Can I automatically apply an object style based on paragraph style?

[Jonlin Creative]

Hello all,

I know it's possible to make a paragraph style part of an object style, but I'm basically wanting to do the reverse: apply an object style based on a paragraph style.

A little more context: I'm working on typesetting a book and have a handful of pages where I want the text to be aligned to the bottom of the frame rather than the top. In those instances, there will be a specific paragraph style applied that will only be used on those kinds of pages.

So far I haven't found any automatic or semi-automatic way to do that. I can do it manually, of course, but if there are any changes to the flow of the book I'd have to redo it.

If anyone knows of a script that will do it or some way to handle it just with built-in tools in InDesign, that would be great.

Thanks!

[Steve Werner]

It's definitely not built-in. As to whether some clever scripter or programmer has found out a way to do it, I've never heard of it.

[Jonlin Creative]

Thanks for your input, Steve! I use the Mastermatic script from ID Extras a lot, and (not knowing anything about scripting) it feels like it would be a similar task to create a script that does what I'm looking for. But again, I don't know scripting so maybe it's a different animal!

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Jonlin Creative

If you work on a PC - my ID-Tasker tool can do this easily - and a lot more, including what Mastermatic can - but it's not free.

[Jonlin Creative]

Thanks Robert, I'll take look!

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

That's pretty much all you would need:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Yellow represents applied Object Style.

1st Task - should be run using Play button at the top - will load info about all ParaStyles that you want to include - there is only one rule for that, the one in the middle - but you can add as many as you need - to build the list of elements to process - steps:

- Clear List -> Texts - just in case there are no leftovers,

- Load Text Search - basic version of the Ctrl+F / Find/Change dialog,

- Mark as... - selects all elements on the specified list for further processing.

2nd Task - in full version, should be run using Rewind button, located in the middle - steps:

- Modify current selection -> Parent TextFrame - switches current selection from found text to TextFrame.

- Apply Object Style

In free version BatchMode is not available, so you can't use 2nd Task to process all elements on the bottom list - found results - automatically - but you can simulate BatchMode by double clicking on any cell in TYPE column - in this case "Found" text - which will  select object/text on the list - then you can select 2nd Task and click Play at the top to execute 2nd Task.

In short - BatchMode is doing this double clicking for you.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Of course, you can use the same mechanism for anything else - just use your imagination.

If, for example, the same ParaStyle or CharStyle or whatever, would be used in the Tables - and you would like to exclude those occurrences or include only some of them - you could filter them out using value in the column Parent Type - there would be "Cell [x, y]" text.

Then you can narrow your search results - to siecific words with specific style / formatting applied. 

And then you can execute this process on all INDD files in the Book. 

Possibilities are endless...