Go back to Step 2: Paragraph Styles, Part 1
Let’s create our first Paragraph Style. Click on that dropdown with “Paragraph Styles” selected and select “New Paragraph Style.” Name it “Chatter” (for now – you can change it to something else later, if it suits you).
Click on that button again and select “Paragraph Style Options…” Make them the same as you did for the [Normal Paragraph Style].
Now, make sure the “Chatter” style is selected. Go to that dropdown again and click “Duplicate Paragraph Style.” Rename this one from the default “Chatter copy” to “Chatter Bold.” Edit this one and change the Font Style to “Bold” and click OK.
Okay, select that first paragraph in the text block. Double-click the “Chatter Bold” style until that little plus-sign (+) goes away. The text is now bold.
Your next question might be: “But what if I only want to bold a portion of a paragraph?” We’ll get to that when we cover Character Styles.
The next trick is to make more variations of that first “Chatter” style. You can create an Italic version; a Bold Italic version; a version that does not have that paragraph spacing. Do what you need to do for your organization’s needs. For example, you’ll want a Headline style; you can do that by duplicating the Chatter Bold style, then bumping the font size up to 12 points and the leading up to 13 points.
Here’s the styles that I use on a daily basis at work.
The “Pointer box black bold’ and following styles are to create elements like this (no, the font is not Arial, but that doesn’t matter at the moment):
When you’re doing maps, you need pointer (or callout) boxes. The settings for these styles are achieved by modifying the Chatter style to 8 point Bold, changing the Leading to 8 point, and resetting the Space After to 0. Call that one Pointer box black bold. Then duplicate it and change the font to 7 point Regular. Rename it to Pointer box black regular. (We’re doing it this way because the default Arial font doesn’t have Black and Light weights, like the Antenna font used in the example above. That might be enough reason for you to invest in a more varied font, but that’s up to you and your accountant.)
Then duplicate the Pointer box black bold, but change the color to Paper and turn off the Overprint Fill. Do the same for the Pointer box black regular style. In fact, any time that you want a reverse text (or color other than Black) for your text style, be sure to turn off the Overprint Fill.
We will get to that cool-looking pointer box when we cover Object Styles, I promise.
Settings for my other styles:
- Label reverse: Arial 10 point Bold, 11 point leading, color White, Overprint Fill turned off
- Subhead: Arial 8 point Bold, 9 point leading, color White, Overprint Fill turned off
- Footnote: Arial 6 point Regular, 7 point leading
- Source line: Arial 6 point Italic, 7 point leading
- Credit line: Arial 6 point Bold, 7 point leading
- Street names: Arial 7 point Regular, 8 point leading, ALL CAPS
- Water/Landmark/Railroad label: Arial 7 point Italic, 8 point leading
- County label: Arial 7 point Bold, 8 point leading, ALL CAPS, Tracking 20 (to spread the letters apart a bit)
- City primary: Arial 7 point Bold, 8 point leading
- City secondary: Arial 7 point Regular, 8 point leading
Crank those out (use the Duplicate Style function to make your work easier) and go on to the next lesson. And of course, if you want to change these settings up to reflect your own tastes (or fonts), be my guest.
Go to Step 4: Character Styles
