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I created an additive graphic style that includes a few effects, and applied this style to a few objects.

Now I'd like to make a change to this style and apply the change to all objects. For example, instead of an outer glow of 1px (which was in the original graphic style) I would like to change it to 5px and apply to all the styled objects.

Is it possible to edit a graphic style? If not, how would you perform this task?

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8 Answers 8

Reset to default
13
  1. Select the style you'd like to edit in the graphic style menu
  2. Switch to Appearance panel and edit any appearance item (like fill color or effect for example)
  3. Go to Appearance panel menu, and select: "Redefine graphic style style_name_from_step_1"
  4. Done!
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  • 1
    Works perfect in Illustrator CC 2014
    – Kromster
    Sep 15, 2016 at 18:57
  • This should be the accepted answer, as it updates any linked appearances. Confirmed working in CC 2021.
    – MandisaW
    Oct 16, 2021 at 17:43
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what worked for me is this:

  • with nothing selected, click the style.
  • go to Appearance, do the mods you need, drag the little preview icon left of the
  • name to the styles window, overwriting the previous style.
  • in order to overwrite a style, hold Ctrl+alt and drop it on top of the old one.
  • all previously styled objects adopt the new style.

best of luck to you guys!

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  • OMG! Thank you so much for this tip! Years using illustrator and I thought it wasn't possible!
    – spiral
    Oct 7, 2015 at 9:11
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There isn't a direct way to edit a graphic style. varun's answer will handle the situation where all of the objects are in the same document.

If you want to save a style so you can use it again in other documents, select the layer that has the modified style applied and choose "New Graphic Style" from the Graphics Styles panel flyout menu. It will then be available in new documents that you create (handy when you're building multiple documents for a website comp, an ad campaign or corporate identity).

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  • 3
    Although Illustrator is porbably the best vector graphic software available, I keep getting disappointed by the amount of trivial features it is missing...
    – Ilya Kogan
    Sep 9, 2011 at 8:46
  • File a feature request with Adobe. They do read them, and they do act on them. Realize that there is no shortage of things people would like to add to AI. It's a matter of what can get done with the time and people available.
    – Alan Gilbertson
    Sep 9, 2011 at 9:04
  • Masterjeev's answer seems to show that it can be done, but I am not able to test...
    – e100
    Feb 23, 2012 at 12:47
  • There is a way that is simple but not immediately intuitive. See Masterjeev's link.
    – Jay
    Oct 2, 2014 at 16:33
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This can now be done thus:

1) Apply the style to redefine to an existing object.

2) Change the colours, etc of that object as desired.

3) Drag the object to the Graphic Styles panel, hover the cursor over the style to redefine and hold down "Alt" (Mac) before dropping it in to the Graphic Style swatch.

That's it.

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I tried the same but changed the stroke for three objects,

With the selection tool(V), select one object then hold shift and select the other objects, then apply outer glow and change the value to 5 px.

Should work.

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    This is a manual workaround though, not directly answering the question about custom styles.
    – e100
    Feb 23, 2012 at 12:46
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this is how you can do it indirectly:

if you already apply the graphic style to your object, then

  1. Select the object that has the desirable graphic style ( the one you already applied)
  2. hit SHIFT-F6 and modify the appearance the way you want it, when done.
  3. hit SHIFT-F5 and drag the new object to the graphic style panel.
  4. to apply to all your objects, select the object that you want to apply to the new graphic style. you can save your selection for the future too, under select click on Save selection.
  5. Once you have all your object selected, click on the new style that you created in step #3. hope this help.s
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You should create a new graphic style and just Alt-drag (or Opt-drag on Mac) it onto the old style you want to replace.

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It's going to be easier to just change the style using an existing object (that it's already applied to) and drag that object on to the style to redefine it. That way you'll be able to see how your changes look in context.

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