Adobe Creative Suite 2 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques

#48. Using Object Styles

Object styles in InDesign CS2 do for objects what paragraph and character styles do for text. With one click you can consistently apply the same graphical treatment to a series of objects. Then, if you change your mind about a stroke width, color, or effect, update the object style and all the objects with styles applied automatically update.

Redefining Object Styles

To redefine a style based on an object whose attributes you've overridden, choose Redefine Object Style from the Object Styles palette menu. The style definition instantly updates with your overrides, and all objects based on the style follow suit. I find this method more convenient and interactive for editing a style rather than digging through a style's options dialog.

The most straightforward way to define an object style is to base it on an object you've already created and styled. Open the Object Styles palette (Window > Object Styles). With the object selected, hold down the Option/Alt key as you click the Create New Style button at the bottom of the palette. Holding down Option/Alt displays the Object Style Options dialog (Figure 48), giving you an opportunity to name the style and adjust any of the options before the style is created. Select any of the categories and adjust their options as needed. Categories not checked will not be applied to the style. This behavior is similar to character styles where an object's original attributes will not be overridden or cleared unless specified by the style.

Figure 48. The Object Style Options dialog includes a plethora of options that you can assign to a style.

Once you've defined an object style, you can easily apply it to other selected objects, groups, or frames by selecting it in the Object Styles palette or Control palette. Object styles also appear in the Quick Apply list (see #49). And as with other styles, you can double-click the name of the object style to edit its options and then have your changes automatically reflected on any objects that have the style applied.

See What's Enabled and Overridden

You can instantly see which categories are enabled on an object style without opening the Object Style Options dialog. Hover over the style name with your cursor and a tool tip pops up detailing the categories the object style enables. If the selected object has overrides, the tool tip informs you of this and indicates what's been overridden.

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