Adobe InDesign Using Paragraph and Character Styles 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the key difference between a paragraph style and a character style in InDesign?
- Paragraph styles apply to entire paragraphs while character styles apply to selected text runs (Correct answer)
- Paragraph styles only control color while character styles control font
- Character styles apply to whole stories only
- There is no functional difference
Correct answer: Paragraph styles apply to entire paragraphs while character styles apply to selected text runs
Paragraph styles format the whole paragraph; character styles format only selected characters within it.
Question 2: Which attribute can only be set by a paragraph style, not a character style?
- Font family
- Text alignment (justification) (Correct answer)
- Font color
- Tracking
Correct answer: Text alignment (justification)
Alignment is a paragraph-level attribute and cannot be defined in a character style.
Question 3: What does it mean when a paragraph style name shows a plus sign (+) next to it in the Paragraph Styles panel?
- The style is corrupted
- Local overrides have been applied to the selected text (Correct answer)
- The style is imported from another document
- The style is a child of another style
Correct answer: Local overrides have been applied to the selected text
A plus sign indicates the text has local formatting that differs from the defined style.
Question 4: How do you clear all local overrides from text using a paragraph style?
- Delete the style
- Alt/Option-click the style name in the panel (Correct answer)
- Re-import the style
- Press Escape
Correct answer: Alt/Option-click the style name in the panel
Alt/Option-clicking the style name reapplies it and removes local overrides.
Question 5: What is the benefit of basing one paragraph style on another (parent style)?
- It locks the child style from editing
- Changes to the parent automatically cascade to children unless overridden (Correct answer)
- It deletes the parent style
- It converts text to outlines
Correct answer: Changes to the parent automatically cascade to children unless overridden
Basing styles creates a hierarchy so parent edits ripple down to dependent styles.
Question 6: Which panel lets you apply a character style to selected words?
- Paragraph Styles panel
- Character Styles panel (Correct answer)
- Layers panel
- Pages panel
Correct answer: Character Styles panel
Character styles are applied from the Character Styles panel.
Question 7: What happens if you apply [None] as a character style to selected text?
- It removes all formatting including the paragraph style
- It removes the character style attributes, leaving paragraph-level formatting (Correct answer)
- It deletes the text
- It converts the text to a paragraph style
Correct answer: It removes the character style attributes, leaving paragraph-level formatting
[None] strips character-style attributes while paragraph formatting remains intact.
Adobe InDesign Using Paragraph and Character Styles 2
What is the key difference between a paragraph style and a character style in InDesign?