Building Grep and Nested Styles

[Connor Paschall]

Hi there. I am just getting into Grep and nested styles and am struggling with building things out. Attached is the final text format that I would like to achievve using grep and or nested styles.

Here are the paragraph and character styles I have built out:

Paragraph Style:

Employment History

Character Styles:

Firm Name

Date, Position, Location

Job Description

How would I go about building this out using nested styles or Grep Styles? The goal would be to take non fomatted text from a word doc and have it auto format itself upon pasting in Indesign.

Thanks!

[SJRiegel]

The way this is currently laid out,

Firm Name

Date, Position, Location

Job Description

would be paragraph styles, not character styles (each one is its own paragraph)

If every new item contained all three sections (with no empty paragraph returns between), you could achieve this using Style, then Next Style.

If next style for Firm name was Date, Position, Location, next style for Date, Position, Location was Job Description, and Next Style for Job Description was Firm Name. You could then select all, and right-click on the Firm Name paragraph style to choose Apply Firm Name, then Next Style.

For this to work, you must remove those stray extra returns (use the space before setting on Firm Name to add that space - that is how is should be set up in any case)

[Willi Adelberger]

I see no need for GREP styles, 3 paragraph styles, 1 nested style with 1 character style.

Please avoid empty paragraphs as you use them.

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Connor Paschall:

Nested and GREP styles are handy when you want to change the formatting of the text within a paragraph. I'm with @SJRiegel: you can do with this paragraph styles alone. 

Edit: Just saw @Willi Adelberger's reply so back to confirm, you are showing us exactly what you need in the finished file? I don't see the need for a nested style, either. 

~Barb

[Willi Adelberger]

I see a nested style from the comma to the end as it is thinner.

[Connor Paschall]

Thank you for the help everyone! I appreciate you all clarifying how something like that is supposed to function. Everything was achieved by setting up the 3 paragraph styles, removing all empty paragraph breaks, and then applied the paragraph style with "next style" selected. 

Thanks so much!

[Willi Adelberger]

I recommend to have an eye on the keep options in your paragraph styles. I think, keep with previous is good for all, except for the headlines. The headline should have keep with next 2 lines.