Do you use paragraph styles and templates or do you just format on the fly? Sometimes it is tempting to just apply formatting as you go along thinking that it's much faster than learning how to use the styles feature of your software or faster than trying out a variety of templates. But taking the time to identify the elements that make up your publication and setting up individual styles in advance can actually make it easier to make changes. -->.
With paragraph styles you make changes to the "subhead" style or the "sidebar" style then have the software automatically apply these styles throughout the document. Chances are you're going to be making changes and the small amount of time it takes to identify the individual elements of your document and set up initial styles will be made up quickly as you repeatedly try out new fonts and alignments
Using styles or a template is "standard practice in desktop publishing" so if you're not doing it you're missing out on a great feature of professional desktop publishing software.
One approach you can take that can speed up the use of styles is to apply the default style for headlines, body text, etc. initially - adding a few styles for other elements that may not have defaults basing them on an existing style. This way you don't spend a lot of time fiddling with fonts and other attributes initially.
Get all your text in place. Modify each style to fit your initial vision for the piece. Apply the changes. Make more tweaks and changes as needed. The more changes you make or the longer the document, the more valuable the use of styles becomes.
Create Custom Default Documents and Styles
Quite often we tend to work with the same types of documents over and over whether it's brochures, books, or newsletters. Each of these documents have easily identifiable elements - headlines, subheads, body for example. Newsletters are probably the type of document likely to have the greatest variety of individual elements.
Save even more formatting time by setting up a default document for each type of document you typically produce that contains default styles for these typical elements of a newsletter or any other types of content elements you frequently encounter such as address blocks and signature blocks, book title pages and chapter headings, pull-quotes or call-outs.
After getting all your text in place it's a simple matter to go in and further customize your styles for each element and apply the changes to the document.
With paragraph styles you make changes to the "subhead" style or the "sidebar" style then have the software automatically apply these styles throughout the document. Chances are you're going to be making changes and the small amount of time it takes to identify the individual elements of your document and set up initial styles will be made up quickly as you repeatedly try out new fonts and alignments
Using styles or a template is "standard practice in desktop publishing" so if you're not doing it you're missing out on a great feature of professional desktop publishing software.
"Recognizing a syntactic structure will let you design a standard template for your content, with separate blocks for each distinguishable content element. This has been standard practice in desktop publishing for years because it lets the designers focus on the overall look, while the content experts concentrate on getting the words right." I Column Like I CM: Structuring Your ContentStart With the Default Styles
One approach you can take that can speed up the use of styles is to apply the default style for headlines, body text, etc. initially - adding a few styles for other elements that may not have defaults basing them on an existing style. This way you don't spend a lot of time fiddling with fonts and other attributes initially.
Get all your text in place. Modify each style to fit your initial vision for the piece. Apply the changes. Make more tweaks and changes as needed. The more changes you make or the longer the document, the more valuable the use of styles becomes.
Create Custom Default Documents and Styles
Quite often we tend to work with the same types of documents over and over whether it's brochures, books, or newsletters. Each of these documents have easily identifiable elements - headlines, subheads, body for example. Newsletters are probably the type of document likely to have the greatest variety of individual elements.
Save even more formatting time by setting up a default document for each type of document you typically produce that contains default styles for these typical elements of a newsletter or any other types of content elements you frequently encounter such as address blocks and signature blocks, book title pages and chapter headings, pull-quotes or call-outs.
After getting all your text in place it's a simple matter to go in and further customize your styles for each element and apply the changes to the document.
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