Style Management

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My personal work is eased considerably by my consistent use of styles. I set up styles for particular types of jobs. Each company, package type, or product line has distinct fonts, colors, and other graphic attributes that I make into styles and import as needed. These styles are also part of my templates or master pages, so they're constantly available.

Think about setting up a package line that involves four or five different-sized packages, but has the same look as far as fonts, graphic elements, and instructional drawings. By making a separate style for the product's name, descriptive subhead, bullet point text, and body copy for the first project, you have one-click attribute settings for the next three packages. By using a style, you cut down on the chances of making a mistake by setting the wrong leading, or using the wrong color fill. Styles mean consistency.

You can go to the Stroke panel and select a new stroke weight, or install the Xtras that increase or decrease stroke weights. However, I find it much quicker to have a series of strokes and strokes with fills set as styles so I can quickly click them from the Styles menu that can be placed anywhere on my screen.

Making it with style

Creating a text style is simple. Set any text attributes, including leading, paragraph alignment, color, baseline shift, and so on, the way you want them to be. Leave the text cursor active in the text, and click the Styles Options pop-up menu in the top-right corner of the Styles panel. The first item in the pop-up menu is New. Select New to add the style to the bottom of the Styles panel list with the name Style-01, Style-02, and so on. Double-click the name to rename it something meaningful. Text styles are preceded with an "A" icon.

Stroke and fill styles are just as easy. Draw an object with a closed or open path. Then set up the various attributes, such as stroke weight and color, fill type and color, arrowheads, dashes, and anything else that is necessary. Choose New from the Styles Option pop-up menu. Stroke and fill styles have the same numerical listing as the text styles, but a square icon appears in front of the name. Again, double-click the name to change it to your liking.

You can apply a style before you start working on something, or do the work (set text, draw an object) and then click the appropriate style from the list in the Styles menu, as shown in Figure 8-2. You can also select several objects and apply a style to them all at the same time. You can even apply a graphic style to a text object. Actually, it applies the style to the text block, not the text itself. So you can place text in a stroked box with a solid fill. If you make the text style with the appropriate leading or baseline shift, and have the proper insets or paragraph attributes, you can easily mix text and graphic styles for decorative effects in layouts.

Figure 8-2: The Styles panel can save time and prevent errors.

Editing styles

Inevitably, as soon as you get everything to work, someone will make a change that louses up everything. For a text style edit, select the appropriate style, and choose Edit in the Styles Options pop-up menu. The Edit Style menu appears, as shown in Figure 8-3. In this window, you can do just about anything required of a text selection, including changing the following:

• Font

• Size

• Leading

• Spacing

• Alignment

• Tabs

• Paragraph rules

Figure 8-3: The Edit Styles dialog box for text styles

Make your changes and click OK to change all instances of the style immediately. This is a huge time-saver.

To edit a graphic style, select a style and choose Edit from the Styles Options pop-up menu. As shown in Figure 8-4, the dialog box covers everything to do with strokes and fills, including halftone information. If you begin to rely on styles in your drawings, you can make rapid and powerful changes to a job just by changing the styles. This approach gives you the opportunity to show different approaches to your client, and lets you test various ideas.

Figure 8-4: The Edit Styles dialog box for strokes and fills

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