Inheriting style settings
A seemingly small, yet incredibly powerful feature, that InDesign contains is the ability to base Styles (Table, Cell, Object, Paragraph, Character) on other Styles. You can even base Master Pages on other Master Pages- The reason that I personally like this feature so much, is that it allows me to re-use existing publication templates and very quickly alter the designs.
Let me show you what I’m talking about with a Paragraph Styles example.
The font selected for the body text, is also used by a number of other body text related styles. Each of these styles inherits appearance attributes from the body text and adds its own.
- the intro paragraph, contains a different font-size, leading and drop-cap setting.
- the first body text paragraph, removes the first line indent.
- the bulleted list, adds a hanging indent bullet and removes the space before setting.
To build styles that inherit attributes form another style start out by defining the style on which the other paragraph styles are going to be based. In the design sample above this would mean defining the “Body Text” style first as it will be come the parent style from which other styles will inherit style settings.
The New Paragraph Style is automatically based on the [No Paragraph Style]. InDesign absorbs all the Style Settings – attributes – that differ from this default [No Paragraph Style] into the newly defined and named “Body Text” paragraph style.
Note: Unless there was another paragraph style applied to the text prior to defining a New Paragraph Style, InDesign will always base the new style on [No Paragraph Style]. The [No Paragraph Style] itself can not be altered, nor is it displayed in the Paragraph Styles panel. However, you can see what it looks like and which formatting attributes it sets, by accessing it from the Paragraph Styles pop-up in InDesign’s Control Panel when you’re in Paragraph Formatting Mode.
Ok, so the “Body Text “paragraph style has been created. Now let’s create some additional styles that are based on this style.
Before continuing, I am applying the Body Text style to the paragraphs that are going to be based on this style. Once that’s done I’m starting to apply the additional formatting changes to some sample paragraphs.
With the added changes the “Body Text” style in the paragraph styles panel will display a ‘+’ next to it, indicating that I’ve made some additional overrides on top of what the “Body Text” style defines. When pausing the mouse on the style name a yellow note appears, indicating exactly what those overrides are.
Once the look and feel of the paragraph formatting is right, it’s time to define another new paragraph style. Because we previously applied the “Body Text” paragraph style to this text, the New Pararagraph Style options dialog will automatically set the Based On setting to the “Body Text”. As I know that the style immediately following the “Body Text Para 1” will be “Body Text”, I’m also setting the Next Style setting for this new paragraph style.
The Style Settings, now indicate all of the additional changes “Body Text Para 1” style has when compared to the “Body Text” style.
Continue to apply the same principle to other text and define the remainder of the styles in the design or template.
Normally what I do, once I get to something like bulleted lists or numbered lists, is base a basic list style on the Body Text, so that it inherits the text formatting, but I’ll then base additional list styles on the basic list style I’ve created earlier. That way if later on I decide I’d like to change the appearance of for instance the bullets, I’d only need to make the change in one style. “Body Text” in this case is not only a parent, but also a grand-parent :-)
Ok, so let’s look at a cool benefit of this inhertitance stuff now and assume that my customer has come back and said ” I don’t like the font you are using, it is also too little, I can’t read it”
I’m changing the formatting of the “Body Text” a bit next. The overrides made to the style are again indicated by ‘+’ symbol that appears next to the style name.
Redefining the “Body Text” style will absorb all of the overrides and update not only the “Body Text” style but also pass on the changes to all children and grand-children :-)
The result isn’t the prettiest looking I admit. But on a positive note- all it will take from now on is just an update (Redefine) of the Body Text style, and some minor adjustments maybe to some of its child-styles and we’re ready to rumba :)
The two power uses for InDesign’s Based On feature (and have a play with it in other styles too!):
- faster design updates during the design process for your publications
- once you’ve build a publication template you can use this as the basis for other publications.
Cari, this is a great example of exactly how people should be setting up their styles — whether paragraph, object, table, or whatever! Based-on is a crucial aspect of being efficient in InDesign.
I agree with David. This is a perfect example.
It takes some time to figure out all the possibilities and the effects changing parent-styles has on the based-on styles, but in the end it’ll save time… Yes, even in small ads, that make you think “why should I use a paragraph style?”.
