Lesson C: Building Paragraph Styles

By Example: Emulating a Style Guide

When either working out ideas or emulating the formatting used in other applications, we create placeholder text and format it. The paragraphs on page 4 are formatted to prepare to create styles that record that formatting so it can be applied to other text easily.

• Go to page 4 of the document 3 Text Styles.indd.
• Insert the text cursor so it’s blinking in the first paragraph, “A Jester Unemployed is Nobody’s Fool!”
• The Properties panel will show some of the formatting that’s applied to this paragraph. At the top of that panel, be sure the Paragraph Styles button is active, then click Create Style. This will highlight the provisional (and generic) name in the field above.
• Rename this style heading, then press the Enter key. This new Paragraph Style is now created and applied to that paragraph. We’ll test it a little later.
• Insert the cursor into the second paragraph that begins “The Duchess dove…”.
• Click the Create Style button and name this one “summary.” Again, this style is both created and applied to the paragraph where the cursor is blinking.
• For the third style, drag the Type tool cursor to create highlighted text that includes characters from both of the following two paragraphs (as illustrated below).

• Click Create Style in the Properties panel and name this one rambling. It is applied to the entirety of the two paragraphs that contain the highlighted text.
• Finally, insert the cursor in the paragraph shaded with yellow. Click Create Style in the Properties panel and name this style excerpt.

Applying Paragraph Styles

To practice applying these new styles to other text, let’s look at the text frame on page 5.

• Insert the Type tool cursor into the first paragraph. The Properties panel will show that the name of the style applied to this paragraph is the default [Basic Paragraph]. Click the drop-down menu arrow to the right of the name () and choose heading from the list.
• Highlight text from several paragraphs and choose another style from the list, perhaps rambling or excerpt.
• Apply the four styles you made to paragraphs in that frame so all of the text is formatted.

Overrides: Style Violations

To see the Paragraph Styles panel and a list of all the paragraph styles in the document, go to Window > Styles > Paragraph Styles (unless it’s already on-screen).

• Insert your cursor into a paragraph to which you applied a style such as heading. That style will be highlighted in the Paragraph Styles panel and that style’s name will be shown in the Properties panel. Highlight some or all of that paragraph (recall that double-clicking selects a word, triple-clicking a line, and quadruple-clicking the whole paragraph).
• Using the Properties panel or the Control panel, change something about that selected text—its size or font, for example.

Leave the text selected, and you’ll see that next to the style’s name in the Paragraph Styles panel there is now a plus (+) sign, and in the Properties panel there is a different icon (), to indicate that you made a change that deviates from that style’s definition. This change is a style override. Since we use styles to achieve consistency, these are useful indicators! Just under the name of the Paragraph Styles panel, you’ll see the style’s name, again with its plus sign. In the same part of that panel, you’ll also see two buttons: a plus sign in brackets and a lightning bolt.

• Ignore the lightning button, at least for now, but do click the bracketed plus sign, which is the Override Highlighter. You may now deselect your text and InDesign will continue to show overrides anywhere on the spread by highlighting them in vibrant teal.
• Make a text selection that includes the paragraph(s) with overrides, then click the Clear Override button at the bottom of the Paragraph Styles panel (see figure above). This reasserts the style’s authority over that text.

Safely Editing Paragraph Styles

You may prefer the override to the style’s definition. If that’s the case, we can redefine the style based on our changes. Let’s use the heading style again.

• With the Type tool, highlight one entire paragraph that uses the style heading, and then make changes to its formatting. The dreaded plus sign will appear by the style’s name in the Paragraph Styles panel and, if the Override Highlighter is still engaged, the text will be highlighted in teal.
• With the cursor somewhere within that altered paragraph, use the Paragraph Styles panel menu and choose Redefine Style or, in the Properties panel, click the icon to the right of the style’s name (), which also redefines the style to match the selected text.

There is a completely different approach that gives you full access to every attribute a paragraph style controls. Rather than making an override, and then redefining the style to match, you can tweak the definition directly. Let’s redefine the style summary.

• With nothing selected at all (⌘-shift-A/Ctrl-Shift-A), right-click (without a left-click) on the style named summary and choose Edit “summary”…. In the large dialog box that appears, be sure to check the Preview checkbox (lower left).
• Go to the Basic Character Formats section and change the font style (perhaps 100 will be a noticeable change).
• Explore the many options along the left side of that dialog box.

  A full guided tour of the Paragraph Style Options dialog box can be found in the “Styles, Type & Fonts” section of the Compendium.

Defaults—Again!

Ask yourself this question: If you were to create a text frame and start typing, which style is the one you’d like to use to format that text? Different situations dictate that answer, so it may not always be the same. In general, however, I choose the style likely to be applied to the most content. Of the styles we just created, that would be rambling, a cheeky name for body copy.

• To set rambling as your default (at least for now), make sure that nothing is selected and that your cursor is not in any text. The shortcut ⌘-shift-A/Ctrl-Shift-A should do it.
• In the Paragraph Styles panel, click just once on the name of the style rambling, and it is now highlighted. Of course, you may choose another style, but then I’d request that you again ask yourself the question above.
• Make a small text frame where there is room on the spread and start typing. Notice that rambling is the style it uses.

Building Styles from Scratch

• In the document 3 Text Styles.indd, go to page 6.

We are going to build three paragraph styles and three character styles. The process I describe here is somewhat realistic, and therefore nonlinear. Our starting point is a common one: we’ll first format our body copy, the text that occupies the most real estate and with which our readers spend the most time. The other styles may be based on this one.

• With the Selection tool, select the text frame on page 6. The Properties panel will show you both object and type options because this is a text frame. Choose a font family that has both an italic and bold style, though you’re not going to use those to define body copy. InDesign does not like to create fake italic or bold, so we need to know they’re on-hand. In the figure, I chose Myriad Pro Regular at 11 points and left alignment. I chose this font because I also own the italic and bold.
• In the Paragraph section of the Properties panel, click the More Options button (). Highlight the field for Space After and enter “5 pt,” then hit the Enter key. Don’t forget the units, especially if your rulers are set to inches—5 inches would be too much space!
• Click the Create Style button and name this paragraph style body copy. I’m sure you saw that coming.
• Double-click in the frame to switch quickly to the Type tool. Then, quadruple-click the first line to be sure you’ve selected the entire first paragraph. This one will be a header. You may format it as simply larger and perhaps bolder than body copy. I chose Museo Slab 700 at 12 points and center alignment. I also clicked on the Fill box in the Properties panel to choose a different color (a swatch called “ID”—a dark red).
• Click the Create Style button and name this paragraph style topic header. Almost predictable. However, our third paragraph style will seem silly at first.
• With your cursor blinking in the last paragraph (which begins “Style name: ‘subtopic’”), click the Create Style button and name it…I bet you can’t guess.

Yes, for the moment, subtopic and body copy are identical. Later, however, we’ll do something clever, and the first sentence of any paragraph to which we apply the subtopic style will automatically be bold. To do that, we’ll need to make character styles first.