Making InDesign Work Your Way
In This Chapter
ᮣ Establishing document preferences
ᮣ Working with stored preferences
ᮣ Setting measurement standards
ᮣ Changing text and object defaults
ᮣ Working with view defaults
ᮣ Setting color and style defaults
It’s safe to say that the nice people who created InDesign did their best: They put their heads together and made educated guesses about how most people would like to work and, in doing so, established defaults for various settings in the program. When you’re just starting out, simply sticking with the default settings and seeing how they work for you isn’t a bad idea. But after you become more familiar with InDesign and start putting it through its paces, you can change default preferences, views, and measurements, making them better suited to your way of working.
Preferences are program settings that dictate how InDesign will act in certain instances. InDesign provides extensive preference settings for everything from how objects appear on-screen to how text is managed for spelling and hyphenation.
Setting InDesign to work your way is easy, and this chapter explains how. I promise not to numb you by covering every single option. Instead, I focus on just those preferences you’re likely to change. As for the rest, feel free to explore their effects after you’re more comfortable using InDesign.
34 Part I: Before You Begin
Setting Document Preferences
Preferences are settings that affect an entire document — such as what measurement system you use on rulers, what color the guides are, and whether substituted fonts are highlighted. To access these settings, open the Preferences dialog box by choosing InDesign➪Preferences➪ desired pane name (Ô+K) or Edit➪Preferences➪ desired pane name (Ctrl+K). When you open the Preferences dialog box using the keyboard shortcut (Ô+K or Ctrl+K), InDesign automatically opens the General pane, as shown in Figure 2-1. To access one of the other 16 preferences panes, just click its name from the list at the left of the dialog box.
InDesign has two methods for changing preferences: You can change preferences when no documents are open to create new settings for all future documents, or you can change preferences for the active document, which affects only that document. Either way, after you’ve changed the desired preferences settings, just click OK to save those settings.
You can’t reverse changes to preferences after the fact by using the Undo command (Edit➪Undo [Ô+Z or Ctrl+Z]). If you change your mind about a preference setting, reopen the Preferences dialog box and change the setting again.
Figure 2-1:
The General
pane of the
Preferences
dialog box.
Chapter 2: Making InDesign Work Your Way
35
Type preferences
The Type pane of the Preferences dialog box, shown in Figure 2-2, includes settings that affect character formats, controls whether you use typographer’s quotes, and manages how text appears on-screen. You’re likely to adjust these settings, so here’s a quick review of the main ones: Figure 2-2:
The Type
pane of the
Preferences
dialog box.
ߜ
If Use Typographer’s Quotes is checked, InDesign inserts the correct typographer’s quotes (often called curly quotes) for the current language in use whenever you use quotation marks. For example, for U.S. English, InDesign inserts typographic single quotes (’ ’) or double quotes (“ ”) rather than straight quotes. For French, Catalan, Polish, and other languages, InDesign inserts guillemets (« »).
ߜ
Check Triple Click to Select a Line if you want to be able to select an entire line of text by triple-clicking it.
ߜ
When the Apply Leading to Entire Paragraph box is checked, changes to leading (the space between lines) apply to the entire paragraph, as opposed to the current line. In most cases, you want the leading to be applied to all paragraphs, so checking this box is a good idea. ߜ
Adjust Spacing Automatically When Cutting and Pasting Words, which is checked by default, will add or delete spaces around words when you cut and paste.
36 Part I: Before You Begin
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When Font Preview Size is checked, menus let you preview how your font choice looks before you actually select it. The pop-up menu at the right of the check box lets you select the size of the preview. ߜ
The options in the Drag and Drop Text Editing section of the Type pane control whether you can drag and drop text selections within a document. By default, Enable in Story Editor is checked and Enable in Layout View is unchecked, which means that you can drag and drop text in the Story Editor but not when working on a layout. You’ll probably want to check them both.
ߜ The new options in the Smart Text Reflow section of the Type pane tell InDesign how to create new pages if the text you are placing takes more room than the number pages already in your document (see Chapter 11). The Advanced Type pane includes additional typographic settings, shown in Figure 2-3.
