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• • March 26, 2011 at 1:53 am #59081
    nothingwmn

    Member

    Hi all,

    I am currently working on a 200pg cookbook with 14 chapters each utilising a different colour (ie — all recipe titles in the 'Veggies' chapter/section are green; all in 'White Meat' are tan etc).

    I am attempting to create a footer that will display the pg# as well as the name of the appropriate chapter in the correct colour by using a text variable of the running header type. I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to do this without needing 14 different master pages using variables with 14 different paragraph or character styles?

    Thanks!

  • March 26, 2011 at 5:39 am #59082
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    Color swatches cannot be accessed & set through variables. So you're going to have to do it manually, I think.

    Your '14 different master pages' sounds like the best bet. Create the basic design first; then base all your colored ones on this. The general idea is that you would not change anything on the derived pages — only change the base master page.

    You can safely override text frames to change the color but make sure not to change anything else. That's vitally important! ID tries to keep track of the original of overridden items, but if you make it stretch too far it'll loose the connection and “derived” items will not update anymore.

  • March 27, 2011 at 1:38 pm #59086
    nothingwmn

    Member

    Thanks for the reply Jongware,

    That is very disappointing. You would think InDesign would be able to handle something as simple as colour in a variable, especially since it is a property specified in both a paragraph & character style!

    Oh well, 14 master pgs it is!

  • March 27, 2011 at 4:00 pm #59087
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    That is very disappointing. You would think InDesign would be able to handle something as simple as colour in a variable, especially since it is a property specified in both a paragraph & character style!

    Well, what if you look at it from the other way around. The one thing a variable does pick up is text .. and that's about the only thing you cannot specify in styles. So it seems Adobe didn't have your workflow on their minds when they implemented variables.

    Mind you, I could think of a few tricks if something like this makes it into CS5.5. :-)

  • March 27, 2011 at 7:59 pm #59088
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    ID's headers are pretty basic. If you want power, try Power Headers from in-tools.com.

  • March 28, 2011 at 12:50 am #59089
    nothingwmn

    Member

    Thanks for that very handy suggestion, David! I think I'll download a trial version & try it out!

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