How to spot color in a character style?

Dear all,
How do I use change default color in a character style to a spot color say "Red"?
Thanks,
Billy

Hi
Sorry that I didn't make myself understood. Below are the details for your information:
We're running the XML-first workflow under InDesign CS4. When importing the XML file (with many paragraph/character styles [pstyle & cstyle]) into the pre-defined InDesign template, we find difficulties in recognizing whether there are any new paragraph/character styles that have not been defined in the existing InDesign template. It would be great if the non-defined styles could be shown in a special (spot) color, or placed into a new group. Would you please check the feasibility and advise us?
Billy

Similar Messages

How do I make no a character style color

I gave a red color to a character style
That you get a script
Click I get no color
Click again when I get back to the original color
is it possible

Your current code in main_pkg wouldn't throw a NO_DATA_FOUND exception. Looks like you just want to check if any row exist in the table. You don't need to use cursors for that.
Modify your main_pkg so that it can have only the SELECT statement, OR you can just eliminate the package in this case, and move your select statement to the calling program.

[JS InDesign CS3] Style groups, begone! (or: How do I take paragraph and character styles out of style groups?)

Sorry for this question (and my terrible English, by the way), I'm a javascript noob and I know when I've reached my limits.
Well, I'm trying to take a set of paragraph and character styles out of the style groups they are placed in, in hundreds of InDesign documents (that cannot be treated as a book). As far as I've tried (thanks to the invaluable help of previous posts in this forum) I've been able to move a style into a group and change it's position inside the group, inside the root level or even between groups. But it doesn't matter how I try, I don't know which move reference should I try in case I want to take every style out of their style group and place them after their original group folder, at the [Root] style level .
I have tried:
var doc=app.activeDocument;
var pGroups=doc.paragraphStyleGroups;
for (i=pGroups.length-1; i>=0; i--){
     var pStylesInGroup=pGroups[i].paragraphStyles;
     for (j=pStylesInGroup.length-1; j>=0; j--){
// Here I am, trying to move a style outside the folder that contains it, and failing miserably.
          pStylesInGroup[j].move (LocationOptions.after, pGroups[i]);
It didn't work, the script sent an invalid parameter value in the reference field, so I cant use the group folder itself as reference.
Tried other (obviously wrong) solutions, like use the first available style as reference. Therefore, my second script was
var doc=app.activeDocument;
var pStyles=doc.allParagraphStyles;
var pGroups=doc.paragraphStyleGroups;
for (i=pGroups.length-1; i>=0; i--){
     var pStylesInGroup=pGroups[i].paragraphStyles;
     for (j=pStylesInGroup.length-1; j>=0; j--){
// Now I try placing the styles after the [Basic Paragraph], that is, the second paragraph style in the document style list
          pStylesInGroup[j].move (LocationOptions.after, pStyles[1]);
It didn't work either, another invalid parameter in the reference field. Similar results with my other attempts (I even tried "[Root]" as literal with similar luck).
So, my question is: Which command (or script, in case my whole approach is utterly wrong) should I use to achieve my goal?
Thanks in advance to whoever decides to spend more than a minute thinking about my humble worries, and my apologies for shamelessly ripping some of your lines of code for my purposes.

Okay, tried a few things and got really weird results!
1. You can move a style around inside its group.
2. You can move a style out of a group "to" another, but it will appear 'inside' that style. I got my test style as a sub-item of [Basic Paragraph], using index #1. With index #0 ([No Paragraph Style]) InDesign crashed.
3. You can duplicate the style, but then you get a copy in the same group. Still no luck.
4. Finally! What is the parent of a paragraph style?
Document | Application | ParagraphStyleGroup
"Application" is easy -- that's when you make a style global. So what's the difference between 'Document' and 'paragraphStyleGroup'? Simple -- well, when you finally get it...
pStylesInGroup[j].move (LocationOptions.AT_END, doc);
moves the style out of the group and to the end of the list in the document. I don't think it's possible to move it directly to a specific position into the main style list -- you first have to move it out of a group, then move it around in its own list.
Fortunately, it returns its new position as a ParagraphStyle again, so if needed, you can use
newStyle = pStylesInGroup[j].move (LocationOptions.AT_END, doc);
newStyle.move (LocationOptions.AFTER, pStyles[1]);
-- I didn't really try that out, but it should work.

How do I apply a specific character style to specific text?

