How can I style text like in a system usage message?

Question

I'm writing an article, and I really like this style that you get when you type ?AnyFunction.

Is it possible to achieve this?

Answer 1

The style name is PrintUsage. It is defined in the stylesheet notebook Core.nb which you can find in the directory:

$InstallationDirectory\SystemFiles\FrontEnd\StyleSheets

It has the following settings:

CellFrame -> {{0, 0}, {0, 3}}
CellFrameColor -> RGBColor[1, 0.6000000000000001, 0] 
Background -> RGBColor[1, 0.993332, 0.899718] 

You can use the OptionInspector to set DefaultNewCellStyle or DefaultReturnCreatedCellStyle to PrintUsage. You can also change these settings at the notebook, front-end session or front-end level using

SetOptions[xx,DefaultNewCellStyle->"PrintUsage"]

where xx is EvaluationNotebook[] or $FrontEndSession, or $DefaultFrontEnd.

A third alternative is to use the right-click context menu on a cell bracket,choose Style->Other and type PrintUsage in the dialog box to change the style of that cell.

One important issue with the above approach is that a cell with PrintUsage style is not editable. So, you may want to define your custom style using something like this answer by Mike Honeychurch:

SetOptions[EvaluationNotebook[], 
   StyleDefinitions -> 
   Notebook[{Cell[StyleData[StyleDefinitions -> "Default.nb"]], 
   Cell[StyleData["myPrintUsageStyle"], Editable -> True, Evaluatable -> True,
   CellFrame -> {{0, 0}, {0, 3}}, CellMargins -> {{66, 10}, {10, 5}},
   CellFrameColor -> RGBColor[1, 0.6000000000000001, 0], 
   Background -> RGBColor[1, 0.993332, 0.899718]]}, 
   Saveable -> True, StyleDefinitions -> "PrivateStylesheetFormatting.nb"]];

and use it in place of PrintUsage using any of the usage options mentioned above, e.g.,

SetOptions[EvaluationNotebook[],  DefaultNewCellStyle -> "myPrintUsageStyle"]