Figure 2-3:
The
Advanced
Type pane
of the
Preferences
dialog box.
In the Character Settings section of the Advanced Type pane, you control precisely how superscript, subscript, and small-caps characters are placed and sized:
ߜ
The Size fields let you specify the percentages to which superscript and subscript characters are reduced (or even enlarged). The default is 58.3
percent, but you can enter a value between 1 and 200 percent. I prefer 60
or 65 percent, depending on the type size and font.
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Chapter 2: Making InDesign Work Your Way
37
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The Position fields let you specify how much to shift superscript characters up and subscript characters down. The default is 33.3 percent, but you can enter a value between –500 and 500 percent. I prefer 30 percent for subscripts and 35 percent for superscripts. Note that negative values move text in the opposite directions: down for superscripts and up for subscripts. The percentage is relative to the top of a lowercase letter (the x height) for superscripts and to the baseline for subscripts. ߜ
The Small Cap field lets you specify the scale of Small Caps characters in relation to the actual capital letters in the font. The default is 70 percent, but you can enter a value between 1 and 200 percent.
The Clipboard Handling pane includes one text-oriented preference: Use the When Pasting Text and Tables from Other Applications setting to choose how formatting is handled when you paste textual objects from other applications. The default is Text Only, which means that you want copied text to look exactly like the existing text in your InDesign layout. The All Information option retains the original formatting when you paste the text into InDesign. Composition preferences
Preferences in the Composition pane, shown in Figure 2-4, do two things: Figure 2-4:
The Composition pane
of the
Preferences
dialog box.
38 Part I: Before You Begin
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Highlight potential problems on-screen while you’re working
ߜ
Establish the behavior of text wrap in certain situations
Highlighting potential problems
The Highlight check boxes control whether InDesign calls attention to possible typesetting problems by drawing a highlighter pen effect behind the text. All are unchecked by default unless indicated otherwise in the descriptions that follow:
ߜ
Keep Violations highlights the last line in a text frame when it can’t follow the rules specified in the Keep Options dialog box in the Paragraph panel’s flyout menu (Type➪Paragraph [Option+Ô+T or
Ctrl+Alt+T]), as explained in Chapter 14. For example, if the Keep Options settings require at least three lines of text in the text frame, but only two lines fit and thus bump all the text in a frame to the next text frame in the chain, the Keep Options rules are violated, and the last line of text is highlighted.
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When H&J Violations is checked, InDesign uses three shades of yellow (the darker the shade, the worse the problem) to mark lines that may be too loose or too tight due to the combination of spacing and hyphenation settings. (H&J refers to hyphenation and justification.) Chapter 14
covers this topic, too.
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Custom Tracking/Kerning, if checked, highlights custom tracking and kerning (essentially, anywhere you overrode the defaults) in a bluish green. Chapter 15 covers kerning and tracking in more detail.
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Substituted Fonts, which is checked by default, uses pink highlights to indicate characters in fonts that aren’t available and thus for which InDesign has substituted a different font. For output purposes, it’s important that you have the correct fonts, so you typically want to leave this option checked.
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Substituted Glyphs highlights, in pink, any glyphs (special characters) that were substituted. This substitution usually occurs when you have multiple versions of the same font, with different special characters in each version. For example, a file that uses the euro ( ) currency symbol may have been created in the newest version of a font, but a copy editor working on the same file may have an older version of the font that is missing the euro symbol. If uncorrected, the printed symbol may not be what you expected, even if looks right on-screen.
Setting text-wrap rules
The three options in the Text Wrap area affect how text flows (wraps) around images and other frames:
Chapter 2: Making InDesign Work Your Way
39
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Selecting the Justify Text Next to an Object check box overrides any local justification settings to make text wrapping around an object justified. The text will smoothly follow the object’s shape, rather than keep any ragged margins that can make the wrap look strange. This option comes into play when you wrap ragged (left-aligned or right-aligned) text around objects.
