Skip to main content
V
Vicious Celery
Participating Frequently
October 11, 2022
Answered

Conditional Text or Layers for Workbook answers?

  • October 11, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 720 views

Hi, folks!
I'm responsible for creating workbooks for our learners, and I also supply an instructor's version with all of the answers.

I've used layers for many years, where the student version, with blank lines, is on one layer, and I can turn on the "Answers" layer to show the answers when exporting the instructor's version. Answers might be text, or they can also be images in many cases. When I combine this system with the layers per book script to globally turn the "asnwers layer on/off for an entire book, it's pretty slick. However, the layers system gets annoying when there is a change to a question, since I can't anchor the content in the Answers layer to  the blanks they belong with.  I need to carefully go through the rest of that document and make sure everything is still in alignment.

Would it be better to use conditional text instead of an Answers Layer? My understanding is that I can't use anything other than inline images for conditional text, but maybe I can work with that restriction...

I'm hoping to lean on you all for for opinions, regrets, past experiencs, foreseeable difficulties, etc!

This is a typical worksheet page, with blanks to be filled in, boxes for letters to be matched to, etc.

This is a screenshot of the Instructor's version, with answers filled in. (Currently using layers to do this.) As you can imagine, it's annoying if a question is changed and I need to keep up and keep the answers matched. 

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Eric Dumas

Try to use an object style which will make the opacity 0% either to the whole object or to the content. This can be switched globaly by changing the style with one click.


How about using Windows > Object States?

Until InDesign gets 'Layer Comps' like in Photoshop, having the answers on a separate layer might be the quickest

1 reply

Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Willi AdelbergerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 11, 2022

I did such a book, but I did not use conditional text. I wrote the answers dirctly in these form lines with another font. The student’s version got text with color none, in the Teacher's version the text color was changed to a visble color.

    Willi Adelberger
    Community Expert
    Willi AdelbergerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 11, 2022

    The color change was done in changed paragraph/character style.

      V
      Vicious CeleryAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      October 11, 2022

      Sneaky! Could that also work with images?

      Since I have multiple worksheets that combine into a book, as long as I sync styles across the book, that would propagate the change. Seems very workable.

      Thank you! (I'd love to collect as many opinions as folks want to give, so I'm going to hold off on marking this answered for now, but I appreciate it!)

      Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
      Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices