Paragraph and character styles

A character style is a collection of character formatting attributes that can be applied to text in a single step. A paragraph style includes both character and paragraph formatting attributes, and can be applied to a paragraph or range of paragraphs. Paragraph styles and character styles are found on separate panels. Paragraph and characters styles are sometimes called text styles.

When you change the formatting of a style, all text to which the style has been applied will be updated with the new format.

You can create, edit, and delete styles in stand-alone Adobe InCopy documents or in InCopy content that is linked to an Adobe InDesign CS4 document. When the contents are updated in InDesign, new styles are added to the InDesign document, but any style modifications made in InCopy will be overridden by the InDesign style. For linked content, it is usually best to manage your styles in InDesign.

For a video tutorial on making a paragraph style, see www.adobe.com/go/lrvid4277_id. For a video tutorial on using text styles, see www.adobe.com/go/vid0076.

Thomas Silkjaer provides samples of styles at Free InDesign Style Template.

[Basic Paragraph] styles

By default, each new document contains a [Basic Paragraph] style that is applied to text you type. You can edit this style, but you can’t rename or delete it. You can rename and delete styles that you create. You can also select a different default style to apply to text.

Character style attributes

Unlike paragraph styles, character styles do not include all the formatting attributes of selected text. Instead, when you create a character style, InDesign makes only those attributes that are different from the formatting of the selected text part of the style. That way, you can create a character style that, when applied to text, changes only some attributes, such as the font family and size, ignoring all other character attributes. If you want other attributes to be part of the style, add them when editing the style.

Next Style

You can automatically apply styles as you type text. If, for example, your document’s design calls for the style “body text” to follow a heading style named “heading 1,” you can set the Next Style option for “heading 1” to “body text.” After you’ve typed a paragraph styled with “heading 1,” pressing Enter or Return starts a new paragraph styled with “body text.”

If you use the context menu when applying a style to two or more paragraphs, you can cause the parent style to be applied to the first paragraph and the Next Style to be applied to the additional paragraphs. (See Apply styles.)

To use the Next Style feature, choose a style from the Next Style menu when you’re creating or editing a style.

Jeff Witchel provides a video tutorial about using the Next Style feature at Using the Next Style feature.

Styles panel overview

Use the Character Styles panel to create, name, and apply character styles to text within a paragraph; use the Paragraph Styles panel to create, name, and apply paragraph styles to entire paragraphs. Styles are saved with a document and display in the panel each time you open that document.

When you select text or position the insertion point, any style that has been applied to that text is highlighted in either of the Styles panels, unless the style is in a collapsed style group. If you select a range of text that contains multiple styles, no style is highlighted in the Styles panel. If you select a range of text to which multiple styles are applied, the Styles panel displays “(Mixed).”

Open the Paragraph Styles panel

Open the Character Styles panel

Add paragraph and character styles

If the styles you want already exist in another InDesign, InCopy, or word-processing document, you can import those styles for use in your current document. If you are working with a stand-alone story, you can also define character and paragraph styles in InCopy.

Define paragraph or character styles

Styles you create appear only in the current document. If no document is open, the styles you create will appear in all new documents.

Base one paragraph or character style on another

Many document designs feature hierarchies of styles sharing certain attributes. The headings and subheads, for example, often use the same font. You can easily create links between similar styles by creating a base, or parent, style. When you edit the parent style, the child styles will change as well. You can then edit the child styles to distinguish them from the parent style.

Import styles from other documents

You can import paragraph and character styles from another InDesign document (any version) into the active document. During import, you can determine which styles are loaded and what should occur if a loaded style has the same name as a style in the current document. You can also import styles from an InCopy document.

You can import paragraph styles and character styles from an InDesign or InCopy document into a stand-alone InCopy document or InCopy content that is linked to InDesign. You can determine which styles are loaded, and what should occur if a loaded style has the same name as a style in the current document.

Map styles to export tags | CC, CS6, CS5.5

Introduction to export tags

Use Export Tagging to define how text with InDesign styles is marked up in HTML, EPUB, or tagged PDF output.

You can also specify CSS class names to add to the exported content. In EPUB/HTML export, CSS classes can be used to differentiate between slight variations in styling. It is not required that you enter a class name - InDesign automatically generates one based on the Style Name.

