CS5 Paint Bucket - Where is it? Or, should I fill the shape using a different tool?

[Guest]

I have CS5, and I am in InDesign. I am a beginner.

I am trying to add a different color to each piece of the star below. Right now I can only color the entire star with 1 color (the image will not allow me to select individual pieces....I've used the Direct Selection Tool and it selects the whole star).

First question, is using the paint tool the only way to do this?

Second, if I do need to fill with a paint bucket, where is it? I saw a previous post from Mylenium that it is in between the prespective grid and free transform tool, and I just cannot find it. Need some direction here...thanks - Jamie

[Petteri_Paananen]

jlt582010 wrote:

I saw a previous post from Mylenium that it is in between the prespective grid and free transform tool, and I just cannot find it. Need some direction here...thanks - Jamie

Perspective Grid???? Sounds a lot like Illustrator.... not InDesign...

[Guest]

Petteri-

Maybe so. I am looking at training materials for InDesign and there is an exercise where you have to fill in an image.

They tell you to drag and drop the swatch color to the image, which of course I can do but the illustration shows that you should be able to do this to the individual components of the star - which in my case the whole star turns one color.

[BobLevine]

Are you sure they're not referring to colorizing a grayscale image?

Bob

[Stix_Hart]

It looks like you've copied this into Indesign from Illustrator?  In Indesign you'd add fill with this, click it and you'll get a list of the swatches you have in the document, use the swatches panel to adjust them or add more:

But as you will discover it's a lot different to the paint bucket.  Frankly, you're probably better off adding your fill in Illustrator first.  Many would save the Illustrator artwork then place it into Indesign too, but copying and pasting straight from Illy is acceptable in certain circumstances.

[Guest]

Stix- You are right. I did for the sake of attempting this InDesign "exercise" - this student training manual makes it seem like you can add different colors to the star, which in my experience after playing with it - you can't.

I do understand that Illustrator is a preferred program to use when doing these types of things so I think I will move forward and do my coloring there.

Not sure why the manual is showing you can do it in InDesign...

Thanks for your input, I thought I was maybe missing something.

[Stix_Hart]

There are ways to do it in Indesign, but it doesn't have a tool like the Paint Bucket, and it would be faster in Illy.

[Peter Spier]

If each piece of your star was a sparate object you could fill each with a different color, but as has been mentioned it is far more eficient to do it in Illustrator.

[Jongware]

(I wrote this last nite but Adobe didn't let me on the forum! Since it was quite a lot of work, I'm still posting it. Duh!)

Of course you can do this in InDesign (although of course you were targeting the wrong program -- but ... of course you can do this in InDesign!). Here's my five-step program to draw a fillable five-star:

1. Draw a vertical line using the Pen tool. Set the line width to 0.
2. Copy the line and paste it in place.
3. Select the bottom center point in the proxy.
4. Enter "50" in the Vertical scale to size it down a bit.
5. Enter "36" in the Rotation field.
6. Select All.
7. Combine these two paths (Cmd/Ctrl+8)
8. Under Object, select Paths, then Join.
9. Under Object, select Paths, then Close. You now have one triangle, with the correct angles for a 5-point star.
10. These are a bit more than five steps. Sorry. But we're getting there.
11. With the triangle still selected, select the bottom-right point in the proxy.
12. Hold down Alt and click the Horizontal Mirror button. Now you have 2 triangles with their long edges touching.
13. Select all, copy, paste in place.
14. Select the bottom center point in the proxy again.
15. Enter "72" in the Rotation field.
16. Paste in place; enter "-72" in the Rotation field.
17. Paste in place; enter "144" in the Rotation field.
18. Paste in place; enter "-144" in the Rotation field.
19. Done!

[Harbs.]

Very nice, but you don't count very well...

Harbs