Using InDesign Paragraph Styles

I do a lot of writing using various applications, (I’m doing it right now!) and one of the things that’s important to me is trying to keep the formatting consistent. I don’t want to spend hours manually adjusting font sizes, line spacing, and alignment for every paragraph. It’s a really tedious job and I have lots of other stuff to do. That’s where Paragraph Styles are handy.

Let’s check out how to create and apply Paragraph Styles using InDesign. I’ll explain how they can save you time and ensure consistency across your designs.

What Are Paragraph Styles?

Paragraph Styles are predefined sets of formatting rules that you can apply to paragraphs with a single click. They can control everything from the font size and type to spacing, alignment, and much more. By using them, you can standardise the look of your text, making it easy to create documents that are consistent.

Several applications have a Format Painter of some description, so you can quickly apply the same formatting to a bunch of paragraphs or headings. The problem is that these things just mimic the formatting of the sample you choose, and when you need to make a change to the whole document, you have to paint it again. It’s like the Sydney Harbour Bridge, get to the end and start all over again!

Instead of having to go through that, when you update a Paragraph Style, every paragraph using that style updates automatically. It’s just better!

Why you Should use Paragraph Styles

I think I already told you, but just in case you skimmed over it, or you’re still not convinced:

Efficiency: You can save a huge amount of time and manual formatting by applying styles to entire sections of text instantly.
Consistency: Ensure headings, body text, and other elements are formatted identically throughout your entire document.
Flexibility: You can quickly update formatting across your document by editing a single style.

Whether you’re working on a corporate report or a marketing brochure, these benefits add up to a smoother, faster workflow.

How to Use InDesign Paragraph Styles

With a document open, select Window Styles Paragraph Styles. This opens the panel. By default, you’ll see a style called “[Basic Paragraph].”
Click the Create New Style icon at the bottom of the Paragraph Styles panel.
Double-click on the new style (it will be named “Paragraph Style 1” by default) to open the settings.

Ok, now you’re here, you can see just how many options are available. It’s way more than we need for this example, but at a minimum, head to Basic Character Formats to set your Font Family, Size, Leading, and whatever else you need. I also like to turn off Hyphenate in the Hyphenation submenu. Click OK, and you’re good to go.

To go futher you will need to explore the Paragraph Style Options dialog box:

General

- Name: This is where you name your style (e.g. “Body,” “Heading 1,” etc.). Keep it descriptive to stay organized.
- Based On: If you’d like this style to inherit formatting from an existing style, pick it here. It’s handy for nested styles—like using your main body style as a “parent” for subheads or pull quotes, so changes flow down automatically.

Basic Character Formats

- Font Family / Font Style: Choose your typeface and any styling (Regular, Bold, Italic, etc.).
- Size & Leading: Sets the text size and the space between lines. If you find yourself adding extra returns for spacing, try boosting the leading instead.
- Tracking: Adjusts space between characters. Keep it subtle—overdoing this can make text look odd.

Advanced Character Formats (Optional, but Handy!)

- Scale & Baseline Shift: Stretch or shrink text horizontally/vertically, or move it up/down from its baseline. Great for fine-tuning certain design elements.
- Language: Helps InDesign handle spelling and hyphenation for different languages.

Indents and Spacing

- Indent Settings: Create first-line indents (for paragraphs) or left/right indents to control the text block width.
- Space Before/After: Adds vertical spacing without needing blank paragraphs. This is huge for consistency—no more random extra returns messing things up.

Hyphenation

- Hyphenate: Toggle it on or off. If you hate random hyphens popping up, uncheck this and spare your words an untimely split.

Character Colour

This is where you control the fill and stroke color of your text—perfect for making words or phrases really pop!

- Fill: The main color applied to your text. Click on the color swatch to open a palette, or use the dropdown to choose a saved swatch. You can also adjust opacity for semi-transparent effects.
- Stroke: Gives you an outline around each character. You can pick a color and change the stroke weight if you want a subtle outline—or a bold highlight.
- Overprint: If you’re working on projects for print, you can specify how the color interacts with underlying inks. Most of the time, you can leave it alone, but it’s there if you need it.

By setting the Character Color here, you’ll have consistent color usage across all text where you apply this style—no more hunting down every instance in your document to change things manually!

Bullets and Numbering

- List Type: Pick Bullets, Numbers, or a custom sequence.
- Character Style: Apply a specific style to the bullets themselves (e.g., a different color or font).
- Add New Bullet Characters: Feeling creative? Grab symbols from fonts like Wingdings to give your list a unique twist.

Character Styles (Bonus)

- What’s Different? Paragraph Styles apply to entire paragraphs, but Character Styles target specific words or phrases within those paragraphs. If you want your bullets in green or a single word in bold, that’s a Character Style job.
- How to Use: Create a Character Style in Window > Styles > Character Styles, set the formatting, then apply it wherever needed—no messing up the rest of your paragraph.

For smaller text tweaks (like bolding a single word), Character Styles come to the rescue. Create them in Window > Styles > Character Styles, and they’ll play nicely with your Paragraph Styles.

Spicing Up Bullets
You can also combine Character and Paragraph Styles to make awesome bullet lists. Set up a Character Style for the bullet’s color or font, then use the Bullets and Numbering menu under your Paragraph Style to automatically apply it. If you’re feeling adventurous, add custom bullet characters from fonts like Wingdings.

Now that you have a nice, shiny new style, you can select a paragraph in your document and click on the desired style in the Paragraph Styles panel. The formatting will apply instantly.

If you need to tweak the font size or spacing, you can just double-click the Paragraph Style, make your changes, then sit back and watch as they automatically apply to every paragraph using that style. Actually, you won’t have time to sit back and watch, because the changes will happen immediately!

Paragraph styles are great for headings, chapter titles, body text for your paragraphs, pull quotes and loads more. In fact, we use Paragraph styles when creating our training manuals for a consistent look across the board.

By using Paragraph Styles, you can focus on getting your content right rather than spending time on repetitive formatting tasks.

Conclusion

Paragraph Styles are one of those InDesign features that take a little bit of time to set up, but they pay off massively in the long run. They help you work faster, avoid errors, and produce polished, professional designs every time.

If you haven’t used them yet, you should check them out.

Pro Tip: start small by creating a style for body text or headings, then build up from there until you feel confident. Before you know it, you’ll be trying to convince everybody to use Paragraph Styles!