Character styles that accommodate different fonts?

I suspect this is hopeless, but I thought I'd ask in case anyone has a great idea I can't think of.
I use a basic formatting script that runs through a newly placed text file and makes a series of typographical corrections -- getting rid of double spaces, etc. One of the things it does is to apply a character style "Italic" to certain phrases, like i.e., et al., and so forth.
Then I go through and apply the correct paragraph to the text elements. The problem is that certain text elements are in different fonts, for instance, the figure captions are in Univers. When I apply the paragraph style, the items tagged as "Italic" become undefined, because in Univers the italic is called "57 Oblique."
Can anyone think of a way to apply italics to a phrase in such a way that when you change the font, it doesn't become undefined?
Thanks...

Alas -- no. It's this way, or No way.
When I have to use a font combo that doesn't allow a single Italics style, I generally go with 'standard' italics for the main text. If ID complains about a "[Univers Italic]" because that seems to be used in a Univers heading or caption, I create a new style "univers italic" (no use in beating around the bush!) and search for the font "[Univers Italic]", replacing it with the new style -- ID allows searching for non-existent fonts.
You might think, "but you use the Ctrl+Shf+I shortcut for both fonts to get the italic style", and you might be right. Then again, if Adobe implemented something like that by putting an "I" checkbox (and "B" for bold!) in the Styles panel, it'd get harder to defend their 'no-faux fonts' policy -- and I, for one, am certainly not suggesting they should.

Similar Messages

Kindle-plug in Character Styles don't embed fonts

We have a special font used for our company's publications and also a math type font (Euclid Symbol). The book is built in InDesign CS6 and will be exported to a .mobi file using the export to kindle plugin. The export to kindle will not see the symbols if every instance has a character style applied to it. I have to make sure that one of the special characters or math type symbols does not use the character style that I've applied to all the other special symbols. If there is just one "override", then the export to kindle sees it. So the issue seems to be Character Style related to me. Of course this goes against everything that I know about paragraph and character styles. That means that every chapter has an instance of "override" that I have to locate if I should choose to make a global change to the book. So I don't really consider this work around a solution. Can you please take a look at this Character Style/Span issue with the Kindle Plugin.

I have sent to epub and then to kindle in that manner. You are correct, it does work. This new export to Kindle is so much better than the previous one they had, that I was hoping to be able to skip all the extra steps. I am interested in asking the InDesign developers to at least take a look at the issue. Do they receive messages from this forum? Or do I need to submit it somewhere else?

How to apply a Character Style that's already been made in a template document?

First of all I'd like to thank everyone that helps. I'm a complete beginner at scripting and appreciate all your help.
I'm basically using GREP expressions to find patterns in a document and apply a Character Style which has already been made. This Character style was not made using script, but just in InDesign when making and setting up the template.
var myDoc = app.activeDocument;
//Clear the find/change grep preferences.
app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
//Set the find options.
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeFootnotes = false;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeHiddenLayers = false;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeLockedLayersForFind = false;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeLockedStoriesForFind = false;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeMasterPages = false;
//GREP Expression for finding all HEADERS
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = ".+\n";
//Applying formatting changes to put into All Caps, Bold and changing the font size to 12 pt.
app.changeGrepPreferences.capitalization = Capitalization.allCaps;
app.changeGrepPreferences.fontStyle = "Bold";
app.changeGrepPreferences.pointSize = "12";
myDoc.changeGrep();
//Clear the find/change preferences after the search.
app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
This is how I currently have it. I will manually define the changes to the text. The problem is, each template uses a different set of fonts and not all of them use Bold e.g. Sabon can use CE Bold.
I would like to learn how to apply a Character Style and have tried looking around but nothing seems to work.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks.

select the text where u went and run below script after change group as per ur template.
var myDoc = app.activeDocument;
var mySel = app.selection[0];
//Clear the find/change grep preferences.
app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
//Set the find options.
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeFootnotes = false;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeHiddenLayers = false;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeLockedLayersForFind = false;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeLockedStoriesForFind = false;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeMasterPages = false;
//GREP Expression for finding all HEADERS
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "role";
//Applying formatting changes to put into All Caps, Bold and changing the font size to 12 pt.
//app.changeGrepPreferences.capitalization = Capitalization.allCaps;
//~ app.changeGrepPreferences.fontStyle = "Bold";
//~ app.changeGrepPreferences.pointSize = "12";
app.changeGrepPreferences.appliedCharacterStyle=myDoc.characterStyleGroups.item("Style Group 1").characterStyleGroups.item("Style Group 2").characterStyles.item("Header")// Header is name of character name
mySel.changeGrep();
//Clear the find/change preferences after the search.
app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
If it's help then click yes
Mi_D

'Highlight' Character Style -- Why Does the Font Change?