You cannot preview Export Tagging within the InDesign layout, as it only impacts the exported EPUB, HTML, or PDF file.

Edit All Export Tags lets you efficiently view and modify the mappings in a single dialog box.

Define style-tag mapping

Edit all export tags

You can view and modify all export tags together in a single window.

Convert Word styles to InDesign styles

While importing a Microsoft Word document into InDesign or InCopy, you can map each style used in Word to a corresponding style in InDesign or InCopy. By doing so, you specify which styles format the imported text. A disk icon  appears next to each imported Word style until you edit the style in InDesign or InCopy.

Apply styles

By default, applying a paragraph style won’t remove any existing character formatting or character styles applied to part of a paragraph, although you have the option of removing existing formatting when you apply a style. A plus sign (+) appears next to the current paragraph style in the Styles panel if the selected text uses a character or paragraph style and also uses additional formatting that isn’t part of the applied style. Such additional formatting is called an override or local formatting.

Character styles remove or reset character attributes of existing text if those attributes are defined by the style.

Apply a character style

Apply a paragraph style

Apply sequential styles to multiple paragraphs

The Next Style option specifies which style will be automatically applied when you press Enter or Return after applying a particular style. It also lets you apply different styles to multiple paragraphs in a single action.

For example, suppose you have three styles for formatting a newspaper column: Title, Byline, and Body. Title uses Byline for Next Style, Byline uses Body for Next Style, and Body uses [Same Style] for Next Style. If you select an entire article, including the title, the author’s byline, and the paragraphs in the article, and then apply the Title style using the special “Next Style” command in the context menu, the article’s first paragraph will be formatted with the Title style, the second paragraph will be formatted with the Byline style, and all other paragraphs will be formatted with the Body style.

If the text includes formatting overrides or character styles, the context menu also lets you remove overrides, character styles, or both.

Edit character and paragraph styles

One of the advantages of using styles is that when you change the definition of a style, all of the text formatted with that style changes to match the new style definition.

Edit a style using the dialog box

Redefine a style to match selected text

After you apply a style, you can override any of its settings. If you decide you like the changes you made, you can redefine the style so that it matches the formatting of the text you changed.

Delete character or paragraph styles

When you delete a style, you can select a different style to replace it, and you can choose whether to preserve the formatting. When you delete a style group, you delete all styles within the group. You are prompted to replace each style in the group one at a time.

Override character and paragraph styles

When you apply a paragraph style, character styles and other previous formatting remain intact. After you apply a style, you can override any of its settings by applying formatting that’s not part of the style. When formatting that is not part of a style is applied to text with that style applied, it is called an override or local formatting. When you select text with an override, a plus sign (+) appears next to the style name. In character styles, an override is displayed only if the applied attribute is part of the style. For example, if a character style only changes text color, applying a different font size to the text does not appear as an override.

You can clear character styles and formatting overrides when you apply a style. You can also clear overrides from a paragraph to which a style has been applied.

Preserve or remove overrides when applying paragraph styles

• To apply a paragraph style and preserve character styles, but remove overrides, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you click the name of the style in the Paragraph Styles panel.
• To apply a paragraph style and remove both character styles and overrides, hold down Alt+Shift (Windows) or Option+Shift (Mac OS) as you click the name of the style in the Paragraph Styles panel.

Highlight character and paragraph style overrides

To identify all the Paragraph and Character style overrides applied in your document do the following:

The Style Override Highlighter highlights all the paragraph and character style overrides in your document.

Clear paragraph style overrides

Break the link between text and its style

When you break the link between text and its style, the text retains its current formatting. However, future changes to that style will not be reflected in the text that was separated from the style.

If no text is selected when you choose Break Link To Style, any new text you type uses the same formatting as the selected style, but no style is assigned to that text.

Convert style bullets and numbering to text

When you create a style that adds bullets or numbering to paragraphs, these bullets and numbers may be lost if the text is copied or exported to a different application. To avoid this problem, convert the style bullets or numbering to text.

If you convert bullets and numbering to text in a style on which another style is based (a parent style), the bullets and numbering in the child style are also converted to text.

After you convert numbering to text, you may need to update numbers manually if you edit the text.

Find and replace character and paragraph styles

Use the Find/Change dialog box to find instances of a particular style and replace it with another.