Join David Blatner for an in-depth discussion in this video 351 Change default fonts, part of InDesign Secrets.
- [Instructor] A lot of people who use InDesign wanna know how can I change the default font? The default type face that's selected whenever I start writing out a new text frame. I'm going to show you a common way that people do that that is wrong, I'm sorry, and I'll show you why it's wrong, and three alternative methods from easy to more formal and a little bit more complicated to do so in your InDesign documents, okay? So we're looking at a brochure that's from one of the Adobe InDesign stock templates.
Let me switch to normal mode and zoom in here a bit. You can see in this template almost all of the text is Balboa UltraLight, which happens to be a Typekit font. Now if I were the designer and I were creating these blurbs of texts, and I were typing them out, it might start to drive me crazy that the font that I'm using is Minion Pro. That's the default font in more recent versions of Adobe InDesign.
If I look at the paragraph styles panel and double click basic paragraph, it's in brackets because they're automatic, you can't delete it, however you can edit it. You can see it's Minion Pro Regular 12 on automatic leading, which equals 14.4 points. Now I might be persuaded to change the basic character format for the basic paragraph style to the one that I'm using throughout this document. Or maybe it's my corporate font so I'm going to be changing basic paragraph in every document that I'm creating.
This one happens to be Balboa and it is UltraLight. There you go. We'll just leave everything else as is. And now yeah it's Balboa UltraLight, and every time that I write something out it comes in in that font. Right? That's what a lot of people do, but that's the wrong way to do it because it can really hurt you in unexpected ways and usually by surprise and sometimes you don't even notice it. You really should never edit any of the basic settings, the ones that you see in brackets throughout the program.
There's better ways to do this. Here's the typical way that this hurts you. Say that you have created this and then you want to copy and paste it into a new document, I'll select this guy and I'll copy that frame and click in a new document that I created. There's only one paragraph style that's the unchanged basic paragraph, which uses Minion Pro. And then paste, and what font is this? Why it's Minion Pro. Because whenever you are pasting or importing text that's been styled with the same style but different attributes, the receiving document, the one that you're bringing them into, those attributes trump, all right? They win.
So the type was converted to Minion Pro. Unless you're aware that's happening, then you can accidentally introduce strange fonts into your documents. Or imagine if you gave this to a freelancer who didn't even know that you had modified basic paragraph, and then he or she started using it. So that's probably the main reason why you never wanna change your default font by editing the basic paragraph style. Instead, let's take a look at another document. Here is a document that uses the regular basic paragraph.
Let me zoom in. But this designer's, the font that they use all the time is DIN 2014 Light, which happens to be what they're using in all their body copy. One thing you can do would be with nothing selected, no text frame selected, you can go up to the edit menu and make sure that you choose deselect all. Then switch to the type tool and choose that font. That was DIN 2014 right? I think it was Light. All right, that's all. That's now the default font.
Basic paragraph is still selected, but of course it's an override. So now if I swipe something out and I start typing it comes in in that font. So I have not committed the sin of editing basic paragraph, but it is still the default font for this document. You know, another thing you could do rather than changing it from here is with nothing selected, you could simply choose that body style. Now that's gonna be the default style. So here if I start dragging out a paragraph and start typing it comes in in that style.
And I normally don't recommend that because I really think that your default style in all your documents should always be basic paragraph for paragraph styles and none for character styles, so that as you drag out frames you don't get surprised. But if you're the lone designer and really you don't share a lot of your documents with anybody then it's okay. I'll allow it if you want to change the default font in one of these ways, but honestly editing the basic paragraph style is the wrong way. Now you may also, I'll give you permission to do this, with no documents open you could change the default style the same way.
So if no document's open switch to the type tool, choose your default font, there we go, DIN 2014 Light, and then quit out of the program just to write those changes to the application defaults to your computer and then start up the program again. And this will be the default font for every new document that you create from then on. So I'm creating a new document and I'm dragging out a type frame, and you can see there it is. But I have not needed to edit the basic paragraph style.
So there you have it. A few different ways to really change the default font that will not harm how you use the basic paragraph style or when you share it with other people.
Updated
12/23/2020Released
8/25/2011New techniques will be added to the collection every other week, so check back early and often. Find more tips and tricks at indesignsecrets.com.Note: Because this is an ongoing series, viewers will not receive a certificate of completion.
Skill Level Intermediate
Duration
Views
Q: Why can't I earn a Certificate of Completion for this course?
A: We publish a new tutorial or tutorials for this course on a regular basis. We are unable to offer a Certificate of Completion because it is an ever-evolving course that is not designed to be completed. Check back often for new movies.
