Paragraph Styles: Free Photoshop Tutorial

Topics covered in this Photoshop for Web Design tutorial:

Creating, applying, & editing paragraph styles

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

Paragraph styles can help you create a consistent look for the type throughout your design. They also let you change your design more easily, because editing a style updates all the places you have used it throughout a file. In this exercise, you’ll learn how to create, apply, and edit styles.

Creating Paragraph Styles

1. In Photoshop, close any files you have open.
2. Hit Cmd–O (Mac) or Ctrl–O (Windows).
3. Navigate into Desktop > Class Files > yourname-Photoshop for Web Class > iTastify and open iTastify Ready for Styles.psd.
4. If guides are showing, hit Cmd–; (Mac) or Ctrl–; (Windows) to hide them.

5. Zoom in so you can read the text better.

   To save you time, we’ve copied and pasted the final text from the client into the wireframe.

6. Select the Type tool .
7. Toward the top of the document, below the large Food Critic heading, click anywhere into the already styled paragraph Never forget your restaurant experiences…
8. We want to save this type styling as a paragraph style so we can reuse it more easily. Open the Paragraph Styles panel (Window > Paragraph Styles).

9. At the bottom of the Paragraph Styles panel, click the Create new paragraph style button .

10. Double–click on the name of the new Paragraph Style 1.

11. Photoshop saved the styling from the selected text into this style. It’s ready to use, but change Style Name to: paragraph

12. Click OK.

13. Let’s create another style. Farther down the page, find the iTastify Helps You Remember headline.

14. Triple–click the iTastify Helps You Remember headline to select it.

15. In the Options bar at the top of the screen, set the following:

Font:	Arial Bold
Font size :	64 px

7. With the text still selected, go to the bottom of the Paragraph Styles panel and click the New style button .

8. Double–click on the name of the new Paragraph Style 1.

9. Change the name to: heading

10. Click OK.

11. Look at the style’s name in the Paragraph Styles panel. If you see a plus (+) next to the style name, click the Clear Override button at the bottom of the panel.

    An override means the selected text is different than a style. Clearing the override ensures the text completely matches the style. In this case there should not have been any differences, but Photoshop often shows the plus when you are first applying a style to text.

Applying Paragraph Styles

Now that we’ve created some styles, let’s apply them as needed.

1. Hit Esc to finish editing the text.
2. Scroll down to the Rate What You Ate heading.
3. Click anywhere in the Rate What You Ate heading.

4. In the Paragraph Styles panel, the heading style is probably already selected. That’s weird, because we just made that style and haven’t applied it here yet.

5. Click on the heading style anyway to see that nothing happens.

6. The style is not being properly applied, so do the following:
   • Click on the paragraph style.
   • Click back on the heading style. (This time a plus appears next to the name.)
   • Click the Clear Override button .

7. Hit Esc to finish editing the text.

8. Scroll back up the page, to the iTastify Helps You Remember heading.

9. Below the heading, click into the paragraph iTastify is your own personal taste…

10. In the Paragraph Styles panel, click on the paragraph style.

11. The style probably did not apply correctly, so click the Clear Override button .

12. We want this paragraph to be centered so it matches the heading, but we don’t need to make a whole other style. In the Options bar, click the Center text button .

13. In the Paragraph Styles panel, notice the plus (+) on the style name.

    This is an example of when you should expect an override (when you’ve used a style, but changed one or more settings afterwards). In this case an override is fine so we don’t have to do anything else.

14. Hit Esc to finish editing the text.

15. Below this paragraph there are 3 features. Each feature has a bold title and a non-bold description. For now let’s style the whole text block with the paragraph style. Afterwards we’ll come back in and make the bold headings stand out again.

    Place the cursor in the first feature Tag Companions.

16. Hit Cmd–A (Mac) or Ctrl–A (Windows) to select all the text for this feature.
17. In the Paragraph Styles panel, click the paragraph style.
18. Click the Clear Override button to properly apply the style.

19. Hit Esc to finish editing the text.

    NOTE: If the text is black instead of the gray it should be (the settings saved into the style), click into the paragraph and it should turn gray. Then hit Esc to stop editing the text.

20. Style the other two features as follows:

    • Click into the text for a feature.
    • Select all by hitting Cmd–A (Mac) or Ctrl–A (Windows).
    • Click the Clear Override button . The text will become tiny, but doing this before applying the style will avoid the bug you may have just seen (which happened because we cleared overrides after applying the style).
    • Click on the paragraph style.
    • Hit Esc to finish editing the text.

Creating One More Paragraph Style

Let’s style the bold subheadings for each of these three features.

1. Select the Tag Companions subheading.

2. In the Options bar:
   • Change the font weight from Regular to Bold.
   • Click the text Color swatch .
   • Set the color to black, #000
   • Click OK.

