Quark to InDesignCS3 Conversion Guide - InDesign User Group

what are object styles in InDesign?
Object styles work like paragraph
and character styles. An object style
is a saved set of object-level attributes
that you can apply repeatedly. The
basic attributes available for object
styles are Fill, Stroke, Stroke & Corner
Options, Paragraph Styles, Text
Frame General Options, Text Frame
Baseline Options, Story Options,
Text Wrap & Other, Anchored Object
Options, and Frame Fitting Options.
You can include a variety of
Photoshop effects, such as Drop
Shadow, Bevel And Emboss, and
Gradient Feather, in an object style,
and you also have the option to
assign any effect to an entire object
or separately to the object’s stroke,
fill, or text.
Object styles are great time-savers
and help ensure consistency if you
often use similar-looking objects. For
example, if you create publications
that include sidebars within stroked
text frames, you could set up an
object style that specifies the width,
style, and color of the stroke, as well
as text insets. Each time you need a
sidebar frame, you simply create a
rectangular object, and then apply
the object style.
To create an object style, choose
Window > Object Styles, and then
do one of the following:
58 Adobe InDesign CS3 | Conversion guide
• Design an object with all of the formatting
you want to include in an
object style. For example, you could
apply a stroke and corner effect,
creative effects (such as blending
and opacity), text frame attributes
(columns, gutters, and text insets),
and text wrap settings. Then, with
that object selected, choose New
Object Style from the Object Styles
panel menu, specify a name, adjust
any settings, and click OK.
• Set up an object style by choosing
New Object Style from the Object
Styles panel menu with no object
selected. Specify the formatting
attributes you want, and then
click OK.
In addition to creating object styles,
you can set default styles for the drawing
tools. To set the default style for
new text frames, drag the text frame
icon (the square box with
a “T” within) in the Object
Styles panel list to the object style you
want to use. To set the default style for
new graphics frames created with the
Rectangle tool, the Ellipse tool, or the
Polygon tool, drag the graphics frame
icon (the empty square) to the object
style you want to use.
The options available for object
styles are similar to those available
for character and paragraph
styles. For example, if you modify
an object to which an object style is
applied, you can quickly update the
style—and all other objects the style
is applied to—by choosing Redefine
Object Style from the Object
Styles panel menu. You can break the
link between a selected object and
an object style by choosing Break
Link To Style, and you can choose
Load Object Styles to import object
styles from other InDesign documents.
When you load styles, you
can choose the styles you want to
import and specify how to handle
conflicting style names, just like with
paragraph and character styles.
what are table styles and cell styles
in InDesign?
Like character styles, paragraph
styles, and object styles, table styles
and cell styles—new in InDesign
CS3—let you format tables, and
cells or groups of cells within tables,
quickly and consistently. Instead
of manually formatting individual
cells and tables, you can create a
table style, store it in the Table Styles
panel (Window > Type & Tables >
Table Styles), and instantly apply it
to any table, including a spreadsheet
from Microsoft Excel or a table from
Microsoft Word. Within a table style,
you can also apply a cell style to a
specific region of cells; for example,
you can apply unique formatting to
a table’s header, footer, and body. For
information about creating table and
cell styles, see page 67.