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wazzzzo
Inspiring
July 15, 2019
Answered

Indesign type different stroke opacity to fill

  • July 15, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 5353 views

To be very specific, I need to create LIVE copy with a white fill but with an outline in mid grey, overlay blending mode and 68% transparency.

Outlining the copy is one way but then it is no longer live. Yes, I can duplicate and keep the original but it would be better if the copy were live.

This is something that can be done in Illustrator but there are other issues in Ilustrator that mean this work is best done in Indesign.

Thanks all

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Peter Villevoye

    That's a difficult one...

    You could try using a drop shadow.

    With the right settings (a mid-gray color swatch, just 1 mm Size, and a 100% Spread, and I forgot to set the blend mode to Overlay) you could be able to achieve a very close result ! I know, it's not ideal – the edge of the outline will be soft... But if you enlarge the whole text, that 1 mm might not be noticeable ?

    Another construction would be using a cross-reference.

    The idea is to get a text frame with a white opaque text on top of a copy. The text of the underlying copy has that extra line width, a grey color, and the whole text frame is set to be 68% transparant, with a blend mode and anything.

    To keep the bottom text in sync with the text on top, you need to define and use them as a cross-reference.

    For a proper original and instance of your cross-reference, you need to set some Paragraph Styles, and define a custom Cross-Reference Format without quotes or any extra text. It takes some puzzling to properly set the original and its double, and you'd have to hit the Sync button each time the original text changes, to let the outline follow.

    All this can be cumbersome to prepare, but if it gets the job done...

    Adobe Help: Insert and manage cross-references in InDesign

    If you find this helpful but complex to create, I can create a working example for you.

    2 replies

    Peter Villevoye
    Community Expert
    Peter VillevoyeCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    July 15, 2019

    That's a difficult one...

    You could try using a drop shadow.

    With the right settings (a mid-gray color swatch, just 1 mm Size, and a 100% Spread, and I forgot to set the blend mode to Overlay) you could be able to achieve a very close result ! I know, it's not ideal – the edge of the outline will be soft... But if you enlarge the whole text, that 1 mm might not be noticeable ?

    Another construction would be using a cross-reference.

    The idea is to get a text frame with a white opaque text on top of a copy. The text of the underlying copy has that extra line width, a grey color, and the whole text frame is set to be 68% transparant, with a blend mode and anything.

    To keep the bottom text in sync with the text on top, you need to define and use them as a cross-reference.

    For a proper original and instance of your cross-reference, you need to set some Paragraph Styles, and define a custom Cross-Reference Format without quotes or any extra text. It takes some puzzling to properly set the original and its double, and you'd have to hit the Sync button each time the original text changes, to let the outline follow.

    All this can be cumbersome to prepare, but if it gets the job done...

    Adobe Help: Insert and manage cross-references in InDesign

    If you find this helpful but complex to create, I can create a working example for you.

      W
      wazzzzoAuthor
      Inspiring
      July 15, 2019

      Brilliant thank you.

      The cross-reference is the way to go.

      I have tested with a text box just to the side of the artboard. I have put my desired copy in here, produced 2 text boxes within the artboard. These cross-reference the first text box and viola.

      The only amend I needed was to make a new style for how the cross-reference is displayed (all current ones have quote marks so I duplicated the Full Paragraph version and edited the code to simply remove the "" marks.

      Thanks for taking the time to sort this so quickly!

      hammer0909
      Community Expert
      hammer0909Community Expert
      Community Expert
      July 15, 2019

      InDesign allows you to apply effects (i.e. transparency and blend mode) to the object (frame), stroke (stroke of the frame), fill (fill of the frame), and text (text within a frame). It doesn't give you the ability to apply a different blend mode and opacity to the stroke of text within a frame differently from the fill of the text within the frame.

      Could could try setting your text in a frame with a text fill of paper. Then choose Edit > Place and Link which will create an exact copy of the text that is linked to the original. Now on the placed copy, set the text fill to none and the stroke to gray with a blending mode of overlay and opacity of 68%. This way if you edit the parent copy of the text, the linked copy will also update resulting in what I think is what you want. It's a bit of a hack but a way around the limitation of InDesign.

      W
      wazzzzoAuthor
      Inspiring
      July 15, 2019

      Nice solution. In most cases I think this would be ok but in this case I need fine control over the copy within the execution but also across different executions (same copy on billboard, 6sheet, wobbler, Barker, pack,... The list goes on.). Each would need is own copy file. This is manageable but not ideal.

      Doubling up the layer and using 1 for fill at the front and the other as the stroke behind keeps a single file but of course means changing the copy twice.

      Swings and roundabouts!

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