InDesign for QuarkXPress Users [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Chapter 14. Fills and Strokes

As we mentioned in Chapter 10, InDesign uses a different dialect than QuarkXPress when it comes to describing page objects: QuarkXPress works with a box's background color, while InDesign lets you manipulate a frame's fill color. What XPress calls a box's frame InDesign calls a stroke. Every object on a page has a fill and a stroke, even if the color is "None" (transparent) or the stroke is set to zero points.

In QuarkXPress you can apply a background color and frame width using the Modify dialog box; to change text you can use the Style menu. In InDesign, however, you usually change an object's fill or stroke color with the Swatches palette (which looks sort of similar to XPress's Colors palette). We'll discuss in detail the use of the Swatches palette and other methods of applying color in Part 8,

Color and Transparency . To change an object's stroke width, you use the Stroke palette.

The part that confuses many XPress users is that before you apply a color to an object, you have to choose whether the color should apply to the stroke or the fill. The easiest way to select between the fill and stroke attributes is at the bottom of the Tools palette (see Figure 14-1). The two largest buttons select the fill and stroke: Clicking the square one selects the fill attributes; choosing the outlined one selects the stroke attributes. The one in front is the active attribute. Clicking the small double-headed arrow swaps between the two (or press the letter X with no text selected). Clicking the small icon below the fill/stroke controls (or pressing D) returns you to the defaulta black stroke with no fill. If you apply the color to the stroke when you meant to apply it to the fill (or vice versa), don't fret: just press Shift-X to swap them.

Note that when text is selected, you have to make one more choice here: Click the Formatting Affects Frame or the Formatting Affects Text button in order to choose which of the two (frame or text) will have the color applied to it. Also, below these buttons are controls that let you apply the last used color (or press period) or gradient (or press comma), or to apply "None" (no color; press /). For convenience, the fill and stroke controls are duplicated on the Swatches palette.