Design Center Tutorial
Take advantage of InDesign styles
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Table of Contents
By Galen Gruman for Layers Magazine
Although styles have been around for years to save time and ensure consistency, many designers still don’t take full advantage of them. Adobe® InDesign® CS2 adds even more reasons to use styles in your layouts, both for text and objects. In InDesign CS2, you’ll find more control over importing Microsoft Word styles, plus the new ability to create and apply styles to objects to ensure consistent drop shadows, color, and so forth. There are also many neat things to be done with text styles introduced in earlier versions of InDesign that you may not be taking advantage of. In the following 10 steps, let’s explore how to make the most of InDesign styles.
1. Control styles at import
You can save a lot of production work if your editors apply Microsoft Word styles while editing text. During text import, InDesign CS2 lets you set how each Word style is handled. When placing a Word file, check Show Import Options in the Place dialog (choose File > Place). In the resulting dialog box, select Preserve Styles and Formatting from Text and Tables, then select Customize Style Import and click Style Mapping to open the dialog box that lets you set how each Word style is handled. (You can even save these settings as presets in the main dialog for later use!)
When you place a Word file, select Show Import Options to display the Microsoft Word Import Options dialog box.
Select Customize Style Import and then click Style Mapping in the Place dialogue box to display the Style Mapping dialog box.
2. Experiment first
When creating styles in InDesign, the easiest way is to format sample text using the Control palette, Paragraph palette, and Character palette. When the text looks right, click anywhere in it with the Type tool (T), then create a new character or paragraph style from your text by choosing either New Character Style from the Character Styles palette’s flyout menu or New Paragraph Style from the Paragraph Styles palette’s flyout menu. InDesign will automatically copy the text’s settings into the new style, which you can further refine in the resulting dialog.
Choose a new Paragraph Style from the Paragraph Styles palette menu.
3. Change your styles easily
Often, you’ll fine-tune a style after you create it. Again, the easiest way is to make the changes in actual text, then have InDesign update the style for you. Be sure that you have applied the current style to the text before you change its formatting, then change its formatting as desired, and choose Redefine Style in the Paragraph Styles or Character Styles palette’s flyout menu. You can also simply press Control+Alt+Shift+R (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift+R (Mac OS). The style is now updated, as is any text using it in the document.
Choose Redefine Style from the Paragraph Styles or Character Styles palette menu.
4. Automate a style series
Use nested styles to apply a sequence of character styles to a paragraph. For example, to apply a drop cap to a paragraph and make the first line small caps, create character styles for both. Then, edit the paragraph style (in the Drop Caps and Nested Styles pane of the Paragraph Style Options dialog) so it has a drop cap and nested style applied, choosing how many words, lines, etc., each nested style is applied to. To set an arbitrary location, choose End Nested Style Character, and enter that character in the text by choosing Type > Insert Special Character > End Nested Style Here.
Edit the paragraph style in the Drop Caps And Nested Styles pane of the Paragraph Style Options dialog box.
