Controlling Type with Nested Styles

CATEGORIES: InDesign, Tutorials | Terry White | October 07, 2005

One of my first InDesign CS tutorials was on how to use nested styles. Of course, as time goes by, one tends to learn more about a particular feature, including tips and tricks and new ways to use the feature to improve production. In this tutorial, we’ll take a look at how to use nested styles to generate some of the most popular text formatting looks used in many magazines and books on the market today.

First Create Nested Style

STEP 1: Start with Character Styles

Nested styles are paragraph styles with character styles nested inside. So the first thing we’ll do is create a character style. Bring up your Character Styles palette by hitting Shift-F11. (Note: In Mac OS X Panther, F11 will invoke Exposé by default, so go to Window>Type & Tables>Character Styles instead.) Click the Create New Style button at the bottom of the palette.

STEP 2: Enter Settings for New Character Style

We’re going to use this style to format the first 10 words of our introduction paragraph. This technique is used all the time in magazines and press releases. Double-click on the new character style to open the Character Style Options dialog and choose the Basic Character Formats category on the left. For this example, we’re using Warnock Pro Semibold and setting the Case field to Small Caps. You might also want to increase the point size. If you want to exaggerate the point size, try using Normal Case instead. Once you have your settings, name your style “first 10 words” and click OK.

STEP 3: Create Paragraph Style for First Paragraph

Bring up your Paragraph Styles palette by hitting the F11 key (Window>Type & Tables>Paragraph Styles). Create a new paragraph style by clicking the Create New Style button at the bottom of the palette. Please note that if your cursor is already in your text, InDesign CS will use the current text formatting as the basis of the style you just created. You can save time this way by experimenting with how you want your text to look and then creating the new style.

STEP 4: Enter Settings for New Paragraph Style

Double-click on the new paragraph style in the Paragraph Styles palette to open the Paragraph Style Options dialog. Choose the Basic Character Formats category on the left. For this example, we’re using the font Kabel LT Std Book at 12 pt, normal case, and left justified (in the Indents and Spacing category, choose Left Justify from the Alignment pop-up menu). Name your style “first paragraph.” Don’t click OK just yet; we can create our nested style at the same time. Click the Drop Caps and Nested Styles category on the left of the Paragraph Style Options dialog.

STEP 5: Nest the First 10 Words Character Style

Click the New Nested Style button near the bottom of the dialog. From the pop-up menu that appears in the Nested Styles list, choose First 10 Words (or whatever you named the character style that you created in Step 2). Right now it says “first 10 words through 1 Words.” Simply click directly on the “1″ and change it to “10″ so that the first 10 words in the paragraph will be formatted with the nested character style. Click OK.

STEP 6: Apply Style

At this point, you’re ready to use your new “first paragraph” nested style. Simply put your cursor in the first paragraph of your article and click on First Paragraph in the Paragraph Styles palette.

Styling Numbered Lists

STEP 1: Create a Bold Numbered Character Style

Okay, time to kick it up a notch. If you’ve been using InDesign for any length of time, you’ve probably had to create a numbered list at some point in time. While numbered lists aren’t hard to do, they can be a pain when you want the numbers to be formatted differently from the rest of the paragraph. Return to your Character Styles palette and create a new style. Double-click on the new style to open the Character Style Options dialog and name the style “bold numbers.”

STEP 2: Specify Style of Bold Numbers

This part is pretty easy. All you have to do is pick a font that you like that has a corresponding bold, heavy, or black style in the Basic Character Formats category. For this example, we’re using Helvetica Neue 75 Bold. Once you’ve settled on one, click OK.

STEP 3: Create Numbered Paragraph Style

Back in the Paragraph Styles palette, click the Create New Style button, and open the Paragraph Style Options. Use whatever Basic Character Formats you want. The main thing is that we need to go to the Indents and Spacing category and set our Left Indent and First Line Indent. The Left Indent is how far in you want your text to be from the number. In this example, we’re using .25″ (1p6). Whichever measurement you use, set your First Line Indent to be negative that value. Here we used -.25″ (-1p6), so the numbers will be at the left edge of the frame.

STEP 4: Nest Bold Numbers Style

Click the Drop Caps and Nested Styles category on the left of the Paragraph Style Options dialog. Click the New Nested Style button at the bottom of the dialog. From the pop-up menu that appears in the Nested Styles list, choose Bold Numbers. Click directly on the word “Words” and type a period so the nested style will end at the first period it encounters. Name your style “numbered paragraph” and click OK. (Note: If there are any other nested styles in the list, click on them and then click the Delete button to remove them from the paragraph style.)

STEP 5: Create Your Numbered List/Paragraph

In order for this style to work, you must type your number, then a period, and then a tab before you type your text. The beauty of setting the Left and First Line Indents is that as you type your text after each number/tab, your text will automatically wrap and line up properly. You can either type your text fi rst and then select it all and apply the style or you can apply the style fi rst and then simply type your text and watch the magic happen.

Highlighting with Style

STEP 1: Create a Colored Highlight Style

Now that you’ve gotten the hang of creating nested styles, let’s look at a slick way to create highlighted text via character styles. Then we’ll see how powerful it can be when combined with, or shall we say nested in, a paragraph style. Create a character style and then go to the Underline Options. Here we can turn on an Underline and have it highlight our words. Set the Weight to 11 pt, Offset to -4.5 pt (to raise it up into the text), and the Color pop-up menu to yellow (C=0, M=0, Y=100, K=0). Call this style “Teaser” and click OK.

STEP 2: Apply Style to a Specific Set of Words

Create a new paragraph style called “catalog text” and make sure the Underline option is turned off. Click on the Drop Caps and Nested Styles category on the left. Click the New Nested Style button. Choose “Teaser” from the Style pop-up menu and set it to go through one exclamation point (!) and click OK. (Note: If there are any other nested styles in the list, click on them and then click the Delete button to remove them from the paragraph style.)

STEP 3: Put It to the Test

Now you can type any word or words that you want to be highlighted in yellow. The yellow highlighting will apply until you type an exclamation point.

Terry White has been with Adobe Systems, Inc. for eight years. In his current role as Technical Resources Manager for North America, he leads a team of creative professional application engineers. He’s also president of MacGroup-Detroit, Michigan’s largest Macintosh User Group.

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