ߜ
Skip by Leading, if checked, uses the text’s leading to determine how much space follows an object around which text wraps. This effect is used only if you choose the Jump Object text-wrap option in the Text Wrap panel (Window➪Text Wrap [Option+Ô+W or Ctrl+Alt+W]).
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Text Wrap Only Affects Text Beneath, if checked, causes only text below (behind) an object to wrap around that object.
Chapter 16 covers text wrap in detail.
Measurement preferences
The Units & Increments pane, shown in Figure 2-5, is where you choose the measurement systems for positioning items.
Figure 2-5:
The Units &
Increments
pane of the
Preferences
dialog box.
40 Part I: Before You Begin
Ruler Units area
The Ruler Units area affects three things: the zero point (by page, by spread, or by the spine), the measurement system displayed on the horizontal and vertical rulers in the document window, and the default values in fields used for positioning objects.
The Origin pop-up menu determines the zero point (typically, the upper-left corner of the page) for object positions. If you choose Page, the positions of objects are relative to each page’s upper-left corner. If you choose Spread, the positions of objects are relative to the current spread’s upper-left corner. If you choose Spine, objects’ positions are relative to the binding spine of each spread — the very top and center of where the two pages meet. With the Vertical and Horizontal pop-up menus, you specify one measurement system for the horizontal ruler and measurements, and the same or different measurement system for the vertical ruler and measurements. For example, you might use points for horizontal measurements and inches for vertical measurements.
To specify the measurement systems you want to use, choose an option from the Horizontal pop-up menu and from the Vertical pop-up menu. You have the following options:
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Points: A typesetting measurement equal to 1⁄72 of an inch (or 1⁄12 of a pica). To enter values in points, type a p before the value or pt after the value (for example, p6 or 6 pt).
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Picas: A typesetting measurement equal to 1⁄6 of an inch. To enter values in picas, type a p after the value (for example, 6p).
You can combine measurements using both picas and points. Keeping in mind that 1 pica is equal to 12 points, you can enter 11⁄2 picas as either 1.5p or 1p6.
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Inches: An English measurement system that is divided into 16ths. To enter values in inches, type i, in, inch, or " after the value. For example, 3i, 3in, 3 inch, and 3" are all read by InDesign as “3 inches.”
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Inches decimal: Inches divided into 10ths on the ruler rather than 16ths. To enter values in inches decimal, include a decimal point as appropriate and type i, in, inch, or " after the value. ߜ
Agates: Typically used in newspapers, an agate is 1⁄14 of an inch, usually the depth of a line in the small type of classified ads, stock tables, and sports statistics boxes. To enter values in agates, type ag after the value — for example, 10ag.
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Millimeters: A metric measurement that is 1⁄10 of a centimeter. To enter values in millimeters, type mm after the value, such as 14mm. Chapter 2: Making InDesign Work Your Way
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Centimeters: A metric measurement that is about 1⁄3 of an inch. To enter values in centimeters, type cm after the value, as in 2.3cm. ߜ
Ciceros: A European typesetting measurement that is slightly larger than a pica. To enter values in ciceros, type c after the value — for example, 2c. ߜ
Custom: This option lets you set a customer number of points as your measurement unit, placing a labeled tick mark at every point increment you specify. You get to customize the number of tick marks between the labeled marks by entering a value in the Points field. For example, if you enter 12 in the field, you get a tick mark at each pica because a pica contains 12 points. A good way to use this option is if you need to have the rulers show tick marks at whole-line increments; in that case, if your leading is 8 points, you’d set the Custom field to 8.
Keyboard Increments area
The Keyboard Increments area lets you customize the way the keyboard arrow keys work. You can use the arrow keys to move selected objects right, left, up, or down. You can also use the arrow keys and other keyboard shortcuts to change some text formatting. The options are ߜ
Cursor Key field: When you select an object with the Selection tool or the Direct Selection tool, you can move it up, down, left, or right by using the arrow keys on the keyboard. By default, the item moves 1 point with each key press. You can change the increment to a value between 0.001 and 8p4 (1.3888 inches). If you use a document grid, you can change the increment to match the grid lines.
