How To Use A Next Style In Adobe InDesign CC

Hi there, in this video we're going to learn what a Next Style does. I'll show what it does, and then we'll look at how to make it. So I got this list, it's repeating the name, the color, the price, and the description. And that goes on and on. Imagine if I could just click on this one and say, I'd like you to apply Heading, but then spill through all of these other ones, and do it repeatedly. Look at that. Really useful things like Catalogs or anything that has repeating data. Let's look at how to make a Next Style in InDesign.

So to create a Next Style I've created a new 'US Letter'. Any old document will do. I'm going to grab the 'Type tool', draw out a Type box. I'm doing it over half a screen for no real good reason. We're going to place some text, we're going to go to 'File', going to go to 'Place'. I'm going to bring in the 'Product Sheet'. The Product Sheet is a kind of repeating bit of information. There's the product name, there's this color, its price, and its description. So this only works when it is this kind of repetitiveness. Now if your description has two paragraphs in it, so this, a 'return', and another paragraph. This one only has one, and this one has three, it's not going to work. So this really has to be a defined list of really kind of regular paragraph breaks. Often it's really good if you get that out of a database or Excel sheet, or CSV, something like that.

So, when this works, we need to create three Styles. I'll do it by selecting this first one, and go, you are going to be bigger. Using my shortcut, 'Command-Shift-.' Pick your color. 'White'. It's just going to be made the same color, but bold. The Price is going to be a little bit bigger. And the Description is going to be made a bit smaller. So whatever you do, doesn't really matter, I've got three of these. So actually what I'd like to do is have that bit of a paragraph break. And the 'Command-Option-7' will switch you over to Paragraph. And I'm going to have a 'Space After'. I said paragraph break, I mean space after. So there, there, there, this one needs a bit more as well. Then a big one between that and the next. You can see, repeats, repeats, repeats.

I'm going to turn these into Styles by going to 'Window', 'Styles, 'Paragraph Styles'. If you are sick of going through that you can actually just use this one up here. You might not be able to see it, depends on how big your screen is. This is a 15" MacBook so I can see a reasonable amount. If you're on a smaller one, maybe a MacBook, or a 13" MacBook Pro, you might not be able to see this one here. I can just go into here, and go to 'New Paragraph Style'. I'm going to call this one 'Heading'. I'm going to put one at the beginning here, you don't have to. This just will make it easier for you to follow.

Here's my Heading, it's based on nothing. Let's click 'OK'. Same with this one here, I'm going to say, 'New Paragraph Style'. This one's going to be called '2'. This one's going to be called 'Color', spelt that way. Based on nothing. Price. It's all going to be here. Same, same, same, and then the last one's going to be 'Description'. '4 Description'. So I've got four Paragraph Styles. What I'd like him to do is kind of repeat. That's what the Next Style is for.

After this Style, the next one is going to be this, then this. The way to make them work is, I'm going to click off, so I've got nothing selected. Open up my 'Paragraph Styles'. You can do it from that little drop down, I just find it a little easier from here, just to show you. Let's just drag them so the Heading's at the top. Then Color, then Price. This doesn't have to happen as well. Just makes it a little easier for me to explain.

So, what I'd like to do, nothing selected, open up 'Heading'. All we do, under 'General', is say, 'Heading', I want the 'Next Style' to be 'Color'. Click 'OK', double click 'Color'. I'd like the Next Style after that to be the 'Price'. That's why I numbered them, 1, 2, 3, 4 to make it easy. And after Price, I would like it to go to the 'Description'. And this is the magic one to get it to repeat. So when it gets to Description, I want to go to the Next Style, which is, back to the Heading, so it loops around.

Now to make this work, or to apply it, it's a bit weird. You select on the Text box, I'm going to right click 'Heading'. Now I'm going to say 'Apply Heading 1' to this whole box, but then, apply the 'Next Style', watch this. Hey ho, magical. Goes through and applies the Style, then the Next Style, then the Next Style. So that is a Next Style. It kind of continues to work.

So you're going to apply it like I did there. There's a few extra options here but watch this, if I'm here, and I'm working, and I want to add another one, I hit 'return', I start putting in my next one which is going to be the made up name called 'Joskle'. I made up these names at the top here. I'm trying to be all Swedish with my fancy names. 'Return', I'm going to put in the color of blue. Put in a 'return', I'm going to put in the price. You can see, I bring out a space, but as I go along it's going to apply that Next Style every time because of that little Next Style thing we did in there. Next one is, add 'Description'.

I hope you found a good use for a Next Style. Great for Catalogs, or kind of things that are pulled out of databases, or terribly named furniture. All right, that's it for Next Styles.