Way to automatically format text: first line and last line?

Question

Hi all! I'm sure there is a way to do this, but when I search, I'm not wording it right. Hopefully I can ask my question clearly. Take a look at the screenshot I'm attaching. I create pages and pages of these types of reports. It's not a table... it's text with tabs. Currently, I have Paragraph Styles to create the header, middle section and footer of each section. But... I'm wondering if there is a way to tell InDesign to automatically bold the first line and add a line above the last line. How would I go about doing this? I swear I saw it done in a tutorial years ago, but I can't figure it out. Thank you!

Peter Spier · Answer

the line is easy -- it's called a Paragraph Rule in this case Above, and can be added as part of the paragraph style applied to the bottom row.

The format swtiching is a bit more complex. You can define a Next Style as part of your paragraph styles, so for the header style next astyle would be the middle row style, and for the bottom row, the next style would be header, but because you have a varaible number of middle rows you cannot set the bottom row style as next for middle rows, but must use same style, and you will have to manually switch to the bottom row style. You can use Quick Apply or create a keyboard shorcut to make that quicker.

Next style only works automatically, though, as you are entering text. For text already on the page you can select a block of text , then right-clcik the name of the style in the Paragraph Styles Panel and choose Apply <stylename> and Next Style and format the entire block.

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