Style Sheets in a Magazine Article

Topics covered in this InDesign tutorial:

Paragraph styles, Character styles, Nested styles

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

Paragraph and character styles are some of the most important tools you have in InDesign. We show you the basics here, as well as the more advanced and powerful nested styles.

1. Open the file Popcorn.indd. (If you get a message about modified links, click Update Links. The exercise file was created on a different computer, but InDesign will automatically find the files for you in their expected folder.)

2. Do a File > Save As and save it as yourname-Popcorn.indd.

3. In the InDesign menu (Mac) or Edit menu (Windows), go to Preferences > Type.

4. Check on Apply Leading to Entire Paragraphs and click OK.

Importing the Text

1. Choose the Selection tool and select the 4-column text box on the page.

2. Do a File > Place, and choose pop.txt. If you get a missing font alert, do the following instructions. Otherwise continue to the next step:
   • Click the Find Fonts button (or if you missed clicking it, go into Type > Find Font).
   • At the top, select the missing font (which is probably Times in this case).
   • At the bottom of the window, under Replace With: Font Family, choose Times (or any font you have, it really doesn’t matter in this case).
   • Click Change All.
   • Click Done.

Styling the Band Name

Typically when starting a design, you don’t know how you want the text to look, so the first thing you do is style it. Then once you like it, you save that appearance as a style so you can apply it elsewhere.

1. Go into Type > Show Hidden Characters to see things like Paragraph markers.

2. Select the first word: Stereolab (this is a 1-word paragraph).

3. Make it 14/12.5 Myriad Pro Bold.

4. We haven’t yet defined the color we want. But before we create it, keep the text selected and open the Swatches panel (Window > Color > Swatches).

5. At the top left of the Swatches panel, make sure the type’s Fill swatch is in front (active). If it’s not, click it to make it active.

   

6. Go into the Swatches panel menu and choose New Color Swatch.

7. Make sure Add to CC Library is unchecked if shown, then enter these settings:

   

8. When done with the color, click OK.

9. The “pink” color swatch (named C=0 M=100 Y=50 K=0) you just created is added to the bottom of the panel and has been applied for you.

Styling the Regular Text

1. Select the next two paragraphs: from Dots and Loops through Lorraine Ali.

2. Give it the following text attributes:

   Font:	Myriad Pro Regular
   Size:	9 pt
   Leading:	12.5 pt
   Alignment:	Justify with last line aligned left

3. Go into the Control panel menu and choose Hyphenation.

4. Enter the following settings:

   

5. When done, click OK.

6. Go back into the Control panel menu and choose Justification.

7. Enter the following settings:

   

8. When done, click OK.

9. Select all three of the paragraphs you just styled: Stereolab through Lorraine Ali.

10. In the Control panel’s Paragraph options , click Align to baseline grid .

11. Select the second line, Dots and Loops (Elektra).

12. Give it the following attributes:

    Font:	Myriad Pro Italic
    Alignment:	Left

Creating Paragraph Styles

We’re ready to create the styles. Let’s start with the band name.

1. Click anywhere in the first paragraph, Stereolab (it’s only a 1-word paragraph).

2. Open the Paragraph Styles panel (Type > Paragraph Styles).

3. Go into the Paragraph Styles panel menu and choose New Paragraph Style.

4. Name this one Band Name.

5. InDesign can also save paragraph styles into a CC Library. We only want to use this style in the current document, so uncheck Add to CC Library if the option is shown.

6. Click OK.

   NOTE: You didn’t have to set anything in the style sheet since InDesign copied all of the settings from the paragraph the cursor was in!

7. Let’s create another style for the album info. Click anywhere in the second line. This is a 1-line paragraph that reads: Dots and Loops (Elektra).

8. In the Paragraph Styles panel menu , choose New Paragraph Style.

9. Name this one Album Info and click OK.

10. One more style for the regular text—click anywhere in the large paragraph below that. It begins: Stereolab take their…

11. In the Paragraph Styles panel menu , choose New Paragraph Style.

    TIP: A faster way to create a style is to hold Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) and click the New style button at the bottom of the panel. (If you don’t hold Alt/Option while clicking the button, InDesign will give the style a generic name.)

12. Name this one Body and click OK.

Applying the Styles

While we have created our styles, none of the text is using them yet. Let’s start by applying the Body style to all the text.

1. Make sure the cursor is sitting somewhere in the text frame.

2. Go to Edit > Select All.

3. In the Paragraph Styles panel, click on the Body style to apply it.

4. Click anywhere in the first paragraph (Stereolab).

5. Click on the Band Name style to apply it.

   NOTE: As you just saw, you technically do not have to select the whole paragraph when applying a paragraph style. Paragraph styles will automatically apply to the entire paragraph.

6. Find the next band name (Photek) and click anywhere in it.

7. Click on the Band Name style to apply it.

8. Continue styling the rest of the Band Names. Here are the remaining names in case you can’t spot ’em:

   • Tanya Donelly
   • Boyz II Men
   • Helium
   • The Sundays
   • Steve Earle
   • Matraca Berg

9. Under each of the band names is the short (often 1-line) paragraph for the Album Info. Apply the Album Info style to each of those paragraphs.

Changing Styles Once They’ve Been Created

It would look better if there were more space between the bands. Let’s add some space above the band name. Since we have a style sheet for the band names, we’ll just change it and all the band names will be updated.

