When revising a technical manuscript, you may have limited changes that are distributed to multiple reviewers. One option is to send the default Microsoft Word file with the tracked changes. However, reviewers may want to view the manuscript in its “final” format with pictures, text, and formatting that looks how it will look upon printing.

In these cases, sometimes making the changes in the Adobe InDesign file, highlighting the changes, and then distributing the manuscript via PDF (or online using Adobe’s Publish Online). Since there isn’t a default “highlight” feature in InDesign, you can quickly create a character style that uses custom underlining to create the effect. If you only need to use it one time, you can also use the Custom Underline Dialog Box.
Note: You can do this by just selecting the Custom Underline box. However, you would have to follow the same steps every time you wanted to highlight additional characters. Why go through that hassle? These steps will apply the highlighting/”underline” to any character with one easy click (after you have set up the character style).

Create a Style

Start by opening Adobe InDesign CC by double-clicking on the icon on your desktop, start menu, or taskbar.

  • If you want the Character style to be available in any new document, follow these steps without opening an InDesign file. Doing so will allow the character style to appear globally.
  • If you want the Character Style to only be available in one document, open the document you are working on first before proceeding to create the style.

Open the Character Styles panel. If it is not in your workspace, hold down the Shift Key while simultaneously hitting F11. You can also find it under Window and then Styles and then Character Styles.

Click the Options button and then click New Character Style.

Name it something like, “Highlight Style (Yellow).” You can use whatever color you want. I often use different colors for different reviewers so that I may have a Yellow, a Red, and a Blue.

Select Underline Options from the left menu bar.

  • Turn Underline On by clicking on the – box
  • Weight: This can vary depending upon point size, 12 pt is a good size to start with (and you can increase or decrease it once you make the change).
  • Type: Select Solid; feel free to get creative and choose another style.
  • Offset: Type in -3 as the offset.
  • Color: Select the color you wish to use. In this example, I am going to pick 100% Yellow. Sometimes these colors can make the text hard to read so I often also set the Tint to 50% or less on darker colors, such as Red.

Click the “OK” button to close the dialog box. Now it appears in your Character Styles box!

Select the text that you want to apply the highlight too and then click on the created style. In this example, we would click on Highlight Style (Yellow)


Custom Underline Dialog Box (for when you just need one)

Open an existing file or new file in Adobe InDesign CC.

Select the text that you wish to highlight.

Click the Control Panel icon on your toolbar menu and then hold down the ALT key while clicking on the Underline button on the control panel.

Select Underline Options from the left menu bar.

  • Turn Underline On by clicking on the – box
  • Weight: This can vary depending upon point size, 12 pt is a good size to start with (and you can increase or decrease it once you make the change).
  • Type: Select Solid; feel free to get creative and choose another style.
  • Offset: Type in -3 as the offset.
  • Color: Select the color you wish to use. In this example, I am going to pick 100% Yellow. Sometimes these colors can make the text hard to read so I often also set the Tint to 50% or less on darker colors, such as Red.

Click the “OK” button to close the dialog box.