In this InDesign how-to video, Colleen Gratzer shows how to set up several paragraph styles to be defaults for new documents. By basing styles on other styles, you can make quick work of customizing style sets in each new document.
It’s worth noting that editing the Basic Paragraph style can lead to trouble if you ever copy and paste text content between documents, as Anne-Marie Concepcion explains in this post.
A safe alternative method that I use is to create a new paragraph style called Base or the like, on which to, well, base all the other styles in my document.
Check out new tutorials every other Tuesday on our InDesign Secrets YouTube channel, then join the discussion on our Facebook group!
This article was last modified on August 29, 2025
This article was first published on April 27, 2021
Commenting is easier and faster when you're logged in!
Recommended for you
The scope of InDesign styles
Having trouble making sense of how Paragraph, Character, Object, Table and Cell...
InDesign How-to Video: How to Delete Text Styles in Use
In this week’s InDesignSecrets video, Anne-Marie Concepción explains how to hand...
How to Format InDesign Pages Fast Using Styles
Learn the incredible power of the Next Style feature in InDesign, which lets you...