How to Apply Multiple Character Styles in InDesign

Designers create their magazine layouts in page layout software such as InDesign.

Various types of page layout software are available commercially, including Adobe InDesign. This software, developed by Adobe, allows users to create multi-page layouts such as books, as well as single-page layouts. The software includes various options to format text such as character styles. Character styles essentially save the formatting attributes applied to a certain text character. You can then apply these formatting attributes to any character in your layout's text. This avoids having to format the text all over again, which can be long and tedious. You can apply multiple character styles in InDesign.

Instructions

Creating Character Styles

1. Navigate to the "Window" menu in InDesign. Select "Character Styles" in the "Type & Tables" sub-menu to open up the Character Styles palette.

2. Click on the small button at the top-right corner of the Character Styles palette to open a sub-menu list. Select "New Character Style" to create the new style.

3. Enter a name for your character style. Change the font size, font family and style to format the style as desired. Experiment with the different options until you are satisfied with the look of the character style.

Applying Character Styles

1. Select the text you want to apply to the style you created. Click on your mouse button and drag it over the text to highlight it.

2. Open the Character Styles palette. Click on the style to apply it to the text and select the desired character style.

3. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 to apply various character styles to the desired text. Character styles only apply to the text you have selected and not an entire paragraph. Essentially, each letter in a word can have its own character style.

References

• InDesign CS3: Define Paragraph and Character Styles
• InDesign CS3: About Character and Paragraph Styles
• InDesign CS3: Apply Styles