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Caption style setup disobeying style I specified!

New Here ,
Mar 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024

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I'm trying to be efficient and create object captions for photos in a magazine using metadata.

 

Object/captions/caption setup/[insert style]

 

So, the style for captions of photos/objects should be "figure caption style," which I specified to be 9/10.38 Corda Light Italic. Instead, the resulting caption text is 18/18 Corda Medium. 

 

What aspect of caption style am I missing/doing wrong?

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Community Expert ,
Mar 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024

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I would expect this is an issue with the style definition and not with the captions feature. What happens if you click on a generated caption with the Type tool, and then click on the style name to assign it manually? Does it change or does it stay the same? Does it indicate any overrides?

 

~Barb

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New Here ,
Mar 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024

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Thank you, Barb, for your quick reaction. I see your advice in response to many queries here, so the next time  I need help, I just search your responses! 

BTW, stays the same. As to overrides, I don't know--not well-versed enough in ID to figure that out yet. 

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Community Expert ,
Mar 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024

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Wow! Thank you, Martha. That made my day. 😊

Are you comfortable sharing your file with me? I just need one page from your file and a sample image with the meta data. You could make a copy of the file, delete everything else and just keep one page. If you could put the file on a cloud server like Dropbox, you can click my name above this reply and you message me the link directly. I will take a look and get back to you. 

 

~Barb 

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New Here ,
Mar 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024

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Hi Barb,

The following question might sound odd, but I think I might know you: Do you live in New Hampshire and had a daughter named Kate Binder? If not, no prob. 

Does pasting the link work too?

[link to dropbox removed]

 

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Community Expert ,
Mar 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024

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Hi Martha:

 

I don't live in New Hampshire and don't have a daughter named Kate! I'm in Colorado for the moment, though about to head a bit further west! 🙂

 

So yes, that link did work however the images aren't included so I can't test the caption generation. I also don't have the font. Can we try this again... but I'll have you package the file first, zip it and then send me the link to dropbox. I can tell you that I can see that Figure Caption Style has overrides. That may be all it is but I'll need the packaged file to be sure. Again, you're welcome to send this to me privately, so you don't have to worry about it being available for anyone else to look at.

 

~Barb

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Community Expert ,
Mar 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024

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Barb's answer is the right one to lead you to a solution for the problem you're experiencing, but an aside, if I may: InDesign's caption system is useful only (or at least substantially) to those working in a managed environment where every image is prepared for a library with complete, edited metadata including a generic caption. The only examples I can think of are commercial magazines and most catalog shops.

 

While this might be exactly the right workflow for you, if your productions are largely one-off, with little reuse of photos and no need to have comprehensive information embedded/assigned to each image (as would be useful in a commercial shop where designers and layout have to rely on that info as provided by the photographer/art department) — if you know what the photos are and can write captions on the fly as part of the layout and so forth, it may be pointless and excess effort to load all the info into metadata just to use the auto-caption feature.

 

Just because a feature exists doesn't mean you have to use it. ID's caption feature overall is not very good, outside of that very rigid, managed model, and most small shops and individuals are better off just manually laying in captions. For one thing, you won't have problems getting the right styles applied by the robo-helper. 🙂


┋┊ InDesign to Kindle (& EPUB): A Professional Guide, v3.1 ┊ (Amazon) ┊┋

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New Here ,
Mar 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024

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I so appreciate your response and the info you shared. As it turns out, I usually avoid the caption feature but am experimenting with it so that I can add captions to two grids of photos that I'm placing in the magazine. Individually inserting captions and then adjusting them and the photos in the photo grid to fit the page is very time consuming--as is trying to make the captions style work! 

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Community Expert ,
Mar 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024

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A combination of Object Styles and Paragraph Styles may provide a more... useful base for managing such a layout. But we're fortunate in that ID often has multiple solutions for any needed goal.


┋┊ InDesign to Kindle (& EPUB): A Professional Guide, v3.1 ┊ (Amazon) ┊┋

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Community Expert ,
Mar 30, 2024 Mar 30, 2024

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Hard to know what is going wrong here - if it's not working as expected - ensure you have the style setup correctly and applied correctly.