I want to define a style that mimics a highlight marker.
Choose some text, set the background/fill to yellow.
Highlight filled words, then choose 'Define Style From Selection..."
Then, in the More... selection I deselect every attribute of the character style except for the fill colour. So this should highlight text, but leave every other attribute of the text unchanged -- I think.
But whenever I apply it, the font changes to something I don't recognise -- even though the font is not a part of the character style description.
What am I doing wrong?
TIA

You need to make sure the font is embedded in the PDF. This is optional in some sofware.
If it is not embedded, your local font is used. No such local font exists on the iPad.

How to style text with XML import using character style that is in a group (aid:cstyle = "group1"."style1") ?

Hello, I am using an XML file to import text into InDesign page items. Everything works well using the attribute "aid:cstyle = style1" but since the introduction of InDesign groups, our users want to use them but we do not know how to reference them in the xml attribute.
I saw somewhere on the internet that you should use "aid:cstyle = group1:style1" or "aid:cstyle = group1|style1" but both won't work. They simply create a new ungrouped style name "group1:style1" or "group1|style1"
So what is the right formula ?
Thanks

Tagged Text is nice but all the copy in your page item is one big block, no way to separate and track individual values, say in your page item you have a description and a sale price, you can't update the price without reimporting the description as well. We use many fields inside an individual page item and just as one example we need to be able to update all prices on the page without modifying anything else that shares the page items with the prices. Also XML updates you can trigger an update for the whole document in one operation, while with Tagged Text you have to "place" your text file for each individual page item you are modifying (even with scripting you call the place function as many times as you have page items). So say you have a page or document with 200 boxes across multiple layers that is a lot of individual actions.
Anyway back to my problem.
I've never used Mapping tas to styles before, but running some tests here I clearly don't understand it. If my text is already tagged and I map a style to a tag, it untags all my individual text elements and leaves only the page item tag, and doesn't style my text... I'm going to try and read more on this.

Cross references not picking up character styles in source text

I'm getting some annoying odd behaviour with cross references in Frame 12.
I have some tables, where the paragraph style in the cell is called "Cell Body" (nothing odd there).
Quite a few of the cells only have one word in them, and that word is set to courier font with a character style (called "Code").
Then, elsewhere in the document, I am referring to this text using cross references. I am referencing the paragraph style Cell Body, and the cross reference format applied is like this "<hyperlink><$paratext><Default ¶ Font>"
"hyperlink" is another character style that makes the text go green.
So, the cross reference out to take the text from the cell (in Courier) and reproduce it, coloured green.
However for about half of these cross references, it isn't picking up the Code character style in the source text, so the cross ref is just green, no green courier.
Things are further bamboozled when I output to HTML Help.
In the CHM file, the cross refs which appear to work OK (green courier) are now just courier.
The ones which failed to pick up the courier look the same as they do in Frame (just green).
Any ideas as to what's going on?
I've tried troubleshooting by clearing the cells, reapplying the para style and default character style, then reapplying the code character style, then replacing the cross reference - which sometimes seemed to fix it but didn't always.

Arnis Gubins wrote:
Using two character tags in-line together (a la <hyperlink><Code>) is asking for trouble. IIRC, FM doesn't re-apply these in order on an update and depending upon how they are defined (and what is set to AsIs), the outer one usually wins. .
So why does the blimmin' dialog invite me to do precisely that, by providing me with a list of all the character styles I have, and allowing me to select as many of them as I like??? /sulks/ Indeed, if Frame still shipped with a printed user guide instead of stupid "optimised for viewing on iPhones" online webhelp nonsense, I suspect I might very well be able to find an example in the manual of using multiple character styles in that dialog! If it doesn't want you to use more than one, why doesn't it grey out after you add the first one? /sighs/ The concept is called "cascading styles", it's a fundamental web paradigm! And it works in the main body text - why not in Xrefs!
Also, I have been very scrupulous to keep my character styles orthogonal so none of their AsIs's mash each other up.
But, rant over, I shall follow your splendid suggestion for a "Code Hyperlink" style.
Arnis Gubins wrote:
Also, x-ref formatting may behave differently in the new Publishing modules depending upon ....
...Depending on how badly designed and buggy this new Frame12 feature is, I should say! The Publish module should not randomly stop behaving in a WYSIWIG manner in completely undocumented fashion just because Adobe couldn't be bothered to code it properly. /sighs/
Frankly, for my current project, I've given up trying to jump through hoops for Publish - I'm concentrating on getting the Frame source right and assuming these quirks will be fixed in Frame 13 (or 14, depending on how superstitious they are). Because if I put in ad hoc workarounds for them in Frame 12, I (or a colleague) will only have to undo them later when they're fixed, and by then we'll all have forgotten what the original problem was.

