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• • January 27, 2011 at 3:43 pm #58523
    JABWootton

    Member

    Is it possible to have the first line of text surrounded by a coloured box with the remaining text as normal and can this process be repeated later throughout the text

    Example:

    Introduction (This is in bold and requires a coloured box around it)

    General text (this is to remain unaltered and can fill numeous pages)

    What we do (This is in bold and requires a coloured box around it, it is still part of the text box but may be 2 pages down)

    The only way I can do it is to create a frame tool add the colour I want, place it over the text i want to have the box, position it very carefully then send to back so text is shown, box is at the rear of the text and it looks like the texthas a coloured box around it.

    I have to do this for every header I want a coloured box for.

    Thanks in advance

  • January 27, 2011 at 4:17 pm #58524
    Tom Pardy

    Member

    I would achieve this with paragraph styles, though it doesn’t so much give you an empty box so much as a colour-filled one.

    Create a paragraph style that includes a paragraph rule. You can use Rule Above or Rule Below (doesn’t matter which as you can adjust the position of either up or down using the offset section of the dialog box). Make the rule the colour you want and increase its weight until it is the size you want. By tweaking the weight and the offset with “Preview” turned on, you can get whatever size you want.

    Set the width 0f the rule to “Column” and I would suggest indenting the paragraph on both sides so that the coloured background sticks out from the text a little on each side. I would also set the space before and after the paragraph so that previous and following paragraphs are clear of the coloured background of this paragraph. Since you want the text of this paragraph bold, set that in the Basic Character Formats part of the dialog box. Name the paragraph style appropriately (say “Heading highlight”) and then apply it whenever you want to turn a paragraph into a heading with a coloured box.

    I would also suggest that you set the indents on each side of the other paragraphs to same sizes so that the text looks uniform throughout your document.

    Somewhere on this web site some time ago there was an article about using paragraph rules above and below in combination to achieve all sorts of interesting effects but I haven’t had time to hunt for it. I seem to recall that it suggested using Japanese dots for one rule (say rule above) with the width set to “Column” and solid for the other (say rule below) with the width of the latter set to “Text”, both of them in the same colour, giving the effect of a coloured box with rounded corners. Very clever.

  • January 27, 2011 at 6:14 pm #58527
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    DTP Utils has a custom plugin to do paragraph borders and boxes, Word-style:

    “ParagraphBorder plugin allows InDesign users mark paragraph with left/right/top/bottom lines and fill. All options are native paragraph attributes (new panel in “Paragraph Style” dialog).”

  • January 28, 2011 at 5:02 am #58539
    Rhiannon Miller

    Member

    That sounds interesting. Has anyone here tried it? Is it any good?

  • January 28, 2011 at 5:37 am #58541
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    I intend to d/l the demo and try it out. The demo doesn't print, but that's o-kay by me — I'm pretty sure DTPUtils know their Page Adornments inside-out. :)

    I'll try this at home, probably somewhere in the week-end; not at work, 'cause no matter what, I'm not going to install any demo on my work machine! (What if my colleagues get a “You need this plug-in” message on every file I've made?)

  • January 28, 2011 at 11:15 am #58546
    JABWootton

    Member

    Maybe me but does not seem to work in CS3

    Probably should have stated that in initial post

  • January 28, 2011 at 1:39 pm #58548
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    JAB:

    “Mac and Win versions available for InDesign CS3/CS4/CS5.”

    — so I bet DTPUtils will be interested to hear it doesn't work on CS3!

  • January 28, 2011 at 1:55 pm #58550
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    Well, it works:

    

    — but with some minor caveats. It seems the default top offset, 0 (in your preferred units of measure), aligns with the baseline of the first line. So you have to adjust for the line height yourself — by eye, because InDesign's line height does not start on the baseline but a little below. It's similar to the “Top Paragraph Rule” in that aspect.

    Another one is that the added definitions don't appear in Tagged Text Export, INX, or IDML.

    And another one is that you can only apply it per paragraph style, trying to access it with the Paragraph panel pops up a friendly alert saying “In Next Version” :)

    But– it does What It Promises! Edit the text inside the box/border to make it more or less lines long, and the box automatically adjusts!

  • January 28, 2011 at 1:58 pm #58551
    strizh

    Member

    > – so I bet DTPUtils will be interested to hear it doesn't work on CS3!

    On Mac or on Win?

    Demo version won't print fill and border.

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