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• • September 23, 2015 at 9:47 am #78307
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    I work for an aviation company and have a very unique problem that I hope to solve with InDesign. The FAA requires that when any change is made to a manual, the revision level and date of modification on that particular page must be updated so that the change can easily be identified and reviewed. In order to keep FAA regualtions, I am trying to create a header or footer on a master page that can be modified on an individual page to update the revision level and date of modication only for that page or pages containing the changes. I know how to do this manually, but I am trying to find a way that this process can be automated. Perhaps using a script or text variables. I thought if I used a unique character style on all newly added content and/or all edited content, I could use text variables to automatically change the modification date and revision level for that particular page. But I am struggling with making that change only on an individual page that’s been changed rather than every page using that master page. Perhaps using different master pages is the answer, but how would I set up the file so that a different master page is automatically applied only to edited pages. Would that be with a script where a specific character style is found?

    Changing an individual page’s revision level and modification date can be done in FrameMaker (and is a big reason why FrameMaker is used so heavily by the aviation industry). But the company is only willing to get either FrameMaker or InDesign, but not both – and I would rather use InDesign.

    Any suggestions are welcome on how to make this happen with either a script, text variables, different master pages, or a combination of any of these.

  • September 23, 2015 at 10:56 am #78308
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Fascinating problem. I have never seen something that specific for InDesign, but I’m sure it could be done with scripting or a plug-in. A custom plug-in can cost a chuck of money, but it could do exactly what you need.

    What is a “revision level”?

  • September 23, 2015 at 11:33 am #78309
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    A revision level is a number associated with a page or document that denotes how many times that content has been modified from its original form. So a page with all original content would be marked as either Rev. Original or Rev. 0. Then after a change is made to that page it would be marked Rev. 1, and increase +1 every time a new edit is made to the content on that page.

  • September 23, 2015 at 4:20 pm #78311
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    What constitutes a change? Formatting change (making something italic)? Moving an object on the page? Or just text change? Image changes? Changing a comma to a period? Do you need some indication of what the change is?

  • September 24, 2015 at 2:02 am #78315
    Peter Kahrel

    Participant

    Frank,

    Text variables won’t work because you won’t be able to restrict their scope to a certain page. But it’s not too difficult to update the revision number of a page using a script. The script would look for a change, override the footer on the page if it’s not already overridden, and increment the revision number.

    If only text insertions and deletions changes count as changes, then you could use InDesign’s ‘Track Changes’ feature to look for changes, increment the revision number on the page, and accept all changes to clear the document (or story, since Track Changes is story-based).

    Changes in format and object position aren’t tracked by InDesign, so if these too should be recorded, then you need to mark the text or the page with e.g. a character style, as you suggested. A script can then look for occurrences of that character style and set the revision number (and remove the instances of the character style).

  • September 24, 2015 at 6:43 am #78318
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    A change (as far as the FAA is concerned) deals with any significant text change, addition, or deletion – and this includes graphics (although the only graphics we are talking about are aircraft schematics or navigational charts and these are inserted into the content as inline). Really we are talking about changes where the original meaning of the text is altered. So changing a simple typo or fixing punctuation would not need to be tracked (although some companies do track such changes).

    A visual cue is also needed to show where the change is on the page. The standard visual cue is a vertical line on the outside margin of the page next to the line of text that changed. I planned to use a bullet to simulate this. These reasons combined are why I was thinking about creating a character style on new changes. I would apply the character style to any content change the FAA needed to approve, and the vertical line bullet would be part of the format of the new text character style. The new text character style remains in place until the next revision of the manual, at which time the visual cue for the older revision is no longer needed (because it has already been reviewed by the FAA). So the older content changes would have the new text character style removed (which will probably be done manually by the writer) and applied to the newly added changes.

    So a script that looks for every occurrence of a character style, and then sets the revision number and modify the date to the current date only on the pages where that character style is found sounds like the way to go. No one happens to know of such a script do they?

  • September 24, 2015 at 7:38 am #78319
    Peter Kahrel

    Participant

    So a script would look for all instances of the character style, add a vertical bar in the margin at the whole range of the character style, and increment the revision number. The only problem with this is that when you apply a character style to a range of text, any character styles already applied to that range will be overridden.

    Your specs are very specific, so a script like that is unlikely to exist, but it shouldn’t be particularly complicated.

  • September 24, 2015 at 8:27 am #78324
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    I wonder if it might even make sense to make this two different scripts: one which would create the little bar/bullet in the margin, and one which increments the footer revision information. Yes, it would take manually running the script to increment the revision, but that could be applied to a keyboard shortcut, so it would be very easy. And another script could “zero out” the revisions later.

    Note that there are “blackening” plug-ins for InDesign, which might also help, such as:
    https://www.ctrlsoftware.com/en/products/plugins-extensions/ctrlchanges
    or
    https://www.blacklining.com

    and this set:
    https://www.kerntiff.co.uk/products-4-indesign/editmarks
    https://www.kerntiff.co.uk/products-4-indesign/editmarks-change-side-bars

  • September 24, 2015 at 8:38 am #78327
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    The new text character style is really just a style in name only, with no actual changes in the style. This way it would not override any styles already applied to the text. Another solution would be to create a duplicate character style of every paragraph style applied and define those character styles as new text character style – New Text Header01, New Text Paragraph01, and so forth. Visually there would be no change, but the applied character styles could be identified by the script.

    The script would also need to change the date shown on the page to the current date that the script is run. Every page has a revision number and date in either the footer or the header (depending on the design). Originally the date will be the date the file was created, but it will need to change on each individual page that has edits (just like the revision number is changed).

  • September 24, 2015 at 9:06 am #78329
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Manually running the script(s) is not a problem at all. The only thing I really need to automate is the addition of the change bar and the updating of the revision number and date of the change only on the page where the change occurred. These plug-ins look pretty fantastic. Thanks! I will investigate further. As I get this figured out, I will keep you informed on what my final solution is. Thank you both for all your help.

    By the way, David – love your courses on Lynda.com. I regularly follow the InDesign Secrets course. You guys consistently knock it out of the park with some great tips, tricks, and indepth knowledge of the program.

  • September 24, 2015 at 9:48 am #78332
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Thank you!

    I think a script that simply updates the date and the revision number (and not worrying about the change bar) is probably very easy for someone to write, and we could connect you with a custom scripter to do it.

  • September 24, 2015 at 10:24 am #78343
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Connect away. I have a few contacts on my end, but I do not know how much they work specifically with InDesign.

  • October 5, 2015 at 1:12 pm #78569
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Anyone ever deal with a German based company called Porky? I contacted them as a possible scriptwriter to develop a custom script for changing footer information on a single page where changes occurred.

    Any insight would be helpful, and I welcome other recommendations for individuals or companies that develop custom scripts.

    Thanks in advance.

  • December 30, 2016 at 9:14 pm #90839
    Paul Cubillos

    Member

    Frank,
    Did you have any luck is finding or designing a script to resolve the issue you were experiencing. I too work with airlines, airports and the FAA and experience the same issue as you posted a year ago.
    Thanks in advance

    Paul

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