How to effectively use Character Styles

Hello, I am fairly new to InDesign, but have an extensive background with FrameMaker. I am having trouble figuring out how to best use character styles in ID, because of the difference between it and FM.
Lets say I have two different body text styles, which use different fonts or different sizes, each of which is saved as a paragraph style.
In Framemaker, when you go into the Character Style editor, for each value you can select the value "As Is". So if I want to make a Bold character style, I leave the font and size attributes set to "As Is" and I change only the weight attribute to Bold.
Now, I can select either Body Text 1 or Body Text 2 for the paragraph style and if I want to bold a word, I just highlight that word and select the Bold character style. The text is bolded but everything else that is unique to that paragraph style remains. If I ever need to unbold the word, I can just select it and then select No Style from the Character Style catalog
But in ID, it looks like you have to define the value for each attribute in the Character Style editor. So I would need to create two separate bold styles, one for each paragraph style, because if I define the font and size, it will switch those values as well as the weight. And if I need to create a separate Bold Character style for each paragraph style in which the default font is not bolded, what is the advantage of using character styles? Why not simply highlight the text and select the bold value from the Character palette, which then modifies the paragraph style just for those words that you bolded?

Thanks,
I was looking at some existing documents, which I think were created by folks who didn't know what they were doing (I am new to this job and all of the previous folks doing what I do are gone - and they clearly did not understand how to properly use styles). All of the fields had values in them, and when I didn't see an "As Is" value, it never occurred to me that I could just highlight the value and delete it to get rid of it.
When you use a bunch of different Adobe products, even though they have fairly similar user interfaces, it is those differences that really get you.....
Thanks, again

Maintaining fill colors in character styles across multiple AI documents

I'm having a lot of trouble understanding how Adobe Illustrator (CS6) manages character styles imported from different ai documents. If I create all character styles in a single .ai document and only use them in in that document, everything works as expected--colors, fonts, and typography settings are maintained in the character style, and newly added text can be quickly styled with the character style.
My trouble starts when i want to re-use those character styles in a new .ai document. From the character style menu I use the option to import the character styles from another document, and they import correctly--all of the styles work and style text as expected. But then i save & close the document and re-open it to find that the character style entries are there, but the fills and strokes are all messed up--fonts, sizes, typography settings are maintained, but styles with a blue fill are suddenly filed with black, or some other color.
So, why is this happening? This happens even if the swatches associated with the character styles are imported to the new document as well. I've read that all character styles are based off of the 'normal' character style. But, i've tried a test making sure that the 'normal' character style was consistent between the two documents and i've still experienced the issue.
Here's a short video showing the issue i'm experiencing: http://youtu.be/Z-BG7miwib8 (watch at 720p)
Any insights as to what i'm doing wrong would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks!

Jamier,
can you please do the following and report what you see?
1. Open a blank document
2. Import a character style
3. Make a text object and apply the style
4. Cut and paste the text object inside the document
5. Save the file
6. Reopen this file
Is the character style still intact?
If so, you could take this way as a bumpy workaround (that should not be required at all, of course).

Grouped Character Styles -

Can I make a group of character styles that is not only available when I create a new doc, but will also be open every time I open any document? I have several hundred files to tend to and am wondering if there is a way to have it handy instead of loading it from a document every time.

