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Basics of paragraph and character styles

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Learn how to create and work with Paragraph and Character Styles.

Work with Character and Paragraph styles (also called Text styles) to maintain consistency throughout your document.

Create styles

Use Character and Paragraph styles to save time and ensure consistent formatting throughout your artwork.

A Character style is a collection of character formatting attributes that you can apply to a selected range of text.

A Paragraph style includes both character and paragraph formatting attributes. You can apply it to a selected paragraph or a range of paragraphs.

 Follow these steps to easily create a new Character or Paragraph style:

  1. Select text.

  2. Select Type > Paragraph styles to open Paragraph styles panel.

  3. Click Create a New Style   to create a style with the selected text format.

    You can follow similar steps in the Character styles tab to create a new Character style.

Paragraph Styles panel in InDesign
Paragraph styles panel

A. More Options B. Quick Apply C. Style Override Highlighter D. Apply Style Pack E. Clear overrides in selection F. Create new style group G. View Style packs H. Add selected style to my current CC Library I. Created Style J. Default Style 

You can also select Style Override Highlighter, Quick Apply, Clear Overrides in Selection, Create New Style Group, and View Style packs from the Paragraph Styles panel.

New to InDesign? Use Style Packs to save time and effort. Style Packs are the content-aware built-in set of paragraph styles. For more information, learn how to work with Style Packs in InDesign.

Edit styles

You can change the format of the default or new Character, Paragraph style anytime. Follow these steps to edit and apply a style to selected text or set the style for new text:

  1. Open Character and paragraph styles panel.

  2. Select the Character or Paragraph styles tab. You can see a list of available styles.

  3. Go to More Options   > Style Options...

  4. Select a category from the list of available options and make the changes.

Change text case from Paragraph Style options

  1. Open the Paragraph styles panel.

  2. Select an existing style or create a new style.

  3. Go to Show menu   > Style Options

  4. Select Basic Character Formats and select the text case you want to set.

    Screenshot of the Paragraph Style options panel with the Case dropdown highlighted.
    Select the case you want to set for the Paragraph Style.

Note:

Paragraph style options may vary based on the localized version of InDesign.

Load styles

If you have a preferred text format in another InDesign or InCopy file, you can follow these steps to load styles into your current InDesign file:

  1. Open Character, paragraph styles panel.

  2. Follow any of these options:

    • Select Load Character Styles or Load Paragraph Styles from More Options  
    • Select Load All Text Styles from More Options   to load all the styles.

  3. Double-click the InDesign file that contains the styles you want to import.

    You'll see the Load Styles dialog.

  4. Select the styles you want to import.

    If any existing style has the same name as one of the imported styles, select one of the following options under Conflict With Existing Style:

    • Use Incoming Style Definition: Overrides the existing style with the imported style.
    • Auto-Rename: Renames the imported style.
    Load styles dialog
    Load styles dialog

If you have some favorite styles in a Word document, you can easily map Word Styles to InDesign Styles.

Note:

You can also use the Books feature to share styles. (See Synchronize book documents.)

Delete styles

Don't need a particular style? You can follow these steps to easily delete Character, paragraph styles:

  1. Select a style name in the Character styles panel or the Paragraph styles panel.

  2. Follow any of these options to delete a Character or Paragraph style:

    • Click Delete   .
    • Select Delete Style... from More Options  
    • Choose Select All Unused from More Options   and click Delete.
Delete Character, Paragraph Styles in InDesign
Delete Character, Paragraph Styles

When you delete styles, the appearance of paragraphs tagged with the style doesn’t change, but their formatting is no longer associated with a style.

Note:

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

Style overrides

An override is any change made to an existing style. If there are any overrides to a Character, Paragraph style, you can see a plus sign next to the style name.

Right-click a style name and follow any of these options to clear overrides or redefine a style:

  • Select Apply "[Style name]", Clear Overrides to maintain the original style formatting.

  • Choose Redefine Style to keep the current changes and update the style.

Style Overrides in InDesign
Style Overrides in InDesign

Do you want to know the areas where the overrides are in place? Select the Style Override Highlighter   in the character or paragraph styles panel.

Tips and tricks

  • A named grid format can be applied to a frame grid in the Frame Grid format settings. (See Named Grids panel overview.) You can also use create an object style with grid characteristics. (See About object styles.)
  • If you've an open InDesign document, a newly created style appears only in the current document.
  • If no document is open when you create a style, it appears in all new documents.
  • You can use Duplicate Style to create a style nearly identical to another style but without the parent-child relationship.
  • You can associate a keyboard shortcut with Toggle Style Override Highlighter to access it easily. For more information, see Customize menus and keyboard shortcuts.

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