InDesign CS4 Nested Styles

I am updating a document with a lot of text so I wanted to use nested styles. The styles were mostly set up as paragraph styles. Can you do a nested style with paragraph styles, or only character styles?

Thanks,

S

InDesign CS4 Nested Styles

A nested style is a character style applied to part of a paragraph based upon certain rules for triggering start and stop points, so in that sense you can't ''nest'' paragraph styles. I think, though, you might be asking about setting a ''next style'' that will always follow a certain style, such as body text always following a heading.

If the number of paragraphs of each style will always be the same, and they will always fall in the same order this is easy to set up with the ''next style'' filed in the paragraph style definition. Make the next style for the first paragraph the style for the second, the next style for the second the style of the third, and so on until you reach the last style in the sequence, ant which point you choose for next style the style of the first paragraph to close the loop. If two or more paragraphs have the same attributes in this system, each must have a separate style name, though the extras can be based on the first occurrence and have exactly the same definition. Note, this only works if you have a rigid pattern.

If not, se the next style for headings to be the style that follows, presumably body text, but set the next style for body text to also be body text, and be prepared to do a little more manual labor.

Next style kicks in when you type and hit the enter key. If the text is already on the page (i.e. it is being placed or the document already exists) you can select a block of text and right-click the name of the first style you want to apply in the paragraph styles panel. From the context menu choose one of the apply style and next style options (without without override removal). If the pattern is rigid you can do an entire story at once, if no you have to break into chunks starting with your first style.

Peter

InDesign CS4 Nested Styles

A nested style by definition is a paragraph style that contains conditions for applying character styles.

Bob

I think it would be clearer if we agreed to call the paragraph style the nesting style and any character styles it ''contains'' -- in other words, which are nested in it -- nested styles.

I am as guilty as anyone else of equivocating between the two -- in other words, of calling both the ''containing'' paragraph style and any character styles that are nested in it ''nested styles''. Bad habit, I think.

You can only Nest Character Styles and Grep (if CS4). You can however use ''next style'' to apply several paragraph styles in a row, and if you use an Object Text Frame style, you can hotkey it too.