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bracewell4213
Known Participant
May 20, 2025
Question

Possible RH automation along with custom font?

  • May 20, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 891 views

I've automated the RH of long documents by putting a user-entry box on the pasteboard of the master page. User enters title, lesson number, anything else. This single point of entry gets picked up and placed via text variables. Standard stuff. I like to pick up from this source in case the title needs to get shortened in RHs.

 

Designer has a new sort of "breadcrumbs" design for the RH.

 

I made a custom font for the glyphs. Now, how to automate. It's a different strategy from regular pickup RH text variables.

 

I could, for example, make my custom font so that the "Off Day" (circle number) is a lowercase letter, then define the uppercase as the "On Day" pill. Then they can be changed by changing char style.

 

But I'm not sure if this can be triggered by a text variable, or grep, or a nested style. I have literally thousands of pages to do this on, so it really needs to be a lightweight, elegant solution. Since I have fellow production colleagues and InCopy editors, having to run a script would be less than ideal, though I suspect that's what it would take.

 

I've read that GREP cannot swap characters, so applied styles seems the way to change the characters. But I don't know if it's possible to to see the Day Box change and change the char style of a single character. They could be separate variables, but not sure how.

 

Welcome to any ideas! 

1 reply

Robert at ID-Tasker
Robert at ID-Tasker
Legend
May 20, 2025

But how do you control which days is on / off? 

 

Do you have 5x variables - for each day? 

 

But then - do you have multiple pages - and on each page you need a different day highlighted? 

 

If you're looking for a paid solution - and work on Windows - my tool will offer you full configurability - and you don't have to be a coder. 

 

Can you tell us more about the structure of your document(s)? 

 

If you prefer, you can share your file(s) with me privately - please click my nickname, confidentiality guaranteed - of course, all the advice will be free of charge 🙂

 

B
bracewell4213Author
Known Participant
May 20, 2025

Hi Robert,

I am posting here looking for a solution, if there is one, for how to toggle the characters, so I'm looking for answers to your question and mine!

In the current design, it is easy to pick up the Day from the text and swap it into the RH variable for Day. As I mentioned, I have thousands of pages in this project, and this simple approach works fine. 

 

 

This is a pretty basic RH for textbooks and other teaching materials, and it's just like picking up changing info in any long document.

 

The new designer has a cool idea but I don't know how to implement it. I can assume that "Day 1" will appear in some form on a page.

 

Text Variables pick up content. Grep can style content, as can nested styles. I'm just trying to imagine if there is any way to do what the designer wants, even if a custom font is required. I'm skeptical, but there are smarter people than me.


I am not on Windows and never will be. But I'm curious how your software can do this using InDesign's current features. I'm not saying I won't pay for a sustainable solution if it allows me to say Yes to this designer and the client can pay for it. The client will be sad if we cannot do the chosen design, but I won't recommend a design that is not automatable for 5000 pages.


Carol

 

 

Robert at ID-Tasker
Robert at ID-Tasker
Legend
May 20, 2025

That's the power of my tool - whatever you can do manually - every click that you can do in the InDesign - and other applications - my tool can click for you - plus of course the "usual" coding / programming benefits. 

So working with Text Variables isn't a big deal - you could split their contents into parts and use only desired part - depends on the "location" of the Text Variable. 

You could, for example, put all the variable info into the FileName of the INDD document - and have your final file configured. Of course I'm not taking about long "descriptions" - but all those dynamic buttons and colors. 

And it would be enough if can connect one PC to your network of Macs. 

 

 

But, let's try differently - do you have your data in a database / spreadsheet? 

 

Then, you could generate final document "on the fly". 

 

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