Adobe InDesign CS/CS2 Breakthroughs [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Don't Have a Stroke

Begone, Default Stroke!

The basic shape tools Rectangle, Ellipse and Polygon have a 1 point black stroke by default, which I hardly ever want. It's simple enough to change a shape's stroke weight to 0 points (in the Stroke or Control palettes), but it gets tiresome after a while. And it's easy to forget to do this, especially since the stroke is almost undetectable beneath InDesign's frame outline preview (in Normal View Mode).

With no documents open, select a Shape tool any one of the three and change the stroke weight to 0 points in the Stroke or Control palette. Quit InDesign to save your new application defaults. The next time you start up the program and create a Rectangle, Ellipse or Polygon shape, its stroke will automatically be 0 points.

In InDesign CS2, you can also edit the Basic Graphics Frame object style (in the Object Styles palette). This is the default style for those shape objects though not for graphic frames, which always have a fill and stroke of None.

Move the Border Inside the Frame

Coming from QuarkXPress, I'm used to a preference setting for the placement of borders (strokes) in a box (frame): Inside or Outside. InDesign doesn't have a preference setting for this. In fact, it looks like InDesign splits the difference and places strokes halfway between "inside and outside" so they actually straddle the frame boundary. This is a real problem because when I apply a stroke that has a gap to a colored frame, I get ugly white areas in the "outer half" of the stroke.

A quick fix to get rid of those uglies (Figure 6-5a) is to use the Stroke palette to set the stroke's gap color to the same color as the frame background. Of course, every time you change the frame's fill color, you have to remember to change the stroke's gap color as well.

A more permanent fix is to move the stroke completely inside or outside of the frame boundary. Select the frame with a Selection tool and open the Stroke palette. You'll see three small icons labeled "Align Stroke" towards the top the palette (Figure 6-5b). The first icon, Align Stroke to Center, is chosen by default. If you want to move the stroke outside the frame, click the third icon, Align Stroke to Outside (Figure 6-5c); to move it inside, click the second one, Align Stroke to Inside (Figure 6-5d).

Stroke alignment is an application preference. If you want all your shape strokes to start out as "Inside" or "Outside" borders, close all your documents, choose any Shape tool and click the appropriate Align Stroke icon in the Stroke palette. Quit InDesign to save your new defaults.

Change Arrow Direction

The page I'm working on has a diagram overlaid with numerous boxed call-outs that I created in InDesign. Currently, the call-outs have a single line leading to the parts of the diagram they refer to. The client took a look at the page and wants me to add arrowheads to each of these paths. When I select a path and choose an arrowhead for an End style in the Stroke palette, sometimes the arrowhead ends up pointing the wrong way.

InDesign applies the End style to the part of the path that was drawn last. You're supposed to remember which end of the path this was. What? You didn't keep a detailed record listing which direction you drew every path? And you call yourself a professional … tsk tsk.

Don't sweat the small stuff. When you end up with a path "pointing" the wrong way, just select it with the Direct Select tool and choose Object > Path > Reverse Path. The arrowhead will flip over to the other side. In InDesign CS2, there is also a Reverse Path button in the Pathfinder palette. Note that both the palette button and the menu item are grayed out if you try this with the Selection tool . . . it has to be the Direct Select tool.

Overprint the Stroke

The Stroke palette has no Overprint Stroke checkbox. It's not in the Stroke palette menu either. How annoying!

Those wacky folks at Adobe have hidden InDesign's overprinting features in the Attributes palette (Window > Attributes). Note that this only works on objects you create in InDesign, and not placed images. For those files, set overprint attributes in the authoring program before placing them in your layout.

TIP

The Attributes palette can't control overprinting for strokes and gaps created with paragraph rules, underlines, strikethroughs, or table and cell borders. Instead, look for the Overprint Stroke and Overprint Gap checkboxes in those features' own dialog boxes.

Set Your Own Dashes and Gaps On The Fly

While I appreciate InDesign offering me two different Dashed stroke styles "3 and 2" and "4 and 4" I want "9 and 2." That is, a 9-point dash followed by a tiny 2-point gap. Where are the Stroke palette's dash and gap fields?

Force your eyeballs further down the menu of default Stroke styles in the Strokes palette past the two default Dashed stroke styles, all the way to the end, to plain old "Dashed." When you select that style, a magic genie opens up a new section of the Stroke palette where you can set your own numbers for an alternating pattern of dash fills and gaps (Figure 6-6).

Of course, if you're going to use this style a lot, you're probably better off creating it as a special custom dashed stroke style (Stroke palette menu > Stroke Styles > New). That way you can call it up any time you want, and even save the style to disk to use in other InDesign documents.

TIP

We rarely use the Transform palette (we just use the Control palette instead), so we thought Adobe actually removed it when InDesign CS2 was released. After all, it doesn't seem to show up in the Window menu. We were wrong: It's hiding in the Window > Object & Layout submenualong with some other palettes, like Align and Navigator.

EASTER EGGS

There are several "Easter Eggs" (just-for-giggles functions created and hidden in the software by its programmers) in InDesign's Stroke Styles > New dialog box. For example, create a new Stripe stroke and name it "Rainbow." Now create a new Dash stroke and name it "Feet." Try "Woof" or "Happy". Don't bother editing the actual strokes in the styles. Save your new styles and apply them to objects to reveal the Easter Eggs. (Make sure the stroke weight is thick like 20 points to get the full effect.)

Quickly Apply Complex Strokes

Stroke styles only contain the very basic underpinnings of a stroke. I can't save the weight, colors, tints, or overprint settings I want along with it. I have to virtually reinvent the wheel every time I want to apply the same "look" to a complicated stroke I'm applying to a new object.

You're absolutely right, but fortunately there are at least four workarounds available:

Method 1:
Use the Selection tool to select all the frames to which you want to apply the same sort of stroke, including all those settings you listed. That way you only need to apply your stroke style, color, gap color, and so on, once. All selected objects get that same stroke applied.

Method 2:
Mastering the Eyedropper," on page 125.)

Method 3:
Purchase Woodwing Software's Smart Styles plug-in (http://www.woodwing.com/smartstyles). Powerful stroke styles that are easy to apply and are linked to a "source" style are just one of its many features.

Method 4:
If you use InDesign CS2, skip all the above and just create an object style using the Object Styles palette. The object style can include all the stroke properties you want so you can apply them all with a single click. The only downside is that you can't apply more than one object style to an object at the same time.