KSCoastal wrote:
If I am to create a new doc, the character group/style is there as it should be, but if I open a doc, it is not and I have to load it. I have so many files to open that I don't want to have to open the style time and time again.
To load properties from one file to many, you can use a book file and the synchronize feature. You do need to be sure that the properties you'll inject from the Style Source file won't change properties with matching names in the target files. Here's how:
* Create a book file with File > New > Book
It doesn't matter if you'll need to use the files in a book later, or if some of them already belong to different books.
* Create or open the file that has all the properties - paragraph styles, character styles, object styles, master pages, etc - whatever properties that you want to inject into target files.
* Add this file to the book file
* Add all the target files to the book file - you can drag them from the desktop, Mac Finder, Windows Explorer, or by using the "+" button in the book window and selecting all at once, and clicking the Open or Ok or Add button in the Add Documents dialog box.
* To open all the files in the book at once, select them all in the book window, then double click quickly on the selection. It may appear that you've deselected all but the file you've double clicked, but you'll see the files in the book panel display the opened-book icon. You may also see missing font and perhaps other alerts during the opening process.
NOTE: It's important to open all the files before synchronizing them, in case you discover that something's gone wrong and you need to undo the process. If you want to undo the synchronization for any changed files before saving, make the file active, and use File > Revert.
NOTE: Before you synchronize files, click Synchronize Options in the Book panel menu, and choose exactly which properties you want to propagate from the style source to the target files. There are many choices, so check each one. You'll really need a well-prepared style source file to get this all right. Clear the check box of any property you want unchanged.
* Select a file to be the file source for synchronizing some or all files in the book, by clicking on the box just to the left of the file file you want to be the style source. A tool tip should appear when you hover your pointer over the box, and when you click, an icon will appear (it may be too small to see easily; it represents a single file propagating its properties to multiple files.)
* Select one or more file names in the book panel list to be the targets of the synchronization operation. If you want to synchronize all the files to the style source, either select all the file names, or click in the blank space below the name list (yes, it's totally counter-intuitive.)
* Verify that the Synchronize Options properties are the ones you want.
* Verify that the correct target files are selected, or that no file in the book panel is selected (for all files).
* In the Book panel menu, click Synchronize Selected Documents.
* Check through all the target files to verify that they're correct.
* Use File > Revert with any document active to undo its synchronization.
* Save the changed target files to preserve the changes. There's no "save all selected files" feature in InDesign, but you can use this operating-system trick to speed things up:
- Option+Click (Mac) or Alt+Click (Windows) the close button of one open file; an alert appears. Choose Save, Don't Save, or Cancel.
EDIT:
NOTE: You can close the book without saving if you don't need it again, or you can save it. Synchronizing isn't supposed to change file numbering, but adding the files to a book will change their numbering. You may need to reset the numbering properties of files when you open them for use alone, or in other books.
END EDIT
You're done!
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

Why do text variables using Running Header character style translate forced returns as a word space in the running head on the first page but close up the space on subsequent pages?

In an InDesign document that requires 3 different Chapter head paragraph styles (to cope with differrent length headings) I've set up the running heads on the master page with a text variable using the Running header (character style) option. The character style I've assigned to this is an empty character style that is applied to all 3 chapter head paragraph styles.
Some chapter heads require a forced line break, so that the line breaks are aethesically pleasing. On the first page the text variable translates this forced line break as a word space in the running head, but on subsequent pages it ignores the forced line break. This means that if you have a word space before the forced line break, on the first page you get a double word space and on subsequent pages the running head sets correctly with a single word space. But if you remove the word space before the forced line break in the chapter head text, the first running head sets correctly with forced line break interpreted as a single word space, but on subsequest pages the space is closed up.
This only seems to be a problem when the character style option is used for header text variables. If a paragraph style is used the forrced line break is interpreted as a a single word space in all instances, both on the foirst page and subsequent pages.
This would appear to be a bug in how text variables are applied when using the Running header (character style) option. I can't see any other reason why the text variable would beheave differently on the first page and on subsequent pages. There is only one master page, so it isn't a case of their being an error between a main master page and a chapter opener master page.
Does anyone have any solutionss, or know if this problem has been fixed in subsequent releases of InDesign (I'm using CS6 ID version 8.0)
Thanks

Ask in the ID forum...
Mylenium

[CS3 JS] Correcting a Character Style Anomaly

It used to be that you could define a character style to merely colour the text and give it an underline (e.g. for Hyperlinks) or just superscript the text (for Reference citations). When such styles, which do not call for a particular font or font size, are placed into InDesign CS, the styled text would take on the font and font size of the underlying paragraph style. However, after placing a Word .doc with these styles into a CS2 template, the font and font size becomes Times New Roman and 10 pt. The solution was to save an .rtf file and re-import the text. Now, in CS3 this work-around doesnt quite work: the font is okay, but the font size reverts to that default size of 10 pt.
So, I would like a script that finds all occurrences of two specific character styles (Hyperlink and bibref) and then corrects the font size of the found text to that of the underlying paragraph style. These styles can appear anywhere within a document, including in tables. I have trawled through this forum and found enough to be able to search for the character styles, but I cannot fathom how to apply the font size of the underlying paragraph style. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
By the way, re-applying the character styles doesnt work because the character styles dont define the font size; also clearing the overrides on the paragraph style while the text is selected isnt a viable solution, because other local formatting (i.e. italic) would be lost.