3. With the text still highlighted, at the bottom of the Paragraph Styles panel click the New style button .

4. Double–click on the name of the new Paragraph Style 1.

5. Rename it to: subheading

6. Click OK.

7. Apply the subheading style to Add Photos and Take Notes.

   NOTE: This time the style should apply without you having to clear overrides. Why? It’s because you’re applying the style to a paragraph that currently has a clean style. There are no overrides for Photoshop to try to keep.

8. If you’re still editing the text, hit Esc to finish.

Editing Styles

The subheadings and paragraphs are the same size. In retrospect, we should have made the subheadings just a tad larger. One of the reasons to use styles is that editing a paragraph style will globally update all places you’ve used that style. Let’s see just how easy and convenient it is to change styles.

1. We double–click a style name to edit the settings. However, doing so while a text layer is selected will apply the style to that text. Before editing a style, let’s make sure nothing is selected. Go to Select > Deselect Layers.

2. In the Paragraph Styles panel, double–click the subheading style.

3. Make sure Preview is checked on so you can preview the changes.

4. So you can get a better look at the live preview, move the Paragraph Style Options window so you can see the subheadings (Tag Companions, etc.) in the document.

5. Place the cursor in the Font size field .

6. While keeping an eye on the file, hit the Up Arrow to increase the size. All three subheadings should change (just give it a moment to update).

7. When done experimenting, set it to 42 px and click OK.

8. The paragraph under the iTastify Helps You Remember heading could use a bit more space between the lines. No layers should be selected, but go to Select > Deselect Layers just to make sure it is grayed out.

9. In the Paragraph Styles panel, double–click the paragraph style.

10. Change the Leading to 54 px and hit Tab to preview the change.

11. Better. Click OK.

12. Scroll up to the paragraph below the heading Food Critic.

13. Put the cursor anywhere into the paragraph.

14. Open the Character panel (Window > Character).

15. Notice the Leading is Auto, not the 54 px we just set the paragraph style to.

16. In the Paragraph Styles panel you may or may not see a plus next to the style name.

    NOTE: Photoshop can be buggy and does not always show a plus even when it should.

17. At the bottom of the panel notice that Clear Overrides is enabled. Click it!

18. Wow, the text became tiny! In the Paragraph Styles panel click on the Basic Paragraph style, then back onto the paragraph style.

19. Now the text should be back to normal and have the 54 px leading.

    What happened here? Remember how we created our first style from this paragraph? Evidently it never properly had the paragraph style applied (even though it looked like it did). We just didn’t notice it until now.

    Here’s the takeaway: If you ever have weirdness with a style, apply a different style, re-apply the one you want, and clear overrides. That should fix it.

20. Hit Esc to finish editing the text.

21. Scroll down so you can see the heading iTastify Helps You Remember.

22. Click anywhere in the iTastify Helps You Remember heading.

23. In the Paragraph Styles panel, double–click on the heading style.

24. Set the Font size to 70 px.

25. Click OK.

26. Notice that this heading and the Rate What You Ate heading (lower on the page) are both updated!

Applying a Style to Multiple Layers at Once

There are a few more areas on the page where we should apply the paragraph styles we created. Let’s select multiple layers at once to speed up the process.

1. Scroll down to the Rate What You Ate section.

   We want each of the four categories (below the gray boxes) to look similar to the subheadings for now, so we’ll use that style.

2. Choose the Move tool .

3. At the top left of the Options bar, make sure:

   • Auto-Select is NOT checked.

   • The menu to its right is set to Layer.

4. Cmd–click (Mac) or Ctrl–click (Windows) on Appetizers.

5. Cmd–Shift–click (Mac) or Ctrl–Shift–click (Windows) on the other three categories (Entrees, Drinks, and Desserts).

6. Click the Clear Overrides button .

7. In the Paragraph Styles panel, click the subheading style to apply it.

8. If the text isn’t already centered:

   • Select the Type tool .
   • In the Options bar, click the Center text button .

Bonus: Fixing a Typographic Mistake in the Client’s Text

1. Under the heading iTastify Helps You Remember, look at the first feature Tag Companions.

2. Notice that the word You’ll has a straight apostrophe. This is actually an inch mark and not a typographically correct apostrophe. This is because the client did not type it in correctly in the supplied text. Let’s fix it.

3. With the Type tool selected, highlight the fake apostrophe in You’ll.

4. Type an apostrophe (’) and Photoshop will type the correct apostrophe for you!

   All quotes and apostrophes you type in Photoshop are typographically correct “Smart Quotes” by default. If this step does not work, go to Photoshop (Mac) or Edit (Windows) and choose Preferences > Type. Then check on Use Smart Quotes.

5. Hit Esc to finish editing the text.

6. Save the file.