You’ve got a ton of text you need to apply your publication’s styles to – pages upon threaded frame-filled pages [ and your Paragraph and Character Styles palettes are stuffed with a long, scrolling list of styles. An afternoon’s work?
Nope, more like a few minutes – because you’ll be using Quick Apply along with these handy tips and keyboard shortcuts that turbocharge your Quick Applying.
First, select all the text and apply the most commonly-used Paragraph Style to the whole thing. Now you only need to apply styles to the ones that shouldn’t be Body or Description or whatever. But you already knew that.
Now jump your cursor to the beginning of the story: Command/Ctrl-Home. Did you know that? Works even if you had deselected the text after the previous step and your cursor was somewhere in the middle of the thread. Of course, Command/Ctrl-End jumps your cursor to the very end, blinking away after the last character, even in an overset frame (in which case you’ll need to open the Story Editor – Command/Ctrl-Y – to see it).
Bonus: Add Shift to those if you want to select the text as well, from your insertion point to the beginning or end of the story: Command/Ctrl-Shift-Home and Command/Ctrl-Shift-End, respectively.
But I digress. Your cursor’s blinking before the very first character in the very first text frame of this story. You want to apply the Paragraph Style “Title 2” to it. Instead of scrolling to Title 2 in the Paragraph Styles palette, or trying to remember the keyboard shortcut you assigned to that Style, just press Command-Return (Windows: Ctrl-Enter) to open the Quick Apply window.
A list of all your Character and Paragraph Styles appears in the little Quick Apply window upper right, with a cursor blinking in a text entry field at the top.
Don’t move your fingers from the keyboard! Just type in any letters from the style name … ti or te for example, but probably t2 would be fastest … and when your Title 2 style appears highlighted at the top of the list (the first style is always highlighted), press Return/Enter.
(If it’s too much work to figure out a unique string of letters to force your style to the top, and a few similar names appear above it, cheat with the Down Arrow to jump the highlighting down to it, then press Return/Enter.)
After you press Return/Enter, the selected style is applied to the paragraph and the Quick Apply window closes. Focus returns to your regular cursor, which is still blinking in front of the first paragraph, now styled as Title 2.
Step Away from the Mouse, Sir
Muscle memory is now going to force your hand from the keyboard to the mouse so you can click inside the next paragraph that needs a different style applied to it. Resist, resist!
Jump your cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph with Command/Ctrl-Down Arrow. That paragraph is fine- Keep one finger (or thumb) on the Command/Ctrl key, and tap the Down Arrow a few times until you arrive at the next paragraph that needs its style changed. Lean on it as it quickly hops through every paragraph, jumping to subsequent frames if necessary, scrolling through pages on your screen as you watch.
Went too far? Need to back up? Command/Ctrl-Up Arrow back up to the paragraph you skipped.
Okay, you’re there. Make another quick visit to Quick Apply (Command-Return or Ctrl-Enter, remember) and you’ll see it’s how you left it. If the style you applied before is what you want now, it’s already highlighted, so just hit Return/Enter to apply it to this new paragraph and continue as above.
I know David loves this feature: Command-Return-Return! Ctrl-Enter-Enter! Bang bang you’re a styling machine! ;-)
If you don’t want the same style as before, as soon as Quick Apply opens, enter a few characters from the new style name you want. The new characters you enter will replace the ones from before, no need to clear the text entry field first.
To override local formatting while you apply a style from Quick Apply, add the Option/Alt key to your Return/Enter (Option-Return, Alt-Enter). To override local formatting and any Character Styles that may be in the paragraph, add the Shift key as well: Option-Shift-Return, Alt-Ctrl-Enter.
Character Styles from the Keyboard
Speaking of Character Styles … you already know that you have to actually select the characters you want styled before you apply the style. Does that mean you have to grope for the mouse to drag over the words?
Well, maybe. But if you want to get really good at this, try practicing doing everything from the keyboard for a while, you may enjoy it. You can make your cursor do all sorts of tricks with arrow keys – move it into position, then select the characters.
Your cursor’s at the beginning of a paragraph, right? Obviously, Left Arrow and Right Arrow jump the cursor to the previous/next character. Up Arrow and Down Arrow will jump the cursor to the next/previous line of text. Command/Ctrl-Right Arrow will jump it to the beginning of the next word or punctuation mark, Command/Ctrl-Left Arrow jumps it to the previous one.
Once your cursor’s in the right position, add the Shift key to those arrow moves to select the text you want to style. For example, to select the first three words in the paragraph (and your insertion point is at the beginning of the paragraph) you’d hold down the Shift and Command/Ctrl key and tap the right arrow three times.
Then, Command-Return or Ctrl-Enter to open Quick Apply, enter a few letters from the Character Style you want, hit Return/Enter, and go on your way.
This article was last modified on December 18, 2021
This article was first published on July 6, 2006
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