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• • September 26, 2016 at 11:58 am #88650
    Christine Rivela

    Member

    Hello,

    I am going from framemaker to indesign and am discovering that the space before and after settings differ in that InDesign adds the values together rather than just applying the larger of the two. In a document with many levels of heads and lists……the only way i can think of to deal with this is to create different styles for certain elements depending on where they fall, i.e., if a head comes after body text or if it comes after another head. Is this correct? The idea of creating all these different styles to allow for consistent spacing seems daunting (and sloppy). Is there any other way?

    Thank you!!!

  • September 26, 2016 at 2:44 pm #88667
    Dwayne Harris

    Member

    If you have a head following another head, then yes–you need to create a separate style sheet. InDesign will add the space below the one head and the space above the second head. In that case, you create a second style sheet for the second head and remove the space above.

    And if you have a paragraph or bulleted list with space below it, followed by a head, then you either need to create a different style sheet for the bulleted list with no space below, or a different head style sheet with one less line space.

    I’m not too familiar with Framemaker, as it’s been years since I had to use it for a few jobs. But I found it clunky and aggravating. But different style sheets was necessary back in the Quark days, and before that–in the Penta and Sun Miles system. It’s not something new.

    I personally don’t find it daunting or sloppy because I’ve been used to it for 25+ years. I can see, however, how someone not used to it could find it that way though.

    I don’t know if InDesign could change things so that those spaces were added together, but that may be opening up a whole new can of worms.

  • September 27, 2016 at 3:42 am #88669
    Christine Rivela

    Member

    Thanks so much for your reply. One follow-up question: once those styles with the alternative spacing are created, would it be possible to set up a script for applying a paragraph style to the last instance of text before a head?

  • September 27, 2016 at 5:33 am #88670
    Matt Isaac

    Participant

    This is possible to do with scripting:
    
var doc = app.activeDocument,
text = doc.textFrames;
for(c=0;c<text.length;c++){ /*create a loop for each textFrame in the document;*/
para = text[c].paragraphs;
for(i=0;i<para.length - 1;i++){/*create a loop for each paragraph within a textFrame;*/
if(para[i+1].appliedParagraphStyle.name == "Head"){ /*Check if the following paragraphStyle is "Head";*/
para[i].appliedParagraphStyle = "Before Head"; /*apply "Before Head" paragraphStyle to the paragraph;*/
}
}
}

    This will loop through each paragraph of each text frame and apply the ‘Before Head’ paragraph style to any paragraph whose next paragraph style is set to ‘Head’. For information on installing and using the script see: https://creativepro.com/how-to-install-a-script-in-indesign-that-you-found-in-a-forum-or-blog-post.php

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