1. Make sure nothing is selected (Edit > Deselect All).

2. In the Paragraph Styles panel, double–click Band Name.

3. Click on the Indents and Spacing section on the left.

4. Set Space Before to 1p and click OK.

   All the band names should now have more space before them.

Optical Margin Alignment

1. Before we continue working with our styles, let’s improve the alignment of the left/right edges of the columns. Place the text cursor in the text box (or select the text box) and go into Type > Story.

2. In the Story panel that opens, set the following:
   • Check Optical Margin Alignment.
   • Set it to 12 pt (this setting is typically the same as your type size, or close to it).

   This hangs Roman punctuation like quotes, periods, etc. a bit outside the column so the column “visually” looks better justified.

Creating & Applying a Character Style

1. At the end of each review is the name of the reviewer. Select the first reviewer, Lorraine Ali.

2. In the Control panel, make it 8 pt and All Caps .

3. Since this text isn’t the whole paragraph, it can’t be a paragraph style; it must be a character style. With the text still selected, go to the Character Styles panel (Type > Character Styles).

4. From the Character Styles panel menu , choose New Character Style.

5. Don’t click OK till we say so! Name this one Reviewer.

6. Click in the Shortcut field.

7. Hold Shift and hit 1 at the top of your keyboard or on the number pad (on the right side of a full keyboard). These are considered different keys, so you’ll have to remember which 1 key you pressed.

   NOTE: InDesign used to require use of a number pad, but not all keyboards have one, so InDesign 2020 (or later) allows us use other keys!

8. In the field, you’ll see Shift+1 (or Shift+Num 1) appear. That means you can use that key combination to quickly apply this style sheet.

9. Uncheck Add to CC Library if shown.

10. Click OK to close the New Character Style window.

    NOTE: Just like it did before, InDesign looked at the selected text and copied the formatting into the style.

11. With the Lorraine Ali text still selected, in the Character Styles panel, click on Reviewer to apply the style.

    NOTE: The text won’t look different but it will be linked to the style now.

12. Go through the text and apply the Reviewer style to each reviewer. If you want to do this fast, just select the name, hold Shift and press the number 1. This will apply the style instantly.

    NOTE: If you can’t see the last article’s reviewer, you can come back to that in a little while once we’ve fit the text.

Creating a Nested Character Style

1. Look at the second line of text: Dots and Loops (Elektra).

2. The text before the parentheses is the title of the CD. Select just the text Dots and Loops.

3. Make it Myriad Pro Semibold.

4. Let’s turn this into a style sheet so we can apply it to the other CD titles. Since this text isn’t the whole paragraph, it can’t be a paragraph style; it must be a character style. Make sure the Dots and Loops text is still selected.

5. Open the Character Styles panel (Type > Character Styles).

6. From the Character Styles panel menu , choose New Character Style.

7. Name this one CD Title and click OK.

8. Before applying this style, let’s look closer. At the start of each Album Info line, there’s always the CD name (they appear before the labels in parentheses).

   While we could select each one and manually apply the CD Title style ourselves, there is an easier way. Because the text always follows a pattern of: CD Title (label), we can have InDesign style the text up to the first parenthesis for us! To do this, we will “nest” the CD Title character style into the Album Info style that has already been applied to that text. Let’s do that now.

9. Deselect everything by choosing Edit > Deselect All.

10. In the Paragraph Styles panel, double–click the Album Info style.

11. On the left, click on the Drop Caps and Nested Styles section.

12. Click the New Nested Style button and set the following options:

    

13. Click OK and check it out. All the CD Titles are now styled for you!

Adding Space Before Reviewers

1. Notice that all the reviewer names have tabs before them. The reviewer names should align right, so we are going to change these tabs. Here’s a nifty way to do it:

   If the name is on the same line as other text:

   • Select the actual tab character (we don’t want it anymore so we’ll replace it).
   • Then type in a Shift–Tab (this is a right aligned tab).

   If the name is on a line by itself:

   • Click to the left of the name and type a Shift–Tab (this is a right aligned tab).

2. Repeat the previous step until you’ve put a Shift–Tab before every author except the last one.

   We can’t style the last reviewer because the text is not all fitting. Let’s fix that.

Fitting the Text

1. Now that we have styled everything, we need to get all the text to fit and then break nicely. We’ll be using tracking, and its default keystroke amount is too large. To fix it, go into the InDesign menu (Mac) or Edit menu (Windows), and choose Preferences > Units & Increments.

2. Change Kerning/Tracking to 5 and click OK.

3. Look at the end of each review. If the reviewer is on its own line, it probably looks fine, such as with the first three reviews.

   Other reviews such as for the band Helium, have awkward breaks. The reviewer Matt Diehl has just his last name hanging in the top of the fourth column. To fix this, we’ll “cheat” by tracking the text:

   • Select the entire paragraph of the review.
   • Try tracking it in using Option–Left Arrow (Mac) or Alt–Left Arrow (Windows). (Do not do this more than three times for a total tracking of –15 as more than that will be too noticeable.) That should bring the reviewer’s name all onto one line.
   • Try tracking text in or out on other paragraphs as needed to fill the spaces until the bottom of each review looks nicely filled out. If you find a paragraph where too much text spills onto the last line, try tracking only part of the paragraph instead of all of it.
4. That last reviewer, Henry Cabot Beck, should now fit at the end of the text frame.
   • Select it.
   • Apply the Reviewer character style.
   • Put a Shift–Tab in front of it.
   • Apply any tracking you think it needs to look good.

5. Save the file. That’s it, you’re done! Now these styles can be used for all future issues that use this format for CD reviews.