Custom Strokes & .inst file types

[Monique24124710jlr4]

Hi all! 

Ok, so...

I'm wanting to create my own custom (non-geometric) stroke to use as an underline stroke.  Ideally, the use of that stoke will be as an underline, object frame, or ruler in paragraph styles and maybe tables.  

I've seen the custom stokes you can make in InDesign but it does not create the kind of line quality I'm looking for.   I've also read that you can load your own strokes but the file needs to be a .int type.

My questions are,

What program to use in order to be able to create an .int file type?  

Is there another way to load custom strokes to inDesign? 

Thank you all so much! I haen't been able to figure this out!

[Mike Witherell]

Stroke styles are saved as .inst files. This is done entirely within InDesign's Stroke panel > panel menu button > Stroke Styles dialog box. There you can design, edit, save, and load (which implies importing and exporting the .inst files. 

Bear in mind that the line style editor is limited to, well, lines: solid, dotted, dashed, or multiple lines. If you are looking for more adventurous decoration, maybe you can design it in Illustrator, and File > Place it into InDesign. Welcome to Manualville. But hey, keep it simple!

[Monique24124710jlr4]

Hi Mike, 

Thanks so much. I want the underline to be ornamental and I'd like it to be part of the paragraph style for a H3 subheader, which will be used significantly throughout the book.  I think I'll follow your advise and keep it simple. 

Thanks!

[Eugene Tyson]

Can you give us an idea what you want your underline to look like? 

[Monique24124710jlr4]

Sure! 

Underline

Something like that. Thanks!

[Eugene Tyson · Accepted solution]

Yeh that would likely be not possible with conventional InDesign methods 

[Micha313527352ilc]

Sorry but this does not make sense. There are other InDesign Preset stroke styles like wavy lines or diagonal dashes. You can't recreate these in the editor, yet they exist and are usable. Why is that? 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Sorry but this does not make sense. There are other InDesign Preset stroke styles like wavy lines or diagonal dashes. You can't recreate these in the editor, yet they exist and are usable. Why is that? 

By @Micha313527352ilc

That's the question to Adobe developers...

[Eugene Tyson]

I don't know - you can request a new Feature Request here

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests

There are other stroke styles available that are hidden
https://creativepro.com/easter-egg-stroke-styles/

I have no idea why they not customisable though.