CreativePro Forum

Return to Member Forum

• Author
  Posts
• • February 4, 2014 at 4:43 pm #66968
    Matt Mayerchak

    Participant

    Hi,

    I’m starting a project where I’m going to have pages of text that have the same series of 7 paragraph styles in a row. They are set up with Next Styles in the para style definition, so I can highlight the text, right-click on style 1 and apply style 1 then next para style and style all 7 paragraph styles at once. So far so good.

    I’m going to need to do this about 1,500 times over the next few months. One series of paragraphs per page, in batches of about 15-20 pages at a time. I know I can’t apply a keyboard shortcut to “apply para style 1, then next style”. But, is this something that can be implemented with a javascript? Because if so, the script can be assigned a keyboard shortcut.

    Is this possible in InDesign javascript?

    They are not ALL exactly the same 7 styles, but close enough that it’s worth doing this way. And no, the client won’t give them to me in an Excel file so I could import as a mail merge. They are Word files, straight text with underlines for italics, but no other formatting (no style mapping etc.)

  • May 20, 2014 at 5:42 am #68549
    rydesign

    Member

    I am with you on this one… There is a keyboard shortcut? Where?

  • May 20, 2014 at 6:27 am #68551
    Matt Mayerchak

    Participant

    No, unfortunately there is not a keyboard shortcut for apply [current paragraph style] then next styles for the selected text.

    I ended up paying for a custom script to be written, which can be triggered by a shortcut. (Any script can be assigned to a keyboard shortcut.)

    The script looks for particular phrases that pertain to my project and starts the sequence of styles at that point and continues until it sees the phrase again, so it goes in a repeating cycle pattern.

  • May 29, 2014 at 12:54 pm #68721
    rydesign

    Member

    Awesome that ID is capable of so much extensibility. Hoping for a keyboard shortcut in the future hahaha

  • October 12, 2014 at 1:22 am #70991
    Oleh Melnyk

    Member

    Hi there!

    I was searching for a keyboard shortcut for apply next style for a long period of time too, and, actually I found it!

    All you need is to create an object style, under Basic Attributes go to Paragraph Styles, select the first paragraph style and don’t forget to put the check mark on Apply Next Style… that’s it – now you can switch to General and set your Shortcut…

    Cheers!

  • October 16, 2014 at 9:35 am #71082
    Matt Mayerchak

    Participant

    Yes, this works – I covered it at an IDUG meeting a few years ago. It’s pretty cool, but unfortunately it only works on unlinked (unthreaded) text frames.

    It’s a great technique if each story is in it’s own frame, but that’s rather atypical for long documents. If you want to find each A Head and start the series of Next Styles there, and you have threaded text frames, it won’t work.

    But, if you have the kind of document where each story can be in its own frame and they are not connected, it is worth knowing that this is a way to apply next styles via an object style.

• Author
  Posts