can do. That’s why our support team is here to help. Whether you have a question, want advice on creating your first style, or need guidance on a particular scenario you are coming up against, you’ll be speaking to real people who know the product inside and out.

We've always put user requests and feedback at the heart of what we do. We welcome your ideas, requests, and feedback so that we can make this the product that works the way you want.

Saving the best news for last

We know that everyone is worried about AI. At Intelligent Editing, we will always believe in a world where professionals who work with words are recognized for the irreplaceable value they bring.

We see a future where your style sheet is no longer a passive document but an active tool in your editing process and where the editor’s judgment is amplified, not replaced, by technology.

Styleworks is designed to be a tool that respects the craft of editing and helps you apply your decisions with greater consistency and confidence.

But here’s the very best part: Styleworks is free to use.

If you’re just creating style sheets, you don’t even need a PerfectIt subscription. It’s our way of saying thank you to the editing community that has supported us for so long. However, when you're ready to check documents against those styles, you can export them directly to PerfectIt.

If you’re using Styleworks with PerfectIt, users on the Professional tier can export styles of up to 50 lines to PerfectIt. Users on Elite, Team, and Enterprise tiers get unlimited exports and no change in the price of your subscription.

We can’t wait to see what you build with it and hear what you think.