Long-time Photoshop and Illustrator user. New to Indesign.
Fortunately, this isn't an issue of how to go about creating fractions. I've already chosen a route for that. I'm simply applying a Character Style that checks the opentype "fractions" box.
Here's an example of the content I'm dealing with:
Above is my styled table in Indesign, after pasting in data I'm being given data in excel spreadsheets.
How might I quickly apply my "ptable_BODY FRACTIONS" style to only certain text, like: "1/2" + "1/4" + "1/8" & preferably random arbitrary fractions like "34/69"?
GREP can do some great things, but can it selectively apply character styles?
This might be a job for a paragraph style. I'm not sure. . .

@ John
That's exactly what the GREP Styles feature does. Arriving at a GREP expression that accurately targets your fractions may be another matter considering your screen shot shows your content to have no space between whole numbers and fractions.
Right. It keeps including the whole number preceding the fraction.
I'm dead set on there not being a space between the whole number and fraction, too.
I'm trying to figure out how to tell Indesign to take all fractions and give them opentype fractions settings.
I'll only be dealing with standard fractions I'm hoping, so arbitrary fractions shouldn't be necessary.
Just halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths should be ok. These are likely the only fractions I'll ever need to deal with: 1/2, 1/4, 3/4, 1/8, 3/8, 5/8, 7/8, 1/16, 3/16, 5/16, 7/16, 9/16, 11/16, 13/16, 15/16.

How can I see where Paragraph / Character Styles are used?

I am editing a 40-page document and have many Paragraph styles. I have already deleted unused paragraph styles and now would like to see where are the remaining styles used to edit the text directly. IS there a way to see it? (InDesign CS4 or CS5)
Thanks,
Marina

Marine von Koenig wrote:
I am editing a 40-page document and have many Paragraph styles. I have already deleted unused paragraph styles and now would like to see where are the remaining styles used to edit the text directly. IS there a way to see it? (InDesign CS4 or CS5)
Thanks,
Marina
Save two copies of the file.
Close the original file. In a saved copy, [EDIT] use the paragraph style panel to [/EDIT] change the text color of every paragraph style to a new color whose swatch you name for the paragraph style. For example, Head1 paragraph style's text color becomes your newly-made swatch Head1color.
Every paragraph in the document will appear in the color you assigned. This should give you a picture of which paragraphs are which style.
Save the colored version of the file if you want to keep it.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices
Message was edited by: peter at knowhowpro

How to write script to apply character style?

Hi,
I'm on a Macbook pro and without a number pad so I can't assign a shortcut for the character styles. I did hear of a roundabout solution where you can assign a shortcut to a script which applies the character styles. Can anyone write this script?
My character style is called 'Features bold'.
I'm new to scripting, sorry if this is a dumb question.
Cheers

Hi,
1. Save this code as .jsx file inside your Script Panel folder
2. Apply a shortcut using Edit:Keyboard shortcuts... menu
Option to choose:
suggest to choose an option "context": "Text", so you can use more shortcuts which are busy with other contexts.
#target indesign
if (app.selection && app.selection[0].hasOwnProperty ("baselineShift") ) {
var cName = "Features bold";
var mCstyle = app.activeDocument.characterStyles.item(cName);
if (mCstyle.isValid)
app.selection[0].applyCharacterStyle(mCstyle);
else
alert ("CharStyle: " + cName + " not found");
else
alert ("Some text supposed to be selected...");
Jarek

Character Styles in CSS Properties Panel are not correct

I am using Adobe Illustator CC.
I am trying to export all of the charter styles as CSS. However the CSS panel is not generating the correct style.
Right now, in the Character Styles Panel and CSS Properties Panel I have 3 styles (Default, h1, h2)
This is how they are defined in the Character Styles Panel:
1. [Normal Character Style]:Helvectic Neue LT Std, 55 Roman, 16px
2. h1: Helvectic Neue LT Std, 25 Ultra Light, 35px
3. h2: Helvectic Neue LT Std, 45 Light, 18px
HOWEVER
When I go to the CSS Properties panel the code is not showing the Font Style:
This is how they are defined in the CSS Properties Panel:
1. [Normal Character Style]:
.NormalCharacterStyle
font-family : Helvetica Neue LT Std;
font-size : 16px;
color : #19131F;
color : rgb(25, 19, 31);
2. h1:
.h1
font-family : Helvetica Neue LT Std;
font-size : 35px;
letter-spacing : 0.53px;
color : #FFFFFF;
color : rgb(255, 255, 255);
Missing: 25 Ultra Light
3. h2:
.h2
font-family : Helvetica Neue LT Std;
font-size : 18px;
text-transform : uppercase;
color : #FCFCFC;
color : rgb(252, 252, 252);
Missing: 45 Light
Am I not doing somethign correctly? Is it a problem with my font or with Illustrator?
Also, in case it makes a difference, I only have the default paragraph style defined. It's style is; Helvectic Neue LT Std, 55 Roman
Thanks!