 

What I can do is predict the behaviour - if you have accidentally selected a Character Style in the Panel - the caption will generate - and the actual style applied via paragraph style will in fact also inherit the Caharacter Style.

 

Character styles tend to override paragraph style settings.

 

EugeneTyson_0-1711791549955.png

 

When you make sure the Character Style is set to None

And then generate the caption - it only inherits the Paragraph Style - as Character Style is set to None

EugeneTyson_1-1711791615483.png

 

 

----------

In InDesign - whatever you have selected in the panels can become the default for all new things created.

For example, you could select a Paragraph Style in the Panel and then for every new Text Frame this will be the text style for that Frame.

 

 

 

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Community Expert ,
Mar 30, 2024 Mar 30, 2024

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quote

[...]

In InDesign - whatever you have selected in the panels can become the default for all new things created.

[...]


By @Eugene Tyson

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't work with ObjectStyles.

 

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Community Expert ,
Mar 30, 2024 Mar 30, 2024

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Ha - yes object styles are an odd exception. I never understand some things like this - an oversight perhaps, or intentional, I'm sure there's justifications either way.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 30, 2024 Mar 30, 2024

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quote

Ha - yes object styles are an odd exception. I never understand some things like this - an oversight perhaps, or intentional, I'm sure there's justifications either way.


By @Eugene Tyson

 

For me it's a bug - even Table Styles work... 

 

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Community Expert ,
Mar 30, 2024 Mar 30, 2024

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Good morning, Martha!

 

I have some questions about these disobedient captions, and while I have drawn a conclusion, I'd like to review this with you.

 

I can see that you set up automatic captions to assign your Figure caption style. However, you also defined it to pull in the page number. Which it will, but I'm pretty sure that's not what you want. 

2024-03-30_09-28-17.png

 

On the bright side, it is doing exactly as you asked. When I generate a caption, I get the page number and the style is assigned correctly. 

 

2024-03-30_09-39-13 (1).gif

 

I'm guessing there is some confusion as to when to use a generated caption. When photos are provided with metadata included—professional photographers do this regularly—we can generate a caption using the metadata. For example, a photographer might load a template into all of their photos that includes of their contact information, and we can generate a photo credit by pulling in the Creator name from the metadata. This allows the photographer to control the text, and we can grab that information from the photo and format it automatically. If something changes in the metadata, a live caption will update itself to reflect the updates. It's a cool system. However, I can't find any evidence of any metadata in the images I've reviewed. 

 

2024-03-30_09-32-43.png

 

So... my working theory is that you are trying to automate the style application, but don't actually need to use generated captions at all. Instead, we should focus on this line :"the style for captions of photos/objects should be "figure caption style," which I specified to be 9/10.38 Corda Light Italic. Instead, the resulting caption text is 18/18 Corda Medium." 

 

Your style is correctly defined as 9/10.38 Corda Light Italic.

 

When you see a + next to a style name, that indicates an override. To remove an override, you can right-click a style with an override, and restore the original definition by clicking Apply Figure Caption Style & Clear Overrides. Some of your captions have paragraph overrides and some have character overrides—it's a mixed bag and that is the issue. To standardize... I would start by removing all overrides/character styles from the captions and re-assign the formatting using styles. (I added two in my demo: one for the bold numbers and another one for the captions that have text that isn't italics but only had time to show one.)

 

2024-03-30_10-13-36 (1).gif

 

If you want, we can further automate this, but first you want to get everything cleaned up so that it doesn't feel like InDesign is working against you.

 

~Barb

 

 

 

 

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Community Expert ,
Mar 30, 2024 Mar 30, 2024

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Oh I see the link to the Dropbox was removed - I presume you're working on the document that was originally linked? 
I don't have this to test it out. 

 

But it's better to clean up styles and overrides and work cleanly with these things - especially when adding automation.

 

 

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Community Expert ,
Mar 30, 2024 Mar 30, 2024

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Ah I managed to access the history of the post and find the link

 

As I suspected you have a Character Style selected on opening the document
When you apply the Caption it applies the character style

EugeneTyson_0-1711818168370.png

 

 

Easiest solution for me here is with absolutely nothing selected - select None from the Character Style.

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