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Size/Leading field: The value in this field specifies by how many points the leading or font size is increased or decreased when done with keyboard commands. You can enter a value between 0.001 and 100 (the default is 2).
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Baseline Shift field: To shift the baseline of highlighted text up or down, you can click in the Baseline Shift field on the Character panel and then click the up or down arrow on the keyboard. The default for the Baseline Shift increment value is 2 points, which you can change to any value between 0.001 and 100.
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Kerning field: To kern text with keyboard commands, you position the cursor between two letters and then press Option+→ or Alt+→ to increase kerning, and press Option+← or Alt+← to decrease kerning. By default, each press changes kerning by 1⁄50 of an em — shown on screen as 20⁄1000 em. You can change this value to anything between 1 and 100, in increments of 1⁄1000 of an em. (An em is a space the width of a capital M, a commonly used space in professional typography.)
42 Part I: Before You Begin
Typographic terminology 101
Publishing tools like InDesign use specialized
to accommodate their specific shapes. For
terms, some of which appear in the Preferences
example, you probably would use tighter
dialog box:
kerning in the letter pair to than in oo
ߜ
because to looks better if the o fits partly
Baseline: This term refers to the invisible
under the cross of the t.
line that text sits on in each line. Except
for a few characters like g and p that poke
ߜ Leading: This term, also called line spacbelow it, all characters rest on this baseing, refers to the space from one baseline line.
to another.
ߜ Kerning: This refers to an adjustment of the ߜ Tracking: Tracking determines the overall space between two letters. You kern letters
space between letters within a word.
Document defaults
InDesign also lets you change the default page size, margins, and columns in new documents; the default attributes of guides; and the way layouts are adjusted. You don’t modify these settings in the Preferences dialog box; instead, to modify document defaults, first make sure that no documents are open and then choose the following:
ߜ
File➪Document Setup (Option+Ô+P or Ctrl+Alt+P): The Document Setup dialog box lets you change the default settings in the New Document dialog box for the Number of Pages, Page Size, Facing Pages, and Master Text Frame, as well as for bleeds and slugs if you click the More Options button.
ߜ
Layout➪Margins and Columns: The Margins and Columns dialog box lets you change the default settings in the New Document dialog box for the Margins and Columns areas.
ߜ
Layout➪Ruler Guides: This command opens the Ruler Guides dialog box where you adjust the View Threshold and Color for all new guides. ߜ
Layout➪Layout Adjustment: The Layout Adjustment dialog box lets you resize entire layouts and modify how they are resized.
If you’re unhappy with the preferences and defaults you’ve established, you can revert InDesign to all its default settings. To revert all preferences and defaults, press Control+Option+Shift+Ô or Ctrl+Alt+Shift when launching InDesign.
Chapter 2: Making InDesign Work Your Way
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Working with stored preferences
Some preferences in InDesign are stored in InDesign has other types of stored preferences files that you can share with other users, so
whose settings are also stored in separate files,
the preferences can be consistently used in also stored in the Presets folder. But you won’t a workgroup. These preferences include keysee options labeled Presets in the InDesign user board shortcut sets, color swatch libraries, interface to work with them. These stored prefdocument setups, workspaces, and scripts. erences include Keyboard Shortcuts, Menus,
and Color Profiles options in the Edit menu and
Some of these stored preferences — such as
the Workspace option in the Window menu.
document setups and printing setups — are You can share these settings by copying them called presets, and the files that store them to other users’ Presets folders. reside in the Presets folder within the InDesign
application folder. When you save a preset, Another kind of preference is typically stored InDesign automatically updates the presets file.
as part of a document: master pages, text variYou can then copy that preset file to another able, color swatches, and the various types of
user’s Presets folder.
text, stroke, and object styles available through
a series of panels. These preferences can be
To create presets, look for menu items with the
imported from other documents using the Load
word preset in them — examples are Adobe
command in the various panels’ flyout menus
PDF Presets, Document Presets, and Print and in some dialog boxes. Most presets —
Presets in the File menu; and Transparency such as document presets, print presets, trap Flattener Presets in the Edit menu. Also look for
presets, and Adobe PDF presets — can also
the Save Preset option in some dialog boxes.
be loaded and saved this same way. In addiTo use a preset, look for a pop-up menu with tion, you can save color swatches to files to
the word preset in them in dialog boxes; for be shared with other Adobe applications using example, you would use the Document Preset
a Save Swatches command in the Swatches
pop-up menu in the New Document dialog box
panel’s flyout menu.
to create a new document using a specific preset’s settings.