CSS cannot render typographical multiple weight fonts simply because that's just not how it works. All CSS does is reference a physical font file and its properties and while it's possible to use the font-weight and font-style attributes to make standard fonts lighter or bolder it does not compare to anything you would do with the font in a real design environment. That and of course you still need to define fallback/ substitution options - the Helvetica Neue you are referencing is exclusively available on Apple systems only and even if what you are trying worked off the bat, it would be useless on alternate devices that have no access to the font.
Mylenium

Break link to Character Style with JS (CS4ME)

Hi,
I'm wondering how to break a link to a character style in JS. By break
link I mean removing the character style but preserving the formatting.
Given a selected textStyleRange, say, in the UI there are two ways of
doing this. One is to click "Break link to Style" in the flyout meny of
the character style palette.
The other is to right-click and select "Apply character style."
It's a little unintuitive, because CLICKING on removes overrides,
but right-clicking and selecting the menu option doesn't.
So when I saw that, I said to myself aha! Probably:
myText.appliedCharacterStyle = myCharStyle
is equivalent to clicking on , while
myText.applyCharacterStyle(myCharStyle)
is equivalent to right-clicking on and choosing "Apply character
style."
But it isn't.
They both apply None and remove all formatting.
So, anyone know how to break a link to character style without removing
formatting in JS?
Thanks,
Ariel

Thanks Peter. That's interesting. After Shabbos I'll have to try figure
out how to apply a character style without removing overrides as well.
It may be a two-step procedure.
Thanks,
Ariel

Color conversion : special behavior with Spot Color "All"

Hello,
I have a document with printmarks which have a spot color "All". While I convert the page using the "Color conversion" to Gray 1.8 with Adobe Acrobat X the spot color "All" are still present (with the alternate color space DeviceGray).
Using Adobe Acrobat 9.x all objects have a DeviceGray color.
Is it a bug or a new behavior? Moreover the SDK method doesn't convert the spot color but keep the name (but I know this is not the right place to post it - it's just for information).
Regards,
Joe

I sense you may not understand the difference between sopt and process colors in the printing process.
When you use process inks you build all color representations by combining dots of varying sizes from each of the four process colors, cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Because the dots are two small to be seen individually your brain is fooled into thinking it sees other colors. Process color printing requires four printing plates to produce the full range of colors possible, but that range is limited compared to what you can see in real life or capture in RGB.
Spot colors, in contrast, are similar to paint. Each color is mixed individually, and every spot color requires its own plate on the printing press (and you must use a press -- toner and inkjet printers use cmyk inksets and cannot print real spot colors). Because of the expense of these plates, the use of spot colors is usually limited to one or two colors in any print job, and if the job has other color (like photographs) that requires process inks, converting the spot colors to the closest process simulation is often employed if the spot colors can be simulated "close enough" to satisfy the client and the budget is tight.
I would avoid using process colors for type in small sizes or for very thin strokes, especially in lighter colors, as you are likely to see ragged edges.
So, how many spot color swatches did you use? More than two? More than four? Do you have a huge budget to produce the work? This may be a project that really should be designed from the ground up as process, or process and one spot for that hard to print bright accent color.

How to use character styles in the Find/Change JavaScripts?

First, good luck to Ole. He's been so helpful (and such a good writer, too). All the best!
My Find/Change JavaScripts are running into trouble at line 159 of the ExtendScript Toolkit. The script is searching for a particular font, to which it should then apply a character style. I'm using the format I see in Adobe's "FindChangeList" sample text, but the script is still hitting a wall. What am I doing wrong? I'd like to have a working method for searching, not only for fonts, but also for finding a particular character or paragraph style and then applying a new style.
Simple stuff, but I'm roadblocked.
Here is the script so far:
//This script applies the DFKai character style to the Arial Unicode font.
text {findWhat:"", appliedFont:"Arial Unicode MS", fontStyle:"Regular"} {appliedCharacterStyle:"DFKai"} {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false} Find Unicode font; change to DFKai character style.
Thanks for your help!
Gary Niemeier