Related Courses
-
InDesign CC 2018 Essential Training
with David Blatner6h 30m Beginner -
InDesign: Interactive PDFs
with David Blatner2h 27m Intermediate -
InDesign CC 2018: EPUB
with Anne-Marie Concepción4h 35m Intermediate -
InDesign CC 2019 Essential Training
with David Blatner5h 23m Beginner -
InDesign Quick Start
with David Blatner22m Beginner
-
This Week's Secret
-
Introduction
-
Welcome to InDesign Secrets1m 10s
-
-
December 2020
-
November 2020
-
October 2020
-
September 2020
-
Use one frame, not many4m 37s
-
August 2020
-
July 2020
-
June 2020
-
May 2020
-
Threading filled frames3m 14s
-
Custom page numbering tricks5m 13s
-
November 2012
-
October 2012
-
061 Embedding images7m 44s
-
-
September 2012
-
057 Text wrapping6m 54s
-
-
August 2012
-
July 2012
-
June 2012
-
May 2012
-
April 2012
-
March 2012
-
January 2012
-
April 2020
-
Making speech bubbles3m 32s
-
Working with ligatures5m 9s
-
February 2012
-
December 2011
-
016 Running a script9m 33s
-
November 2011
-
October 2011
-
August 2011
-
September 2011
-
March 2020
-
February 2020
-
Auto-expand acronyms4m 39s
-
-
January 2020
-
December 2019
-
November 2019
-
October 2019
-
409 Copy and paste effects4m 39s
-
-
September 2019
-
408 The master page trick1m 46s
-
August 2019
-
July 2019
-
June 2019
-
May 2019
-
April 2019
-
March 2019
-
February 2019
-
376 Make cast shadows3m 35s
-
-
January 2019
-
November 2018
-
December 2018
-
369 Shared CC Libraries tips5m 15s
-
October 2018
-
360 Find spacing problems4m 50s
-
363 Export all text8m 16s
-
-
August 2018
-
351 Change default fonts5m 51s
-
352 Best default RGB4m 45s
-
-
September 2018
-
July 2018
-
May 2018
-
343 Border spacing fix4m 59s
-
June 2018
-
346 Export to HTML55m 38s
-
April 2018
-
February 2018
-
March 2018
-
January 2018
-
325 Link text frames6m 10s
-
December 2017
-
November 2017
-
September 2017
-
October 2017
-
313 Quick Apply preferences6m 35s
-
August 2017
-
July 2017
-
May 2017
-
290 Work with scripts3m 35s
-
June 2017
-
April 2017
-
286 How to format ellipses5m 39s
-
March 2017
-
281 Share a CC library7m 10s
-
January 2017
-
February 2017
-
December 2016
-
271 Add images to an index4m 39s
-
November 2016
-
September 2016
-
October 2016
-
260 Batch process images7m 33s
-
263 Sync master pages5m 51s
-
-
August 2016
-
July 2016
-
June 2016
-
April 2016
-
May 2016
-
240 Side-by-side tables5m 35s
-
March 2016
-
February 2016
-
228 Setting text at an angle6m 24s
-
December 2015
-
January 2016
-
222 Adding paragraph shading1m 50s
-
October 2015
-
November 2015
-
September 2015
-
July 2015
-
August 2015
-
204 Creating a8m 14s
-
205 Managing scripts5m 38s
-
May 2015
-
189 Placing InDesign files5m 14s
-
-
June 2015
-
193 Printing tracked changes5m 41s
-
-
April 2015
-
186 Making long shadows5m 41s
-
February 2015
-
March 2015
-
January 2015
-
December 2014
-
November 2014
-
October 2014
-
September 2014
-
August 2014
-
July 2014
-
148 Cropping with paste into5m 18s
-
-
June 2014
-
May 2014
-
141 Inserting glyphs6m 42s
-
April 2014
-
March 2014
-
February 2014
-
January 2014
-
December 2013
-
November 2013
-
October 2013
-
September 2013
-
August 2013
-
105 Working with MiniBridge5m 45s
-
106 Customize your QR codes6m 17s
-
July 2013
-
June 2013
-
May 2013
-
April 2013
-
March 2013
-
February 2013
-
December 2012
-
069 Ten uses of the Story Editor11m 39s
-
-
January 2013
- Mark as unwatched
- Mark all as unwatched
Are you sure you want to mark all the videos in this course as unwatched?
This will not affect your course history, your reports, or your certificates of completion for this course.
CancelTake notes with your new membership!
Type in the entry box, then click Enter to save your note.
1:30Press on any video thumbnail to jump immediately to the timecode shown.
Notes are saved with you account but can also be exported as plain text, MS Word, PDF, Google Doc, or Evernote.
Share this video
Embed this video
Video: 351 Change default fonts