Help with applying "Next Style"

Question

Is there anyway to assign a keyboard shortcut that would apply a paragraph style and it's associated next style? Or, alternatively, is there a way to create a paragraph style that ALWAYS applies the next style assigned to it?
In short, I'm really just looking for a faster way to accomplish this than highlighting three graphs, then right clicking and choosing from a context menu over and over again. I'm working on a list of businesses, with contacts, phone numbers, address, websites, etc. all included, and can't set up a loop (or don't know of a way to do one) because the length of the list is variable at times (some don't have a fax number, some don't have a website, some have multiple phone numbers, etc.). So I'm just looking for a more efficient way to do this than having to go through the context menu for each of the 500 entries.
thanks in advance,
~k
Message was edited by: kris.clifford (fix typo)

Answer 1

kris.clifford wrote:
The data was placed from an excel spreadsheet, then I used find and replace to replace each tab stop (new cell) with a hard return, replaced soft returns with hard returns, and removed multiple returns and multiple spaces. All the data now is in the right order, it's just a matter of formatting.
I probably could find a way to do it using soft returns and nested styles, but I think making sure all the soft returns were in the right places and setting up the nested style options would take as much time as just going through applying next style manually through the context menu.
I've done more research since first posting, and it doesn't look like what I'm hoping for is possible without a script. Obviously I can create a shortcut for the first of the styles in each block (which I have), I just wish there was a way of telling it to apply the next style every time it's used. Oh well. Maybe in future versions. Thanks for the help though!
~k
If there's a consistent, unique, and identifiable feature in each paragraph, a multiple GREP search-and-replace operation might work. For example, if each line is labeled, like fax, phone, zip, etc, these can be found by GREP and a paragraph can be applied with the replace. If there are no labels, perhaps content might work. For example, names would have at least two consecutive capitalized words, with the exception of celebs like Bono, Madonna, Sade, etc. Addresses would begin with a number, single or multiple digits, then perhaps at least one capitalized word or capitalized initial for direction (North, N, etc,) and/or end in designators like Av., Ave., Avenue, Street, Lane, Terrace, etc. Phone numbers fit a pattern. If phones always precede fax numbers, and there's only one phone, thats a findable pattern. Zipcodes, also.
Look into the FindChangeByList.jsx sample script included with InDesign; in the Scripts folder, findchangebylist.txt has detailed instructions. If you're not familiar with using ID scripts, search Google for "indesign scripts how to use tutorials" without quotes, for resources. If you're not familiar with GREP, search Google for "indesign find replace GREP" without quotes.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that FindChangeByList.jsx can certainly do the multiple manual operations you've described.
HTH
Regards,
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices