Text, Nested, and Object Styles in InDesign
Taking Advantage of InDesign Styles
Learn to Make the Most out of Text, Nested, and Object Styles
Although styles have been around for years to save time and ensure consistency, many designers still don’t take full advantage of them. InDesign CS2 adds even more reasons to use styles in your layouts, both for text and objects. In 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.
STEP 1 Controlling 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 (File>Place). In the resulting dialog, select Preserve Styles and Formatting from Text and Tables, then select Customize Style Import and click Style Mapping to open the dialog 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!)
STEP 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.
STEP 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 enter Command-Option-Shift-R (PC: Control-Alt-Shift-R). The style is now updated, as is any text using it in the document.
STEP 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.
STEP 5 Apply Multiple Styles
When you create paragraph styles, you can tell InDesign to apply a different style to the next paragraph as you type by specifying a style name in the Next Style pop-up menu in the General pane of the Paragraph Style Options dialog. But what about when applying styles to existing text? That, too, is easy: Select the paragraphs to apply the styles to, then in the Paragraph Styles palette, Control-click (PC: Right-click) the name of the style to be applied to the first paragraph. From the contextual menu, choose the Apply [“your style name”] then Next Style option, and InDesign will apply all the styles in sequence.
STEP 6 Selectively Import Styles
Often, you’ll have a style created in another document that would be perfect in your current one—or you may have an updated version in another document you want to bring into the current document. InDesign CS2 lets you selectively import such styles. In the Paragraph Styles or Character Styles palette, choose Load All Styles from the palette’s flyout menu, then choose the source InDesign file and click Open. After InDesign has processed the file, you’ll get a dialog that lets you choose which paragraph, character, and object styles to import—just make sure the ones you want are checked.
STEP 7 Don’t Forget the OpenType
InDesign styles offer many, many options—and you may forget to take advantage of them when you create your styles. One worth double-checking is the OpenType Features pane when editing paragraph or character styles. It’s usually a good idea to enable Contextual Alternates and Fractions. (If your font doesn’t support enabled attributes, your text will be formatted normally.)
STEP 8 Build in Numbers and Bullets
New to InDesign CS2 is a feature to automate bullets and numbering. Paragraph styles also have this capability, making it easy to apply them to text. In the Bullets and Numbering pane when creating or editing styles, select Bullets or Numbers from the List Type pop-up menu, then choose the appropriate settings for your layout. Note: One limitation of InDesign’s numbering is that it doesn’t let you right-align numerals along the decimal, so there’s no way to have lists with 10 or more items indent the first nine entries so the decimals align with the rest of the entries.
STEP 9 Use Styles with Objects
Styles are very powerful, so it’s about time you can create them for objects as well as text. InDesign’s object styles let you apply consistent formatting to frames, lines, and other objects using the familiar styles mechanism. To open the Object Styles palette, press Command-F7 (PC: Control-F7). Creating, editing, and applying object styles works the same as for paragraph and character styles with one difference: Uncheck any effect that you don’t want an object style to change on a frame when applied.
STEP 10 Ensure Consistent Alignment
Many documents have mouse-positioned text frames, so text doesn’t quite align across the page. InDesign’s new baseline options for individual frames can prevent that, especially when applied as part of an object style—which guarantees that all like frames use the same baseline options.
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