(InDesign: go to the first interior page spread in the magazine to follow along with this example.)

Character styles are a way to override an existing paragraph style to specific words or phrases in the text. It's common to use an uppercase style of the first couple of words at the beginning of an article, immediately following the drop cap of the first letter. A character style is applied to only those first few words - the number of words is completely optional -and the rest of the text in the paragraph is unaffected. To create a new character style, open the Character Styles and click on the small down arrow at the far right right of the pane, and click Create New Paragraph. Choose from Basic Character Formats, which include the Font Family, Style, Size, Kerning and Case. You can change other features such as the horizontal or vertical scale of the font, where it sits on the baseline, and the color.

In our magazine artilce, you can see some of the character styles that have been created. Be sure to name the style something that makes sense to you.

Next: Flowing the text through the page spreads.