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Inspiring
April 5, 2018
Question

How to apply a paragraph style to a single word in a paragraph.

  • April 5, 2018
  • 5 replies
  • 3268 views

Good morning

In InDesign how I can apply a paragraph style to a single word in a paragraph?

I did some style and i like to use them. It's not a problem for a hole paragraph, bur when I highlight one word and will aply a stile, it changes the hole paragraph and not only the word I highlighted.

What can I do?

Thanks in advance for the answer

Barbara

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    5 replies

    amaarora
    Community Manager
    Community Manager
    April 5, 2018

    Hi,

    Is there a single word you want in italic?

    or a pattern between words? If yes, try exploring Grep Styles.Drop caps and nested styles in InDesign

    -Aman

    pfudiAuthor
    Inspiring
    April 5, 2018

    A single word. But I understand how it works.

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    April 5, 2018

    Here's how I explain it to my students:

    • First set up the paragraph style, for example Normal. Paragraph styles always format the entire paragraph—that's non-negotiable.
    • When you decide to format text within the paragraph—that's where you use a Character style, for example, Italic. You have to highlight the word, and then click the name in Character styles panel.

    In the example below, the paragraph style Normal controls the entire first paragraph:

    And the character style Italic changes just the selected words.

    CSS can handle both.

    ~Barb

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
    pfudiAuthor
    Inspiring
    April 5, 2018

    Thank you al, it was so helpfull!

    Now I know the difference between both styles, Character and paragraph styles.

    Thank you very much

    Barbara

    Steve Werner
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    April 5, 2018

    For a single word, you want to create a character style, not a paragraph style. You can create it in the Character Styles panel. It will override the paragraph styles and add formatting, For example, you could create a character style which only applied italic. All the other attributes would remain the same as the regular paragraph style.

    pfudiAuthor
    Inspiring
    April 5, 2018

    Fisrt thank you very much for answer!

    I will make an eBook begining with InDesign and I know that in the end I have CSS. I don't like to have hundred of stiles. I like to have for example two stiles, one for text "normal" and one for text "italic". So I did two stiles. But when I tty to apply the italic stile on one word, the wohle paragraph is changing, and not only the word I'm highlighted.

    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    April 5, 2018

    You need to use a character style for something like that.

    winterm
    Legend
    April 5, 2018

    That's what Character Styles are for...