Use InDesign’s paragraph styles to auto format your text, highlighting every other line in your paragraph.
Author: Dave Cross
For close to 25 years, Dave Cross has been helping photographers and creative professionals get the most out of their software. Starting with Adobe Illustrator classes in 1987, Dave has taught Photoshop,Illustrator and InDesign to thousands of users around the world. He has a Bachelor of Education, is an Adobe Certified Instructor in Photoshop CS5 and is a Certified Technical Trainer. Dave has taught at Photoshop World (20 times), written numerous articles and several books, co-hosts Photoshop User TV and has appeared in many DVDs and online courses for Kelby Training. Dave is the Lead Instructor for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, and runs his own studio/workshop space in Tampa, FL. Over the last 12 years, Dave has taught Photoshop in every state in the United States, throughout Canada and in Europe, consistently earning rave reviews. Dave is well-known for his engaging style, his humor and his ability to make complex topics easy to understand. In 2009 Dave was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame.
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@ 1:51 min
You can create a new Colour in the Paragraph Style – go to the Character Colour and double click the Swatch Proxy and you can create a new swatch and Add it, and select it for your text colour. There is no need to go out of the Paragraph Style and create a new swatch. You can do this in Cs3 and CS4 already.
@ 2:00
Pantone DS C colour because you can is a nice idea. But you have to make sure you relay this to your printer. As most printers would use the formula guide for Pantone Solid Coated, not Pantone Process Coated.
For example, Pantone DS 316 C is a deep red, but in Pantone 316 Solid Coated it’s a blue. It’s very easy for a printers to confuse between the two books, I’ve seen it happen.
So always make sure your relay which book your using, what colour it should be and always provide a sample.
@3:31
Seemed like a bit of guess work there in creating the width the rule should be. An easier/faster way is to make the rule the same size of the text point size, which say for example your text is 12 pt, then add 3pts to the width of the rule, which would 12+3pt, so your rule is now 15pt. Then in the offset type in “-3pt” and the paragraph rule is created faster and more accurately. You can do great things with paragraph rules check out this great video http://www.theindesigner.com/blog/episode-49-paragraph-rules-rule
And why would you use paragraph rules if you want to have it look like a table? Just use a table and use alternating fills for the table? Although using paragraph rules is acceptable, a table would be faster and more efficient to create and maintain than paragraph rules, as you if you change the text size you have to alter the paragraph rule to suit. Which can be time consuming. A table is more automatic for this scenario.
And if you want it to be table like, you probably don’t want to have a white gap in the layout. So if the leading changes here you have to adjust the paragraph rule again. Definitely a table with alternating fills would be the better way to create this.
@4:48
It’s a very bad habit to get into double clicking styles to edit them. It’s better to use the Sub Menu or right click (cmd click on one button mouse on macs) and use the Edit Style (or access the edit style through the control panel).
If you have nothing selected and are in the text tool by double clicking a style you have selected it for text behaviour, so that paragraph style becomes default for new text frames going forward. Which means if you place text or insert new text frames you have to keep switching out of the paragraph style.
And I don’t think in this instance you want that particular paragraph style to be default. And you may inadvertently double click this style to make an edit and all of a sudden it’s the new text default going forward.
All in all some good tips, but overall shows a different workflow that could be cumbersome and longwinded when it doesn’t have to be. Far more efficient ways to create this style for the text. And also picking colours because you can is a good tip, but make sure you are using the same spot colour book that your printer is using. Communication with the printer is key here in picking spot colours. It’s probably not a good idea to pick a spot colour willy-nillilly here.
For me, the idea that the text size and leading could change is enough for me to use a table with alternating fills rather than using a paragraph rule and alternating paragraph styles, which seems to be long winded way of creating of this style for the text.
Is there anyway that video playing not play automatically? I sometimes open up many different video tutorials in new tabs, hoping they load and then I can watch one after the other, and sometimes I might be listening to something else, all of a sudden the Layers Video starts playing and I can’t hear what I was originally listening too.
So please, can it be changed so the videos load but don’t play automatically?
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Dave:
I followed the instructions on the great presentation of Paragraph Styles in In Design for alternating shaded lines.
It worked the first time, but it did not save it, so the next time I went to use it, it was not in the Paragraph styles dropdown from All Paragraph styles.
How did I loose it?
-Dave Pavlock in Pensacola.