Modifying Defaults for Text and Objects
When you create a new document, start typing, or create a new object, your work conforms to default settings. You can change these settings. For example, by default, a new document is always letter-sized, but if you design only posters, you can change the default.
You may need to work with InDesign for a while to figure out which settings you prefer. When you identify a problem — for example, you realize that you always end up changing the inset for text frames — jot down a note about it or close all documents right then. When no documents are open, change the setting for all future documents.
44 Part I: Before You Begin
Text defaults
When you start typing in a new text frame, the text is formatted with default formats and attributes. You can also choose to show invisible characters such as spaces and tabs by default; otherwise, you need to manually activate character visibility in each text-heavy document. To modify text defaults: ߜ
Choose default options for character formats such as Font Family, Font Size, and Leading from the Character panel. Choose Type➪Character (Ô+T or Ctrl+T).
ߜ
Choose defaults for paragraph formats, such as alignment, indents, spacing, and so on, from the Paragraph panel. Choose Type➪Paragraph (Option+Ô+T or Ctrl+Alt+T).
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Choose defaults for the [Basic Paragraph] style, which is what all unstyled imported text, as well as text entered in a new text frame in InDesign, will use. Choose Type➪Paragraph Styles (Ô+F11 or Ctrl+F11). ߜ
Activate Optical Margin Alignment. Choose Type➪Story. This option adjusts the left position of characters along the left margin to make the left edges look more pleasing, by letting the top of a T, for example, hang slightly to the left of the margin, even if that means the characters aren’t strictly aligned. (Because optical margin alignment works best for display type rather than body type, it’s unlikely that you’ll activate optical margin alignment as your default setting.)
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Show Hidden Characters is a good thing to activate if you always end up turning on Show Hidden Characters when you’re editing a document. Choose Type➪Show Hidden Characters (Ô+Option+I or Ctrl+Alt+I), or choose Hidden Characters from the View Options pop-up menu in the application bar. Hidden characters are spaces, tabs, and so on that print “blank”
but that you may want to see on-screen to make sure that you have the right character in use. InDesign has a unique on-screen symbol for every kind of space, tab, indent-to-here, and other such “blank” characters. Object defaults
When you create new objects, they’re based on default settings. For example, you can specify how text wraps around objects. To modify object defaults, use the following commands:
ߜ
Specify the default Columns, Inset Spacing, First Baseline, and Ignore Text Wrap settings for new text frames using the Text Frame Options dialog box. Choose Object➪Text Frame Options (Ô+B or Ctrl+B).
ߜ
Choose defaults for the [Normal Graphics Frame] and [Normal Text Frame] styles, which are what all new frames created in InDesign will use. Choose Window➪Object Styles (Ô+F7 or Ctrl+F7).
Chapter 2: Making InDesign Work Your Way
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Specify how text will wrap around all new objects. Choose Window➪Text Wrap (Ô+Option+W or Ctrl+Alt+W).
ߜ
Choose a style for the corners of all new frames except those created with the Type tool. Choose Object➪Corner Options.
ߜ
Specify the default attributes of clipping paths imported into graphics frames. Choose Object➪Clipping Path➪Options (Option+Shift+Ô+K or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+K).
ߜ
Specify other default properties of objects. For example, if all objects you create are stroked (framed), specify a weight in the Stroke panel. Choose Window➪Stroke (Ô+F10 or Ctrl+F10), Window➪Swatches (F5), Window➪Gradient, or Window➪Attributes.
ߜ
Specify the default number of sides and the inset for the first new poly- gon in a new document. Double-click the Polygon or Polygon Frame tool to open the Polygon Settings dialog box (there is no menu command or keyboard shortcut).
