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• • August 6, 2013 at 10:12 am #64704
    Levi Heiple

    Member

    I am creating a series of checklists. Naturally they need a lot of checkboxes. I have a paragraph style set up for both the question and the checkpoint options (e.g. “Yes,” “No,” “Not Applicable,” etc.) My question is…

    Can I set up a style where every time I press Enter, InDesign will generate the checkbox alongside my “checkpoint” paragraph style?

    Currently, I am writing the text first and then manually dragging each checkbox into place next to the text. There are about 20 or so checkboxes per form so automating this process would save a lot of time. Also, there is no guarantee that the checkboxes will be uniformly placed. It is just based on guides that I manually set up to line up with the text.

    Any suggestions would be appreciated.

    Thanks.

    Levi

  • August 6, 2013 at 3:39 pm #64706
    Steve Jenks

    Member

    I’m not sure how it could be made fully automatic, but perhaps if you draw a box at the correct size and make it an inline graphic, then you could just copy it and then paste it at the start of each line. This would at least make sure the checkbox travels with the text if it moved.

    So instead of it hitting Enter at the start of each line, you could just hit Cmd+V each time.

    Or, you look for a font that has the style of box that you require and use that as your checkbox. Depending how your text is formatted, this could be done with a find/replace at the end.

    Hope this helps.

    • August 8, 2013 at 3:17 pm #64766
      Levi Heiple

      Member

      That did the trick. Thanks!

      First I wrote a line of text and set the tabs to where I wanted them and made a new paragraph style. Then I inserted a checkbox and sized it appropriately. I made the checkbox an inline graphic by cutting it and then pasting it next to the text. I anchored the object to the text, right clicked and selected “Options” from the Anchored Object popout menu. Then I adjusted the “Y Offset” to get the box to line up with the text correctly.

      Now whenever I need a new line with a checkbox I just copy it (including the indent space) and paste it on the next line. Saves a lot of time.

  • August 9, 2013 at 6:43 am #64771
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    Levi, if your checkbox is a simple black-and-white vector image, you might want to use this:

    https://creativepro.com/creating-a-custom-bullet-or-character-with-indyfont.php

    Having a custom bullet character font for your checkbox means that you can “insert” it through InDesign’s Bullet & Numbering option, and that in turn means that (a) you can store it inside a paragraph style, and (b) add it to your text by applying this style to any line.

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