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Nemesis666first
Inspiring
March 30, 2022
Answered

Can I apply multiple Paragraph Styles at the same time ?

  • March 30, 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 1228 views

Hi,

I figured out that GREP Styles has a limit in numbers 😮 ...

This is a strong issue for me, can I apply 2 Paragraph Styles at the same time ?

I'm really noob with Paragraph Styles, so I never really used it other that with the GREP Style fonction.

I saw a zone "From" and "Next" in the "General" tab of my main Paragraph Style.

In "From", I dont see my other Paragraph Style I created for testing purpose, but in "Next" I can see it.

Please, help 😮 !

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer m1b

Oh, okay, pipe is not for "or" then, it stands for "and", okay okay.

If I take my previous example :

word1|word3 => apply style X
word2|word4 => apply style Y

 

If I appy, I should find : 
"I find that the word1 is different from the word2, and that's perfect. Even word3 and word4, in the same sencen, are different ! Wonderful !"

I will test that immediately 😉 !


Just to be precise the pipe does mean OR. But then, in this case, the grep engine keeps moving forward. So it matches (word1 OR word3) then continues and again matches the next (word1 OR word3) and so on until end of text.

Anyway glad you got it working. 

- Mark

3 replies

jmlevy
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 31, 2022

You can't apply multiple paragraph styles at the same time: imagine that one of this paragraph style is setup with a justified text and another one with a left aligned text; how would it be possible.

GREP styles are character styles, automatically applied over a paragraph style.

Joel Cherney
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 31, 2022

I suspect you're translating "From" and "Next" from another language, right? In English ID interface these are, I'm guessing "Based On" and "Next Style." They're unrelated; Based On is for one style that is based on a parent style.  Next Style is totally separate, that is for when you want to select a large number of paragraphs and then apply Style A to the first, then style B to the second, and so on. Neither one is going to be useful in your attempt to apply two Paragraph Styles to a single paragraph. At no time can you have two Paragraph Styles applied to a single paragraph. 

 

If you need multiple variants of styled text in a single paragraph, you can apply GREP Styles that apply Character Styles (which you obviously already know), as well as Line Styles and Nested Styles (which, like GREP Styles, apply Character Styles according to a set of rules). You can also just select some text and apply a Character Style to it. That's the main way to have multiple styles within a single paragraph.

 

So, there's lots of tools for styling text in InDesign. I think that m1b is correct in asking you to make an example file. These tools can be pretty deep, and there is likely a way to get the styling you want with a fairly small number of clicks, and a fairly small number of styles. I mean, I have never yet personally encountered a numerical limit on the number of GREP styles I can apply, and I'm kind of a GREP Style abuser:) , so it is likely that you're overusing the GREP Style tool a little. 

m1b
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 31, 2022

I think I might be a GREP Style abuser, too. Haha. 🙂

m1b
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 30, 2022

Hi @Nemesis666first, can you make an example file showing what you want to do? I don't think you can apply 2 paragraph styles to the same text in a normal case, but there may be ways around it. Perhaps a script can apply multiple styles' properties to some text, but it won't be a paragraph style per se.

- Mark

Nemesis666first
Inspiring
March 31, 2022

Hi M1B,

Lets say for example i want to apply a Paragraph Style (P. S.) with à GREP Style (G. S. ; Lets imagine its limited to one).

Now, I want an other G. S., how can i do that ?

 

With a parent PS ? Children PS ? Modifying the settings of the software ? 

Nemesis666first
Inspiring
March 31, 2022

(i cant create a file, since i dont know how to do what xD )