Hi Peter
Thank you very much for your quick response. I tried your script and it did as you intended by clearing the Font, Font Style and Point Size in the character style, but unfortunately it did not correct the problem of the style becoming some default style and size (Times New Roman 10 pt) when placed into ID.
In fact, I had already set up the 'bibref' and 'Hyperlink' character styles with these fields blanked out. Also, I made Adobe aware of this bug when CS2 came out and they warned me that CS3 wouldn't fix the problem; but I didn't realize that CS3 would be worse than CS2 so that using an rtf file wouldn't fix things.
So, I am left with my initial query: is it possible to write a script to search for the character styles in question and apply the font size of the underlying paragraph style?
Thanks a lot for any help you can give.

Problem with paragraph and character style

Recently I have noticed that when I alter a paragraph or character style that the text won't change to the changes I performed.
It doesn't matter whether it's just the preview mode or when I clicked "OK"- no changes will be performed whether it be typeface or size.
Does anyone know what can be wrong?

My bet is that you haven't got a clear understanding of the difference between character styles and paragraph styles, and that you are using the former incorrectly.
Paragraph styles include basic font formatting information that is applied to all text in a paragraph UNLESS that text also has either a character style or a local format override (select the text and change something) applied. The formatting heirarchy works with paragraph style at the bottom, character styles trump formatting applied in the paragraph style, and local formatting trums everything else.
Select the text in question. Look in the the Paragraph Style field in the Control panel, or open the Paragraph Styles panel to see what is applied. If there is a plus sign next to the name local formatting overrides have been applied (hold the Alt or Opt key and click the style name to remove them), but character styles are not considered overrides, so if there is no plus sign, check the Character Style field in the control panel or ope the Character Styles panel to check if any character styles are also applied.

How To Add Glyph to Character Style?

Specifically, i want to add the "math x" as a Character Style. The font is Adobe Janson Pro, and the "glyph" (what we used to call a "character") is present. I could add by hand, but i have a lot of them. In the menus that define the character(s) you want to add, i can't find an option that will add a *specific* character-- in this case the math x. Or an accented character, for that matter (ü?)
Thanks very much.

Okay, I see. I tried one more thing -- since the Symbol character for the math x font is option-y (which is the "yen" symbol in most fonts) I tried having the Nested GREP apply a character style including the Symbol font to all option-Y characters -- but Indesign is too clever for that, and shows an empty box (since there's no Yen symbol in the Symbol font).
I give up. Keep the "Glyphs" palette handy, and once you've entered one math x symbol, it will be on the "recently used glyphs" row, and you can enter them by double-clicking. Or, you can search for space-x-space and replace with space-math x-space where needed.
Rodney

Generic Character Styles - highlight color

I am trying to create a Generic Character Style for changing the background color for highlighting text.
Problem:
What I have done is not generic. It changes font, size, bold etc. type characteristics to when I created the HILITEYELLOW Charater Style. I need a Generic character style that just changes the background color. No matter what multiple font or type characteristics are in the selected text, it just changes the background color.
What steps are necessary to create a Character style based on previous Character style None* so that it ONLY changes the background color and not touch the font and other characteristics?

See here:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/5081132#5081132

How to use different font sizes in smart from?

Hi Gurus,
     I'm creating a form and i am trying to place a title with font size around 50, and i tried creating a paragraph type with a font of this size in smart styles, the problem is when i am editing the text node, the font size appears to be right, but when i print it, the font gets much smaller, can anyone help on this?
I have created SMART STYLE as YSMART.
Header---- H4 ( For Main Headings)
Paragraph -
H1 (Table Headings)
H2 ( Label Headings)
H3 ( Label Values)
H4 ( Main Headings)
I have given H4 as Header font in smart style.
Thanks In Advance..!
Edited by: sreelakshmi.B on Jun 25, 2010 10:07 AM

HI ,
Just check with your smart styles with assigned paragraph allignment   .
Try to create character style with your required font ,size and Allignment .
Hope u this will solve your issue .
Let me know if any concerns......
Regards,
Lokesh

Character styles that accommodate different fonts?

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