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• • February 26, 2021 at 8:46 am #14336490
    Prof. Caju

    Participant

    Hello all.

    I am a Math teacher and use Indesign to create the documents used in class.

    I create a lot of exercises through the document, all numbered using “Bullets and Numbering” from a specific paragraph style.

    So, I want to automaticaly create a table at the end of the document containing only the answer for all the questions throughout the document in a manner that when I add some more questions inbetween the questions that already exist, I could update the answer table in order to reflect the new numbering with the correct answer for each question (I do this manually nowadays).

    I think that the use of indexes could be usefull for this purpose, creating an index entry in the beginning of each question with the correct answer for that specific question. But all I get with this use of indexes is the answer togheter with the page to that question, but what I really want is the answer togheter with the number of the question (number from the paragraph style).

    Could someone help me with this?

    Kind regards,

  • February 27, 2021 at 5:23 am #14336538
    Michel Allio for FRIdNGE

    Participant

    TOC, TOC! …

    (^/) The Jedi

  • April 26, 2021 at 9:40 am #14338893
    Prof. Caju

    Participant

    I am using notes right now, inserting a note in the begining of each question containing the answer for that question. At the end, I put a table and, manually, insert all answers.

    I’d like to know a way to automatically put these informations in the table.

    Anyone?

  • April 26, 2021 at 1:00 pm #14338894
    Michel Allio for FRIdNGE

    Participant

    Is each answer (in the note) a single para?

    (^/) The Jedi

  • April 26, 2021 at 6:35 pm #14338895
    Prof. Caju

    Participant

    Hello Michel.
    Yes, the answer is a single letter: A, B, C, D or E

  • April 26, 2021 at 9:39 pm #14338896
    Dieter Stockert

    Member

    What about endnotes? You insert an endnote at the beginning of each question, so you have always the correct numbering even if you add more questions in between the existing questions. And the endnote itself will be the number of the respective question (= the number of the endnote) plus the letter A, B, D or E. If you add a new endnote, zhe numbering will automatically be updated. And for the text frame with the answers you could make columns so it would look like a table.

  • April 27, 2021 at 12:25 am #14338897
    Michel Allio for FRIdNGE

    Participant

    So … it could be totally automatic if you don’t use a table but paragraph borders!

    (^/)

  • April 27, 2021 at 5:36 am #14338898
    Michel Allio for FRIdNGE

    Participant

    … Of course, use a “Table” would give more flexibility but the user would loose the endnotes if cut-pasted in a table or if the endnotes paras were “converted” to a table.

    A cool way by script (tested) would be:
    Make the endnotes “invisible” before getting their data to be inserted in a table created by the Script!
    If update needed (locally or in all the doc), just 1 click again.
    … And the user could simply choose a numbering per column!
    … And the user could apply an hyperlink to the cell to come back to the endnote source!
    … And the user could apply a “graphic effect” to the cell!
    … And blablabla!

    (^/)

  • April 28, 2021 at 6:33 am #14338956
    Prof. Caju

    Participant

    Man !!! Thank you very much for your answer. Using endnotes was the best solution! It took me some time to create a new paragraph style to recreate the table look, because it has alternating colors (I accomplished this using two paragraph styles, one for each color, and usign the “next style” feature, another knowledge aquired in this process) .

    The use of endnotes accomplishes everything I wanted in regards to the answer table (it updates automatically when change the question order and even when moving questions between files).
    The only thing this solution doesn’t update automatically is the “table style” that I did using paragraph styles. Every time I do some modification in the questions order I have to apply the paragraph styles again in the answer table… but this is a minor problem when thinking the bigger problem I use to have when everything was manual :)

    Thanks, thanks! You helped me to save a lot of time here :)

  • April 28, 2021 at 8:40 am #14338959
    Dieter Stockert

    Member

    What does the ‘table style’ do – changing how the text looks like or just apply a paragraph shading (one answer with yellow background, the next with light blue background)? In this case you could place a new frame behind your answers text frame, that contains a table with the right number and size of lines and rows and apply the colour to the table cells.

  • April 28, 2021 at 10:09 am #14338960
    Prof. Caju

    Participant

    Hello Dieter. With yours solution, does the background table increases in size with endnotes?

    You can see the result of the use of endnote in the images below:

    https://postimg.cc/gallery/JkWfN6z

    The one with the title “6. Gabarito” is the one with endnotes and paragraph styles. The one without title is the one manually created with table styles.

  • April 28, 2021 at 10:11 am #14338961
    Prof. Caju

    Participant

    I’d like to know if someone knows how to add that vertical line between “columns” using paragraph styles.

    And one last thing with endnotes is that the answer table can only be positioned in a separated page, after the story containing the questions. I’d like to place the answer table in the end of the story, not in a separated page. I could not find any help in this subject…

  • April 28, 2021 at 11:47 am #14338963
    Dieter Stockert

    Member

    Vertical line: In the paragraph settings you can apply a line for top, bottom, left and right.You can use left (with negative values) or right.
    Endnotes: You can put the frame for the endnotes everywhere in your document. Make a new textframe and place it where you want, and then let the text flow from your endnote text frame to the new frame that sits under the story questions.

  • June 9, 2021 at 4:56 am #14340024
    Michel Allio for FRIdNGE

    Participant

    Just For Fun! …

    (^/)

    • June 9, 2021 at 8:49 am #14340029
      David Blatner

      Keymaster

      @Michel: How is this helpful. Yes, we understand that all things are possible with scripting. Are you trying to sell your scripting service? Or are you giving the script away? What is your intention here?

  • June 9, 2021 at 12:42 pm #14340037
    Michel Allio for FRIdNGE

    Participant

    David,

    I just confirm you: “all things are possible with scripting”!
    But with a small (or big…) difference … and surely more work: I did it!

    ;-)

    (^/)

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