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Participant
May 10, 2022
Question

Does anyone know how to create a custom stroke in Indesign? I want it to be stars.

  • May 10, 2022
  • 6 replies
  • 1716 views

I am tasked with creating a custom stroke in Indesign that has to be stars. Does anyone know how I can do this in Indesign?

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6 replies

Geоrge
Legend
May 11, 2022

InDesign don't have such a feature and as guys says here - you can use it Illustrator for it and do place .ai. 

 

Therefore - https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/20610502-custom-stroke-styles - add your voice here it can help for the future releases. 

Remember, never say you can't do something in InDesign, it's always just a question of finding the right workaround to get the job done. © David Blatner
Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 10, 2022

There are several special strokes, which can be added. E.g. Woof, Feet, Lights, Rainbow (parallel lines) and some others. Only adding a new stroke will add such funny lines. But stars is not available.

The best way is to create it in Illustrator (don't do it in Photoshop!) and import it as AI file. Photoshiop would decrease Quality, rasterize and increase file size).

Joel Cherney
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 10, 2022

I knew I had it somewhere! You can't actually add a "stars" stroke style, but the hack I remembered was posted by David Blatner, not by Barb Binder. You can use the Type on Path tool to fake up a custom dashed stroke.

jmlevy
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 11, 2022

Yes, I know this trick but you will agree that it is not actully a custom stroke: it will not automatically adjust if you resize the frame.

Joel Cherney
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 10, 2022

I think you can, actually. I've never done it before myself, but this article seems to offer step-by-step instructions

 

I had that one saved in my bookmarks as "custom stroke styles" from years ago, but actually now that I have read it more carefully, it looks like it's not actually possible to pull it off. I'm going to keep digging, though, as I am sure that this is not the first time I've looked into this question.

Inspiring
May 10, 2022

I guess you'd have to create the brush and draw whatever you want to draw in Photoshop, and then import (with transparent background) into InDesign.

Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 10, 2022

This is not a task for Photoshop, but for Illistrator!

Inspiring
May 11, 2022

Ok, sorry. I say what you explained under, good for you.

jmlevy
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 10, 2022

You can't.