Modifying Character Styles
Character styles are formatting attributes that are applied to a set of text characters
(such as a word or a group of words or letters) without changing the style of the
entire paragraph. Character styles define the look of the text, including font, size, color,
character spacing, ligature usage, baseline shift, and language.
If you can’t find a character style that meets your needs, you can modify one of the
existing character styles.
To modify a character style:
1
Click the Character Styles button in the format bar and select the character style that
most closely matches the style you want to design, or select None.
2
Type some text, and then apply some attributes.
Select a font typeface and size. For more information, see “Making Text Bold, Italic, or
Underlined” on page 83.
Set the text color. For information about changing the color of text, see “Changing Text
Color” on page 93.
Set the character spacing. For more information about setting character spacing, see
“Setting Text Alignment, Spacing, and Color” on page 90.
3
Use the More pane of the Text inspector to specify additional attributes.
Language: Choose a language for spell-checking a paragraph, a range of words, or
newly typed text that follows an insertion point. If your document includes quotations
or sections in another language, you can choose a spelling dictionary in that language
for checking the text of the quotations or sections. The spelling dictionary determines
how words are spelled or hyphenated.
Remove ligatures: A ligature is a stylish flourish between letters or at the end or
beginning of lines. Ligatures are used by some fonts to combine two or more text
characters into one glyph. Select this checkbox if you don’t want to use ligatures
in a selected paragraph that has ligatures turned on. (To turn ligatures on for the
document, select “Use ligatures” in the Document pane of the Document inspector.
If any text is selected when you remove ligatures, the change will be applied to the
selected text as a style override, unless you complete step 4, below.)
Baseline Shift: A negative number places the text lower than the surrounding text.
A positive number places the text higher than the surrounding text. Enter a number
in the field. (If any text is selected when you set the baseline shift, the change will be
applied to the selected text as a style override, unless you complete step 4, below.)
4
In the Styles drawer, click the arrow to the right of the character style name, and then
choose an option.
Redefine Style from Selection: Redefines the existing character style for the whole
document. If you choose this, your formatting changes will apply to all other instances
of this style throughout the document.
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Chapter 6
Working with Styles
Chapter 6
Working with Styles
129
Create New Character Style from Selection: This doesn’t alter the existing style, but
creates a new style based on the formatting choices in the previous steps. If you select
this, you can choose which attributes you want to include as part of the new character
style. Click the disclosure triangle below the Name field in the “New character style”
dialog, and then select the attributes you want. Type a name for the new style, and
then click OK.
Click the disclosure
triangle to show
character attributes.
Click to select only those
attributes that override the
selected paragraph style.
Select the attributes
to include in the new
character style.