Object Styles

Object styles can control any attribute of any object you can create in InDesign! However, like a character style, object styles may have a light touch, affecting only those attributes you want them to. Maybe you wish to change a fill color without affecting the stroke weight, or you desire a style that applies some text frame options but nothing else. Of course, an object style can be made to affect every attribute, too, including an object’s size and/or position on the page.

Creating an Object Style

To create an object style, start by selecting an object that possesses attributes you would like to record (and apply to other objects). Then use one of the following methods to open the New Object Style dialog box: click on the Object Style button in the Control panel; open the Object Styles panel menu and choose New Object Style…; or click the New object style button at the bottom of the Object Styles panel while holding option/Alt.

Any of these will present you with a truly intimidating dialog box. At the top, give the style a descriptive name. At the bottom of the dialog box, be sure to check Apply Style to Selection and Preview so that this object, the model for the style, is actually governed by the style. Also, in General, you will see a list of the Style Settings. This pretends to be a synopsis—your style at a glance, as it were–but, like for everything else in this dialog box, there’s a scrollbar!

On the left are all of the attributes that we can control within an object style. The checkboxes for Basic Attributes and Export Options can either be checked or unchecked. If unchecked, that attribute is ignored; that is, the object style will not change that attribute on an object. The checkboxes for the effects have three states: checked, unchecked, and ignored. For example, an object with a drop shadow will lose it if Drop Shadow is unchecked, retain it if set to ignore, or perhaps have its settings changed if the box is checked.

Speaking of settings, you will not see them by merely checking a box; you must highlight the name of the attribute to see its settings. Even more hidden are the effects for fill, stroke, and text. To see those, you must first choose from the menu called Effects for. With so much to find, it’s no surprise that the list of Style Settings (in General) is so long.

Applying an Object Style

It’s as easy to apply an object style as it is the others: select then click. Specifically, select what you want to change—in this case, a frame or group—then click on the style’s name in the Object Styles panel. You may also choose the style from the Object Style menu in the Control panel, or use Quick Apply. You cannot apply an object style while editing text. If you want to apply an object style to the frame whose text you’re editing, hit the esc key first (to access the Selection tool and select the frame in one step). Then you can apply the style.

Warning: Applying an object style to a group applies it to every object in the group! If styles had been applied to those objects previously, they are lost. Workaround: Don’t apply the style to the group! Instead, Edit > Cut the group, draw an empty frame (perhaps with the Rectangle Frame tool), then Edit > Paste Into. Follow up with Object > Fitting > Fit Frame To Content. You can apply an object style to that frame without contaminating its contents.

Editing an Object Style

The greatest reward for using a style comes when the inevitable request is made to change it. Sure, it’s easy enough to change, say, the fill color of a few objects manually. But if you have hundreds of them….

Just as with paragraph and character styles, the safest way to edit an object style is to right-click its name and choose Edit “stylename”…. And that’s a right-click with no left-click first! Why? Because we apply styles by left-clicking their names and you may not want to apply the style to what’s currently selected. Or worse, you may unintentionally set that style as a default if you have nothing selected. It would be disconcerting to create new objects and find them using your most garish object style.

Warning: To avoid trouble, occasionally deselect everything, ⌘-shift-A/Ctrl-shift-A, then inspect your styles panels. Anything that’s highlighted is a default. Be sure to set the default in the Character Styles panel to [None] and choose relatively generic Object and Paragraph Styles.

The words above should look familiar…it’s good advice as defaults are both powerful and a bit tricky.

The Attributes Controlled by Object Styles

Almost all of these attributes are discussed in chapter 2 of the Compendium, “Frames & Content” (page 189). However, to make it a little easier, here are more direct references:

Fill, Stroke, and Stroke & Corner Options see “Fills & Strokes” (page 192) and “Live Corners Widget and Corner Options Dialog Box” (page 226).

Text Frame Options see “Text Frames” (page 198).

Story Options see “Ignore Optical Margin” (page 248).

Text Wrap & Other see “Text Wrap: Force Fields on Objects” (page 229). Other is simply whether the object with the style is nonprinting or not. Makes me wonder why this isn’t called “Text Wrap & Nonprinting.”

Anchored Object Options see “Anchored Objects” (page 231).

Export Tagging see “Output Tagging” (page 262) and “Export Tagging” (page 347).

Object, Stroke, Fill, and Text Effects see “Effects Panel & Dialog Box” (page 227).

Export Options (Alt Text, Tagged PDF, ePub and HTML) see “Export Tagging” (page 347).

Size and Position Options

Introduced with the release of Creative Cloud 2018, these options still need a little work, but are welcome nonetheless. Just as we may want appearance attributes like fill or stroke to be consistent for similar objects, we often want consistent size and placement.

Above is an example. I placed an image then set about making an object style for it (from the Object Styles panel menu > New Object Style…). In the Size and Position options, I first set the size: 3.5 inches tall by 8.75 inches wide (the page width plus bleed). I wanted to make both the X Offset and Y Offset negative, to move the upper-left corner of the image onto the bleed, but negative values are not allowed. The Reference Point refers to the part of the object to whose position we refer, and its default is the frame’s upper-left corner. The X Offset is relative to either the page’s left edge or the left margin. The Y Offset is relative to either the page’s top edge or the top margin. As of this writing there is no way to change that, unlike with Anchored Objects.

I noted that the center of the image frame would have positive coordinates relative to the page edges, so I used that as my Reference Point and resorted to arithmetic to determine where the center should be: X Offset equal to 4.25 inches (the horizontal midpoint of the page) and the Y Offset equal to 1.625 inches (half the frame height minus the bleed). I added Text Wrap and Frame Fitting Options to complete the style.