Character style : add a left vertical stroke to document titles

[joshuah68297286]

Hello,

I would like to create a paragraph or character style that would allow me to type in my titles in my document, and for them to have a vertical yellow stroke (2pt) that will automatically be the height of my title (which could be 1-6 lines high...). Attached is a screen-shot showing what I would like to achieve.

Does anybody know to set this?

Thanks in advance,

Joshua

[SJRiegel · Accepted solution]

You don't say what version of InDesign you are using, but if you have a new enough version of CC, you can do this with the Paragraph Borders setting, as part of your Paragraph Style.

[joshuah68297286]

Thank you for your answer!

I am using Adobe CS6. Is there a way to do this in my version?

[SJRiegel]

Paragraph borders were not present in CS6. There may be workarounds to get this done in that version, but I don't know them. 

Maybe someone else will stop by with an answer for you.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

You can fake it by typing multiple paragraphs for each line. You can probably adjust the settings to get better results.

[FRIdNGE]

Hi,

Simply [and just] do it with the "para rule" feature ! …

And it's totally automatic … ! 

Best,

Michel, for FRIdNGE

[joshuah68297286]

Thank you all for your answers.

Michel, could you guide me in the process of achieving it with para rules? I only have rule below or above, which are horizontal lines, how do you get it to be vertical?

[vinny38]

I like Ideas-training workaround ^^

Alternatively, you can fake it by converting your header into a single-cell table.

Create a cell style with a left colored border.

You would probably need an extra paragraph style that you'll apply to the paragraph that holds the cell (in order to control space before/after, left indent and keep options)

But, with a little imagination, you could even control spacing using only cell style options and a custom stroke style. But you wouldn't be able to use "Keep with next line option" then, which could be handy for a header like yours.

I'm looking forward to hear from Michel... (Is it a no-script trick??)

[FRIdNGE]

Hi Vinny,

Absolutely! … It's so simplistic to do it with para rules!

But as nobody seems to confirm it, I'm going to play the "teacher"! 

How to do that simply with an InDesign basic feature:

With invisible chars:

3 para style settings:

• Left Indent:

• Para rule "above":

• Para rule "below":

… To be clearer, I change the color of the para rule below:

Why does this work so fine?

Because:

• the para rules are behind the text , and

• the para rule below is in front of the para rule above!

No need more here!

A last point: the rules height and shift are not arbitrarely given but defined precisely from the para style leading!

But you can "bidouiller" [in French] if you're too lazy.

Best,

Michel

[vinny38]

Evidemment !

Very cool trick Michel... very...

And since rule above of next paragraph comes in front of previous paragraph rule below, we can extend rule thickness/height up to 1000pt, which is... cool

Next challenge for you: make it work with a background image...

[joshuah68297286]

I guess you had to be able to see horizontal lines into vertical lines. Thank you!!!