Can I insert coloured glyphs?

[Zebbo]

Hi. I write a lot about bridge (the card game) and prefer to use red diamond and heart glyphs (black text elsewhere and black for the spade and club glyphs). Is it possible - with one keystroke,  that I can insert these red glyphs. Currently I manually change each one from black to red by copying and pasting, which is very time-consuming. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, ZS

[Steve Werner · Accepted solution]

That feature is not yet available in InDesign.

However, if you had the latest version of InDesign CC, such features will be possible at some point not too far away. You can already do that with Photoshop CC 2017 and a feature called OpenType SVG Color fonts.

It wouldn't work with older Creative Suite software however.

[Zebbo]

Thanks Steve for your swift response, Having searched high and low, I thought as much!

[Zebbo]

Wouit be possible through Find/Change? Can you tihnk of any other way round it?

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Zebbo, is what you mean is:

I type a "diamond", so it appears automatically in "red" color, then you continue to type … in current "black" color!

Right!?

(^/)

[Zebbo]

...If were to type (like the famous t-shirt):

I love NY (where love is replaced by the heart symbol),

I want to be able to type:

I (in black)

space

heart symbol (in red)

space

NY (in black)

...with one keystroke (or a find/change option to change multiple entries)...

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Simple! Tell me what font you use for the heart and the diamond!

(^/)

[Zebbo]

I use the Cards (True Type) font

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

I've not it! Could you send us by WeTransfer or email?

What keys do you type to make the 4 glyphs?

(^/)

[Steve Werner]

Here's an article about the font format:

Typekit Help | OpenType-SVG color fonts

[BobLevine]

If you have a font that contains those glyphs you could conceivably set up a nested style for none to that glyph and then apply it through a space. I haven’t tested that but it might be worth your time investigating it.

[Zebbo]

Hi Bob, I've had a look but it's a bit too complicated for me! Thanks ZS

[Zebbo]

You can find the font at: Cards Font

I currently use:

£      for spade

$      for heart

%     for diamond

^       for club

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

… Finally, I don't need it!

In your current text para style [I hope you have one!], just insert these 2 grep styles:

For Heart/Diamond:

Apply char style: "RedCards" [Font: Cards; Color: Red]

Grep code: [$%]

For Spade/Club:

Apply char style: "BlackCards" [Font: Cards; Color: Black]

Grep code: [\^£]

That's all! 

(^/)

[Zebbo]

cardsttf.zip

[Zebbo]

n.b. on a UK keyboard,  £ $ % ^ are the upper case above 3 4 5 6 keys ...