Don’t forget to use the lovely nested styles, and give it a try to combine paragraph styles with object styles.
Thanx for the good article Cari!
@David & @Youri: Thanks guys, I couldn’t agree more :)
and indeed: once you start combining things, the sky is the limit :)
I’ve discovered that it’s nice to call the base style that you base your main text on to ‘Normal’. (And not use ‘Normal’ as a text style in your document, just keep it as a base style in which you define your text appearance.) That way, when you import a Word document where someone has created some new styles, they come in based on something you’ve already formatted.
I basically agree with both you and David about the utility of basing styles on other styles. Unfortunately, doing so often complicates making changes later on. It also tends to confuse newbies who become frustrated because their styles don’t behave as expected. As a result, I’m very judicious about employing this feature and tend to err on the side of basing new paras on No Style.
Hi Scott,
I have to admit I do hear similar complaints at times.
I do my best to teach InDesign “Best Practices” skills, but do sometimes get this type of feedback from those trainees ‘that-get-it’ … “if I do things right in InDesign and someone else takes over the job… they don’t understand what I have done and just opt not to use styles at all… this defeats the purpose of me setting things up correctly in the first place…”
To me this type of feedback points to the importance of training. So many organisations out there purchase amazing software that can help their staff do their jobs more efficiently, better, faster, easier… yet they do NOT budget for training.
Unfortunately not all users of Adobe software live and breath software like us ‘geeky’ people do…– and participate in ‘self-learning’ — if their boss provides them with these excellent tools, then he/she should not forget to also provide them with the best means on how to use these tools. :)
I am a firm believer in the fact that regular staff training benefits the optimal usage of software, additionally building corporate guidelines/briefing guides that contain things like standardised naming conventions/usage guides etc. for template based production stuff are a great aid …
In my days as pre-press manager we used briefing manuals for every periodical we published. When the layout/production work was assigned to a staff-member, the briefing guide was sufficient to ensure consistent work methods were used… we also provided regular training for staff and in-house “what’s new” newsletters… it worked :)
… steps off soap box … ;-) ;-)
Can someone tell me why my drop caps look different from each other?
I have the drop caps (the chapter numbers) set as a nested style. For some reason the “59” is shorter than the “58”. This has happened in several places.
I cannot figure why, or how to fix it.
Help!
Thanks.
@Lemonshrew: Perhaps you have Scale for Descenders turned on in the Drop Caps dialog box and your particular font makes the 9 a descender? Or perhaps your leading is slightly different in the two paragraphs? Other than that, I’m not sure what the problem could be.
David,
I know it’s the strangest thing! Scale for descenders is off, and it’s happening in text using the same paragraph style with no overrides. I can’t figure it out.
I’ve just given up at this point (that whooshing sound is the oncoming deadline). I’ve found that if I reduce the larger number by half a point, and baseline shift up 2 points, it will match the smaller numbers. A lot of hand tweaking, but I’m stumped.
Thanks for your input.
BTW, I just got your tool suite recently. Love it! How did I ever live without it? :)
OK, I figured something out about my strange drop caps. All the paragraphs that have the problem start with a character style applied to the first word after the chapter number.
49First word word word.
In this instance the word “First” has a character style applied that is a different font and size from the regular text.
When I remove the character style from the first word the 49 goes back to it’s correct size and placement.
So I assume it’s picking up traits from that character style. (The 49 has it’s own character style applied.)
Any ideas?
Thanks.
I want a script that will change the font (Times) and its size (9/11) with Minion Pro and 8/10 in all paragraph styles and a picture or logo should appear in display dialog of script.
I know this is late to the party, but some might find it helpful.
I’ve been doing this for years for the reasons given. But there are gotchas to watch for.
If setting a chapter heading style to always start on the right hand page (for example) that will be inherited by all the sub-heading styles, so it is necessary to immediately knock that off in the next style down in the hierarchy.
Also inherited are nested styles. I use nested styles to pick up the chapter title and have it automatically appear in the running heads. That also needs to be knocked off in the next style in the hierarchy otherwise very strange things happen.