Modifying Defaults for Views
InDesign provides controls for several view attributes, including zoom level, frame boundaries, and grids.
The application bar contains the Zoom Level field, which shows the current zoom percentage. You can type in a new value any time. Immediately to its right is the Zoom Level pop-up menu, which also lets you change the document’s view. The view can be between 5 percent and 4,000 percent in 0.01-percent increments.
If you use a MacBook Air or a 2008-or-newer-model MacBook Pro, you can use gestures on its Multi-Touch trackpad (first introduced in the iPhone) to zoom in or out. Use the pinch gesture (two fingers moving closer) to zoom in and the expand gesture (two fingers moving apart) to zoom out. (If Apple adds the Multi-Touch to other Macs in the future, they would support these gestures in InDesign.)
The Zoom Level controls have moved from the bottom of the document window in previous versions of InDesign to the new application bar in the CS4
version. Gone is the ability to change the view without taking your hands off the keyboard by pressing Option+Ô+5 or Ctrl+Alt+5. Still, you can press Ô+=
or Ctrl+= to zoom in, or Ô+–or Ctrl+–to zoom out, in increments. Or, with the Hand tool selected, just click and hold the mouse and let InDesign zoom automatically; let go when you’re at the desired zoom level.
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46 Part I: Before You Begin
You can also control which layout visual aids display, using options in the View menu.
For example, if you prefer not to view the edges of frames, you can hide them. Similarly, you can hide the visual indicators for the threads indicating which frames flow to and from the selected text frame.
If you want to start with a document-wide grid (see Chapter 10), you can. Settings you can modify in the View menu include
ߜ
Show the links between text frames. Choose View➪Show Text Threads (Option+Ô+Y or Ctrl+Alt+Y).
ߜ
Hide the edges of frames. Choose View➪Hide Frame Edges (Control+Ô+H or Ctrl+H).
ߜ
Hide the horizontal and vertical ruler. Choose View➪Hide Rulers (Ô+R or Ctrl+R).
ߜ
Hide margin, column, and layout guides. Choose View➪Grids & Guides➪Hide Guides (Ô+; [semicolon] or Ctrl+; [semicolon]).
ߜ
Hide smart grids. Choose View➪Grids & Guides➪Smart Guides (Ô+U or Ctrl+U).
ߜ
Show the baseline grid established in the Grids pane of the Preferences dialog box. Choose View➪Grids & Guides➪Show Baseline Grid (Option+Ô+’ or Ctrl+Alt+’).
ߜ
Show the document-wide grid established in the Grids pane of the Preferences dialog box. Choose View➪Grids & Guides➪Show Document Grid (Ô+’ or Ctrl+’).
InDesign has another place to set view settings: in the Pages panel’s flyout menu, choose View➪Show/Hide Master Items. When you choose Show Master Items, any objects on the currently displayed document page’s master page are displayed. When you choose Hide Master Items, master objects on the currently displayed page are hidden. This command is page-specific, so you can show or hide master objects on a page-by-page basis.
Chapter 2: Making InDesign Work Your Way
47
Adding Default Colors and Styles
If you’re a creature of habit, you may find yourself creating the same colors, paragraph styles, character styles, table styles, and object styles over and over again. Save yourself some steps by creating these features when no documents are open; when you do so, the features will be available to all future documents.
To set up these often-used items, use the New command in the flyout menus for the following panels: Swatches (F5), Character Styles (Shift+Ô+F11 or Ctrl+Shift+F11), Paragraph Styles (Ô+F11 or Ctrl+F11), Table Styles (no shortcut), Cell Styles (no shortcut), and Object Styles (Ô+F7 or Ctrl+F7). You can also use the flyout menus’ Load commands to import colors and styles from existing documents instead of creating them from scratch.
Chapter 6 covers color swatches, Chapter 9 covers object styles, Chapter 13
covers character and paragraph styles, and Chapter 19 covers table and cell styles in more detail.
48 Part I: Before You Begin