Benefits of Styles and How to Apply Them in InDesign?

If you’ve ever formatted large amounts of text in Adobe InDesign and then had to change the font, color, character size or leading of all of the headings or body text, you’ll know how time-consuming it can be. It can be a tedious process to crawl through large documents changing the attributes for each bit of text. And it’s also an unrealistic way to work – things can be easily missed out or overlooked. It would be better to  change all instances of a heading, caption or other text style, with a single click of mouse. This is when paragraph and character styles (known as style sheets) will be used. Table and Cell styles are a frequently used feature of InDesign. Next, it’s important to learn what table and cell styles are, as well as how to manage them and the best way to study all the styles is by learning Graphic Design courses from a professional institute where students will recreate a table using a workflow that considers both type of styles.

Style

Styles is a combinations of formatting characteristics that we can apply to text, object, paragraph table or cell to quickly change its appearance.   
There are 4 different styles:-

•     Character Style
•     Paragraph Style
•     Cell Style
•     Table Style

Character and Paragraph Style

• The collection of character formatting attributes is called a character style and a paragraph style.Style includes both paragraph and character formatting attributes. 
• Collection of character formatting attributes that can be applied to text in a single step can be referred as a character style. 
• A style which includes both character and paragraph formatting attributes, and can be applied to a paragraph or range of paragraphs is known as paragraph style.

They both are found in different tables but sometimes called Text Styles. And when we change the formatting of a style, all the text to which the style has been applied are updated with the new format. We can create , edit and delete the style.

Open the Paragraph Panel

Type > Style > Paragraph Style

Open the Character Panel

Type > Style > Character Style

But, both of these can find on the right side of the application Window.

Add Paragraph and Character Style

•     Select the text or place the insertion points in it. And If we select the group in the Style panel, the new style is part of that group.
•     Then choose New Paragraph Style from the panel menu or New Character Style from the panel menu.
•     For Style Name , type a name for your new style then select which style the current style is based on.
•     Can use short key with Alt, Cntrl , Shift + any number.
•     If we want the new style to applied to the text which we have selected Apply Tyle to selection.
•     Character Style , attributes we don’t Specify are ignored when the Style is applied the Paragraph text retains Style formatting for that attributes.

How attribute setting can be removed?

•     From the setting menu, choose (Ignore)
•     In a text box select the option text.
•     When we finished specified the formatting attributes click ok.

Apply a Character Style

•      First select the character you want to apply the style.
•     Press the shortkey assigned to the style by you.

Or

•     Click the character style name in the panel.

Apply a Paragraph Style

•    First select the paragraph you want to apply the style.
•      Press the shortkey assigned to the style by you.

Or

•  Click the paragraph style name in the panel.

Delete Character or Paragraph Style

When we delete a style, we can select a different style to replace it. And we can choose whether to pressure the formatting.

•      Select the style panel
•      Choose delete style from the panel menu or dick delete icon
•      Click ok

• Save

  Before and after applying style

Table and Cell Styles

•   As we use text style to format text we use table and cell style to format table. 
•  A table style is a collection of table formatting attributes. It is a collection of border, row and column stroke and cell style includes formatting cell, paragraph and stroke and fills.

We can edit a style, all tables or cells. To which the style is applied and updated automatically.

Table & Cell Styles Panel

The table/cell style panel is used to create and name table/ cell styles.
All the style are saved with a document and appears in the panel every time we open the document.

How to Open the Table Style or Cell Style Panel?

•    Choose window > style > Table style
•     Window > style > Cell style

Applying Table & Cell Style

Unlike character and paragraph styles, cell and table styles do not share attributes, so applying a table style does not override cell formatting, and vice versa, applying a cell style does not override table formatting. By default, applying a cell style removes formatting applied by any previous cell style, but does not remove local cell formatting.

•     Select the cell to which you want to apply the style.
•     Press the shortcut we defined for the style.

Editing Table and Cell Styles

Using style have one advantage that when we change the definition of a style, all of the tables/ cells format with the changes style.

•      Go to style panel
•      Double click the style and adjust setting according to your needs
•      Click ok

Deleting Table/ Cell Style

When we delete a style a different style can be selected to replace it.

•      Select the style in the panel.
•      Delete style from the panel menu.
•      Select a style to replace it.
•      Click ok.

Benefits of Using Styles

When formatting an entire document, we are certainly not expected to remember and consistently apply the hundreds of paragraph and character formats InDesign provides. Instead, of that we can create our own custom styles to apply multiple formats to text with a single click or a keyboard shortkey created by us. And, if we change a format in a style, it would be reflected everywhere the style is used.
For example, we can change a font in a style and it will automatically change throughout a document everywhere the style is used. Using styles has so many benefits in terms of speed and consistency that you’d never want to work on a long document such as a book, magazine, or newsletter without them.

You’ve got to love styles in InDesign. Did you know that you can set up a Table style that, when assigned to a table, can call in one or more Cell styles? And that Cell styles can call in Paragraph styles? And that Paragraph styles can call in both Character styles? Adobe InDesign is an industry-level tool for professional graphic designers to create single or multiple page documents. Joining Graphic Design Training Institutes will make students learn how to use styles in InDesign effectively is to play around with the options until you are familiar with what they do, and then plan your documents out in advance by building your styles first. Now it’s up to you to use these tools and get creative with them.