Normal:

This is the basic parent style that almost all other styles, including header styles, are normally based on. By default Normal is also used for the standard starting paragraph in all new topics. (You can change this by defining a new standard topic content template.)

Having almost all other styles based on Normal makes it possible to make changes to the appearance of your entire project by editing Normal. For example, changing the font of Normal automatically changes the font of all other styles in which you have not explicitly defined a different font from the one set for Normal.

For more details on this see About inheritance in styles and Style organization strategies.

Code Example:

This style is automatically applied to all program code formatted with the Syntax Highlighter. Unlike most other styles it is not based on Normal, because you don't want its appearance to change when you change the formatting of the rest of your project.

Comment:

This style defines the appearance of the comments you can enter in your project. This style is quite limited compared to most other styles. See Image caption and comment styles for details.

Heading1:

This is the style used for the topic header displayed in the box above the editing area. It's a good idea to use it as the parent for a family of heading styles for use in the rest of your project.

Image Caption:

This style is applied to the captions of graphics inserted in your topics. Like the Comment style it is quite limited: See Image caption and comment styles for details.

Notes:

This style is reserved for functions that may be added to Help+Manual in a future release.