The purpose of doing this is to prevent ad hoc layout adjustments. I'm working on a 1000 page book that has sections of text frames flowing through 5-10 pages. Previously people used soft returns to deal with the text strings we don't want to break. Then I come along with new text, everything reflows, and that soft return is no longer at the end of a line. By using the NoBreak attribute, I'm removing all the soft returns to improve the workflow. What a waste of time to send for proofreading, only to have it come back that text reflowed and I didn't notice.
Abambo I agree about proper prep saving time! Proper prep was only partially done on these documents and I'm trying to get them the rest of the way when I have time 
but I won't be able to automate this very well. |
I see, Sorry I missed the mixed no break part.
You might consider a scripting solution for applying the no break. With scripting you could string together multiple grep or text f&c to apply no breaks or remove them.
This Applescript so OSX only.
You would repeat the my GrepSearch("grep code here") line and replace the "grep code here" string with your find code.
Line 13 can be set to either true or false—false if you want to remove the no break
tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2018"
my GrepSearch("grep code 1 here")
my GrepSearch("grep code 2 here")
end tell
on GrepSearch(f)
tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2018"
set find grep preferences to nothing
set change grep preferences to nothing
set find what of find grep preferences to f
set no break of change grep preferences to true
change grep
end tell
end GrepSearch
When you applescript grep searches you have to escape some characters, so the grep for tabs would be "\\t+" not "\t+"
You could also script regular text searches:
tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2018"
my TextSearch("find text 1")
my TextSearch("find text 2")
end tell
on TextSearch(f)
tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2018"
set find text preferences to nothing
set change text preferences to nothing
set find what of find text preferences to f
set no break of change text preferences to true
change text
end tell
end TextSearch