Is there a way to copy a box with multiple strokes from Illustrator, to InDesign, and use it as an actual box

Hi there,

If I understand well, you want a white stroke between your thick and thin strokes.

So I suggest you create custom stroke styles.

You need 3 styles (following set up are for example, adjust as desired):

1. thick: start 0 - width 10%
2. white: start 10% - width 30%
3. thin: start 40% - width 5%

Then create a box, apply style 1. Set color (blue?)

Copy / paste in place, apply style 2. Set color to white

Copy / paste in place, apply style 3. Set color (blue?)

Group all 3 boxes and that's it, apply wanted weight to the group.

regards

nb: have a look here: http://indesignsecrets.com/beauty-stacked-strokes.php

You could also set up a single custom Thick-Thin (The stroke type would be Stripe) stroke style in ID (or maybe the one built in is already proportioned correctly) and just use that to apply the border to your text frame, as long as the color of the two lines is the same.

Hi Ryan,

you could do all this with InDesign rectangles.

Do a stack of three frames.
One with a thin stroke.
One with a thick stroke.
One with a (white?) thick stroke.

If you want to change their dimensions, do not scale them, but select them with the Direct Selection Tool (the white arrow tool) between the anchor points by using a marquee selection.

Now hold the SHIFT key and drag in direction of the x-axis to change the horizontal dimensions of all frames without changing their stroke weights. Maybe you have to pause a bit after holding down the mouse key before you start dragging.

The result for horizontal dragging the selection of a segment is shown here:

To continue, deselect all.
Then select one of the horizontal segments with a selection marquee to change the vertical dimensions.

Regards,
Uwe