Any plug ins for a patterned fill?

[PBG5]

Way back, in Freehand I seem to remember there were a set of patterned fills? I want to fill a portion of a building plan in InDesign with simple line shading. I don't really want to do the whole drawing in Illustrator and import it, but just do this 'on the fly'. Any suggestions?

[Robert Tkaczyk]

Depends on how complicated your pattern is - maybe you can just use Step and Repeat option? 

[BobLevine · Accepted solution]

PatternMaker - Custom Backgrounds and Borders for Adobe InDesign (teacupsoftware.com)

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

Hi @PBG5 ,

wasn't that old FreeHand feature built on PostScript code patterns?

Code one was able to edit? I'm not aware of a free script that can do this.

But you could do the following: Create your pattern with InDesign or Illustrator, export the page or the artboard to PDF and place the PDF inside the shape on your InDesign page.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( Adobe Community Expert )

[PBG5]

Thanks for the reply. I had already done your method before receiving your work around, but it just confirmed there is no quicker way to fill with patterns / shading.

Peter B

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Just had to wave at another user who does fairly elaborate drawing in ID. 🙂

I have just about every tool for drawing stuff there is, from all the Adobe tools to Visio to CAD... and I almost always end up doing diagrams, tech illusrations and so forth in InDesign. Just... the tool at hand, I guess. But it's not really very strong at that task and does lack some basic elements that even beginner drawing tools have... like fills.

(I mean, even CSS has pattern fills! 🙂 )

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