[HELP] Replacing character color to match the one before it.

Hi @AK09M, if for some reason the great suggestions already posted here don't work in your case, and since you tagged scripting, here is a script that should do what you are asking for. It finds any text in the character style, then checks the preceding character's color and sets the found text to that color. Let me know if you end up using it and if it works for you. If you want to modify the script, change the "overrideCharacterStyleColor" function—the rest is just generic UI.

- Mark

/*

    Override CharacterStyle Color.js

    by m1b, here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/help-replacing-character-color-to-match-the-one-before-it/m-p/12522689

    Finds any text with character style applied and match its color to that of the preceding character.

*/

function main() {

    // this is a call to make the UI
    // the callback calls the actual overriding function
    dialogWithMenu({
        document: app.activeDocument,
        menuItems: app.activeDocument.characterStyles.everyItem().name.slice(1),
        windowTitle: 'Override Character Style Color',
        intro: 'Find any text with style applied and match its color to that of the preceding character.',
        menuLabel: 'Style: ',
        buttonTitle: 'Override',
        selectedItemIndex: 0,
        callback: function (p) {
            if (p.menuName != undefined)
                overrideCharacterStyleColor(p.document, p.menuName)
        }
    });


    function overrideCharacterStyleColor(doc, styleName) {
        // will find text with characterStyle applied and
        // match its color to that of the preceding character

        if (!doc.characterStyles.itemByName(styleName).isValid) {
            alert('No character style named "' + styleName + '" found.')
            return;
        };

        app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
        app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
        app.findGrepPreferences.appliedCharacterStyle = styleName;

        var found = doc.findGrep();
        for (var i = found.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
            if (found[i].index - 1 > 0) {
                var previousChar = found[i].parentStory.characters[found[i].index - 1];
                found[i].fillColor = previousChar.fillColor;
                found[i].fillTint = previousChar.fillTint;
            }
        }

    }

} // end main

app.doScript(main, ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, undefined, UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, 'Override Character Style Color');


function dialogWithMenu(p) {
    var dialog = makeUI(p);
    dialog.center();
    var result = dialog.show();
    if (result == 1) {
        // pass the text to the callback function
        if (p.callback != undefined)
            p.callback({
                document: p.document,
                menuIndex: p.menuIndex,
                menuName: p.menuName
            });
    }
    dialog = null;

    function makeUI(p) {
        var windowTitle = p.windowTitle || '',
            menuItems = p.menuItems || [],
            menuLabel = p.menuLabel || 'Choose:',
            menuChangeFunction = p.menuChangeFunction || function (p) { },
            w = new Window("dialog", windowTitle);

        if (p.intro != undefined)
            w.add('statictext', undefined, p.intro, { alignment: 'left', multiline: true });

        var row = w.add("Group {orientation:'row', alignment:['fill','top']}"),
            mainMenu = row.add("Dropdownlist {alignment:['left','center']}");

        if (p.buttonTitle != undefined) {
            var okButton = w.add('button', undefined, p.buttonTitle, { name: 'ok' });
            okButton.onClick = function () { w.close(1) };
        }

        mainMenu.preferredSize.width = 250;
        mainMenu.title = menuLabel;
        for (var i = 0; i < menuItems.length; i++) {
            mainMenu.add('item', menuItems[i]);
        }
        mainMenu.onChange = menuOnChange;
        if (p.selectedItemIndex != undefined) mainMenu.selection = p.selectedItemIndex;
        return w;

        function menuOnChange() {
            p.menuIndex = mainMenu.selection ? mainMenu.selection.index : 0;
            p.menuName = String(mainMenu.selection);
        }
    }
}

Please ignore my earlier post. I misinterpreted your issue. My solution will change the style of text before another style. This will work to change the style of text after another style. Here I was using cahracter colour, but any formatting can be used for your search term or your replace formatting.

Find: 
Replace: $1@

This will just add an @ to the beginning of hte found text.

Find: @ 

Replace:  @

This will move the @ to the end of the text you want to format, so there isnt a space between the text and the @ symbol. Note no formatting in either section.

Find: @([\d|\u]+)

Replace: $1

This will fix the formatting and remove the @ symbol.

You could use GREP in Find/Change to insert a dummy character between the text you want to change and the text you want to find. Here I inserted a @ at the beginning of the green text by searching for anything that is green (note the Find Format section).

Search for (.+) Replace with @$1

Next I searched for the @ sign (it doesn't matter what symbol I use, so long as it doesn't appear anywhere else in the story). What I'm actually searching for is any number (/d) or (|) uppercase letter (/u) that repeats (+) folowed by a space and a @. I replaced with the found text ($1) followed by a space, since I don't need the @ anymore.

Search for ( [\d|\u]+) @ Replace with $1 

Note the space after $1 because I want to keep that.

You'll have to repeat this for each format you want to apply it to. You can’t use GREP Styles because that s only content based, GREP Styles can only format text based on the text, not based on the formatting of text. The replacement will probably go easier if you make a character style for hte formatting you want to apply.

You have to select the color of the character and its underline, you can use for the shaddow separately. It is not possible to define character color, and then text color for the underlin if a tint value is selected automatically. Here, the developers have potential improvement of this functionality.

Are you applying this shadow using a character style?

If so, does that character style have a colour defined in it? If it does, remove the colour from the character style, so that all the char style does is apply underline and not a colour.