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Tom Pardy
MemberIt is a public holiday where I am (Anzac Day) so my brain is not running at peak efficiency. But here goes. Without seeing the data you are using, I am guessing a little. But here is what I would do. This is my work-around for the problem:
In an empty page, create a text frame of the width you want your table to be. Then, within that text frame, create a table with only one row and with the number of columns you want. If you plan to have a header row as well, you can set this up at the same time using the Table/Insert Table… menu command. Then adjust the widths of the columns to those you want. Give the table whatever other features you know (or expect) you will need whenever you use it in the future. This is then your “template” table.
I figured that the most efficient way to use this “template” table is to save it as an ordinary InDesign document (.indd), perhaps giving it a title that allows you to identify it quickly, such as “Six-column data table.indd”. Then, whenever you need that particular table format, open the “template” document, select the table, copy it and then, in the document where you want it to be, paste it in. The data can then be copied and pasted, or simply typed, into the cells as needed.
This work-around does NOT give you a table style to be applied to another table. However, if you are importing another table from elsewhere (or rather, using the data from another table) and therefore know the number of rows, you can do this:
1. Copy and paste your “template” table as above.
2. Increase the size of your newly-pasted table to the desired number of rows using the Table/Table Options/Table Setup… dialog box.
3. Select the contents of your other table and copy.
4. Select all the cells of your new table and paste.The data should then appear in the new table but retain the column widths that you have established.
Let me stress that this is a work-around. It is not pretty, but it works. I will be delighted if some other contributor comes up with a better solution.
MemberRather than create a style, how about creating a “template“ table with the column widths you want but with just one row or, if you want specific headers, just a header row and one “normal” row? The cells can be left blank. Perhaps this table could then be saved as a snippet or a library item. Then, whenever you want the table, insert the snippet or library item and begin to fill your cells. When you are in the last cell of the row, just hitting Tab will create a new row below.
Alternately, if you always use the table with a set number of rows, give it that many rows when you create the snippet. There may be other features that are always used when you use this table, such as the contents of particular cells. These too could be incorporated into your “template”.MemberI would create it in Illustrator and then place it in InDesign, scaling it to fit and, if necessary, putting it on its own layer behind all other layers.
MemberI am abysmally ignorant about Grep but am wondering if you really need it. Can you not simply use the Text pane of the Find/Change facility? Put your code into the “Find What” slot and the appropriate letter of your open type font into the “Change To” slot. Then, in the lower part of the dialog box, if you need to, use the “Find Format” slot to put in the existing character style of your code (if any) and then use the “Change Format” slot to put in the character style “Icons”.
Or have I misunderstood something?
MemberHmmm… Thanks for your reply, David. Sadly, the tiny graphic is not an anchored object, simply an inline object. It is a small rectangle, inside which is the registration number of that individual. Do inline objects count as anchored objects or would they need to be specifically designated as anchored? I don’t know that I have the patience to go through the entire document looking for each one — there are hundreds of them and not all that many happen to fall at the end of lines.
It was interesting to go back to that 2008 post and to realise how far InDesign has come in the last five years. Imagine, many of us were only using CS2 back then! Does it even still work on current operating systems?
The sorting question has kinda become academic now in that, while waiting for a possible solution, I have been steadily working through the index one-at-a-time and making a manual conversion. The task is now done (yes, all 4,920 entries — I must be mad!) and I am now interested in any further suggestions simply to store the information “in my hatband” (as an earlier generation would have said) for future reference.
MemberPosting this further query for the same genealogical document I am working on will serve to bring this to the top again. I am still keen to hear of further suggestions on the problem of moving surnames, but have another question.