You are absolutely correct. I don't know how those spaces got there! I copied the text from the "FindChangeList.txt" document, but somewhere along the way, a software program "helpfully" added the spaces. (Rest assured, it wasn't copied from AppleScript. I stick with JavaScript.) Anyway, the script now runs like a charm.
My thanks to you! Another "newbie" mistake easily spotted, eh?
One thing, though, if Adobe is reading this: please flesh out the "FindChangeList.txt" file for those who are not programmers/scripters. I'm just a normal InDesign user, and I really need examples of basic syntax in order to use the "Find/Change" script correctly. I'm referring to the syntax involved with finding or changing text with a certain character or paragraph style. I often search for styles, and those properties should be provided in the help file. A couple of samples are all that's needed. (I did read through the JavaScript reference guide provided by Adobe, and even in the "Find/Change" section, it did not provide this information!). Furthermore, I often search text for a specific font. Why isn't this syntax included as well? It would easy to do and would save users a lot of fumbling around.
Thanks again, all the best.

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).

CS3 Character Style Changes Color On Save

Hi All-
I have a CS3 file where I imported character styles (using the character styles palette -> load character styles) from another file. I apply that style to a type layer, it looks fine (i.e. is applied correctly), then I save the file, and close. Upon opening the file that char. style's color is changed from white to a spot color. Any idea why?
System: AI CS3 on Windows XP 32bit
Thanks in advance.
Tom

Hi,
I had a similar problem, which was caused by type having "overrides"
when applying Character Styles.
This is indicated by an asterisk appearing in the Character style name in the palette) when you select the type.
This has something to do with applying a new style to type which already
has some appearance attributes.
Found that the solution was to clear overrides when applying a character style to selected type, by Alt-clicking on the new character style.
Then, hopefully, the character style of the type is saved properly, and displays correctly the next time you open the drawing.
Bye...
Andrew

Color palette in Character/Paragraph styles

In AI CS5, where does the Character Style Options dialog pull it's colors from for the Character Color list (see image)?
I'm working in a RGB document, yet I see predominantly CMYK colors. I thought it might be the default swatches palette so I closed it and opened my custom color palette, but I'm still seeing the wrong set of colors.
I'd like to add or edit colors in the list, or load one of my palettes, but I can't figure out how or if it's possible.
Can anyone help?
Chris

Chris,
The colors are from the Swatches panel. If you're getting CMYK colors in the list then you have the CMYK default swatches (or other CMYK swatches), not the RGB swatches. Click on the Swatch Libraries menu, go to Default swatches, select Basic RGB. Load those into the Swatches panel, then open the Character Style Options. The RGB colors should now be in the list.
Peter

How can I place a transparent psd into Illustrator CS4 without effecting my spot colors?

So, I'm very naive about printing processes and am working with an online book building company. I've asked them how I need to fix this, but don't expect great advice from their design team.
When saving in Illustrator, I've been receiving the error:
"When spot colors are used with transparency, changing them to process colors outside of illustrator can generate unexpected results."
This effected the printing because it left a halo in the shape of the placed transparent .psd. So I need to know how to flatten the transparent psd or something in order to not have it effect the colors below it.
Thanks!

Thanks Monika and John. I've been working in Spot colors simply because my client has limited my palette for the screen printing we've been doing on ceramics in the past. Now we want this book to match the colors on the ceramics. But if Pantone bridge back to CMYK would work, I'll do it. I have been saving to PDF by making a combined pdf directly from the .ai folder. My links are all embedded.
Is there a way to convert all the colors in the document to CMYK at once? Otherwise I'm looking at a very long week.

How can I rasterize a spot color file without creating "border" pixels between areas that are adjacent to each other but should not be overlapping?

We use Illustrator to create circuit layouts. For part of our process, we create an image of all of the layers using spot colors to show the printed layers overlapping each other. We then rasterize the file and send the image through a Matlab routine that performs some analysis of the circuits based on the colors of the pixels.
In some cases, I have created images with areas next to each other, but not overlapping. When rasterizing the image, the rasterizing process appears to treat the borders as overlapping and creates a single pixel wide border between the 2 areas when there is none. This is playing havoc with our Matlab routine.
I can manually go in and remove the rasterized border, however on some projects, this is a very lengthy process. Has anyone experienced anything like this, or have any ideas on how to prevent this?

Would align to pixel grid help?
Left is not aligned, Right is aligned to pixel grid

How to spot color in a character style?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for