Styles broken? [noob]

[jlittle2]

If you create a new style in the "styles library window", you can then drag and drop the style onto a report element (e.g. a static text label), and it will take on that style.  Great.

Now if you change that style in the style properties dialogue, e.g. make the font bigger, it has no effect on the report (or template) you are editing. 

Am I missing something really subtle?

Looking at the XML, it embeds the first creation version of your style into the report at the top.  e.g.

    <style name="Style_2" fontSize="32"/>

Even if you "hack" the style embeded in the report, e.g. change the font size:

    <style name="Style_2" fontSize="40"/>

Nothing changes, it still shows the old font size not mater what you do.

Form that point on, no edits (or rename) of this style in the style property window of the designer have any effect - they are independent zombie shadows of former styles.

I.e. styles appear to be a one shot deal which makes them pretty usless, and nothing like syles should be (think css).  Eg. if styles are inded nothing more than a insert shortcut, and local the pc, then how can we make sure all the report developers on differnt PCs use the same styles?

If you want to chage the font size of your text, you have to either:

1. not use a style, just hard code the font size for the item, then you can change it using the font size dropdown in the bar above the report in the designer mode.  This is what I am doing for all our reports, but am dreading the maintenance overhead.
2. Create a new style every time you want to modify the style, and re-drag and drop on all your reports.  This is madness also.

I wanted to make a single template with the key styles, and have all my reports read from that, but styles dont even work in the same report/tempate, let alone from files outside.

Can someone point me in the right direction? 

Thanks!

I was going to buy the book "The Definitive Guide to IReport", but looking through the online chapters, its already very out of date - the dialogues and GUIS it mentions which Ive checked dont exist any more in the current iReport version.