In the main body of my document, many of the names have a tiny graphic inserted inline immediately after them (do you really need to know its nature?), normall separated from them by an ordinary space (generated by the space bar). Fairly frequently these inline graphics are followed immediately (no space) by a comma. Mostly that causes no problems but, if the graphic happens to fall at the end of a line, the comma flips down to the next line — not a good look. Not quite so bad, but not what I actually want, if the name happens to come at the end of a line, the tiny graphic (with or without a following comma) flips down to the next line. Inserting a non-breaking space between the name and the tiny graphic does not prevent this happening.
Is there some way I can force the comma to remain with the graphic that precedes it? If I insert a hair space, they do stick together but is this the only way to achieve it? And can I force the graphic (with a space) to remain with the name that precedes it?
MemberThank you, Gert.
I tried the first step (ie., the ones with three names) and it sort-of worked. But it changed the surnames (now shown as the first name with a comma following) to normal text and changed the last of the given names to the character style for surnames. That needs to be ironed out.
I didn’t try the formula for two names because it seems to me that it is likely to pick up the last two names of all the previously-changed three-name entries and swap those two names around, inserting another comma. Could I get around that by inserting a ^p before the grep expression in both the “find” and “replace” slots? (I am a babe-in-the-woods when it comes to grep.)
I am also curious to see what other suggestions people may come up with when they return from the holiday break.
MemberHmmm. Thanks for the suggestion.
The information is already in a table format and the names are just in the first column. There are four other columns covering such matters as date of birth, date of death and other genealogical information. I am hesitant to take the name data out as it could become disjointed from the rest of the data.
I will wait to see what other suggestions come up when people gradually recover from too much celebration and come back to reading this forum. It is not rushing to meet a deadline and, in fact, I have been slowly working my way through the list doing it by hand in the meantime. But I do appreciate your help.
MemberI may have missed the point somewhere, but surely you need to select the text with the type tool in order to change its colour? If you select the text frame with the black arrow, all you can change in terms ofr colour are the background of the text frame or (if you want it) the border of the frame.
MemberHaving learnt HTML about 15 years ago (and added CSS to it along the way) it is very difficult for me to “unlearn” it and give you advice on where to start. I have no experience whatever of Muse, though I have watched a couple of videos about it by Terry White. I think I would begin by exploring the Export as HTML option within InDesign and see whether that gives you any satisfaction. Try exporting a few pages, open them in a web browser and see whether you are horrified by the result.
So far as learning HTML goes, I found Elizabeth Castro’s “HTML for the World Wide Web” (one of the Visual Quickstart series of books) very helpful. I think the latest edition is the 5th.
I don’t see 100000 words as a barrier since each of your chapters could be a separate page of HTML with links between them. Indeed, there is no limit to how many pages you can have, provided there are links between them. For instance, ask yourself how many words there are in Wikipedia! Each of your chapters might have multiple pages.
Without actually seeing your thesis, I feel that I am simply tossing ideas at it in the dark without any real knowledge of whether any of them are hitting the mark. Maybe someone else can offer more knowledgeable suggestions?
MemberThis is way outside my field so I may be talking through my hat. On the other hand, I may have a dispassionate objective view. :-)
But have you though of making the whole thing in html? Everything — photos, videos, slideshows, text — would be viewable through a web browser. After all, InDesign does allow (admittedly limited) exporting into html.
MemberOr as a .psd file.
MemberYou can also do it by inserting the appropriate number (or clicking the little arrows) in the appropriate slot in the Control Panel that runs across the top of the InDesign window.
MemberI suspect it might have something to do with whether you are using Adobe paragraph composer or Adobe single-line composer.
Place your cursor in the paragraph and then look at the fly-out menu at the extreme right edge of the Control Panel that runs across the top of the InDesign screen. See which of the two is checked. Select the other one and see if that makes a desirable difference.
I don’t pretend to understand how Indesign works out how to apply your choice, but it does mean words shift back-and forward from one line to another when other words are deleted or lengthened. It is much smarter than I am!
MemberThanks, David.
Your work-around has taught me a bit more about InDesign’s sometimes-arcane dialog box settings. I hadn’t taken much notice of that Pattern Length section before.
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