FR:Automatic Adjustment of Paragraph Margins and Leading Based on Context

[dublove]

Voting support address

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/48929828-wo... 

Would like to add: Automatically set the value of paragraph leading according to different situations.

For example, A and B paragraph styles.
By default, B has paragraph margins set. But there are some cases where it doesn't need paragraph breaks.
For example, when there is A paragraph style in front of it, because A itself has paragraph spacing, the two together will be spaced very far apart.
The way I'm dealing with it now: create a new ‘B-none’ with no paragraph leading.　But it's a lot of work and trouble.

If you can add the option to set when B meets a certain style in front of the paragraph before the distance can be agreed upon, such as 0 or other good.

Thank you very much.

<Title renamed by MOD>

[TᴀW]

That makes a lot of sense as a request.

My workaround is similar to yours (create extra styles to accommodate the different spacings).

I don't find that it's so much work or trouble, though, because I'm using a script I wrote for exactly this purpose: https://www.id-extras.com/products/change-consecutive-paragraphs/

I think there are also some free scripts that do the basics of replacing one style with another depending on what comes before/after, perhaps without all the bells and whistles of my not-free one (e.g. http://kasyan.ho.ua/indesign/styles/paragraph_style_changer.html and others).

[Willi Adelberger]

Why do space before and after not serve you?

[dublove]

This can be scripted too ......
It's a bit too overpowered.
But it's something that should be Adobe, external scripts can't change automatically after all.
I could have done it with regular, it's just too much of a hassle.

[Willi Adelberger]

Do you know the use of paragraph styles. I think the most effective way is to work with paragraph styles. 

[dublove]

You're missing the point.

I'm using paragraph styles.

[Willi Adelberger]

The style settings offer all settings to work without a script. What you wau would get with a script are manually overriden styles and this is to avoid.

[Eugene Tyson]

For this I tend to use Apply Next Style - it's not automatic or anything but speeds up the selection of paragraph styles

https://creativepro.com/where-is-apply-__-then-next-style/

[dublove]

The lower same style is not flexible enough.
Because A is not always followed by B. It's just that sometimes A and B go together.

[Eugene Tyson]

So these connection rules are flexible - which makes me think it's highly likely to be automated - it's only for when A meets B - and that's great for your case, but could be more complex in other cases. 

I think the Find/Change portion of InDesign could be updated. 

At the moment you can only Find 1 type of paragraph style. 

If you could Find 2 or more styles then that would be an easy way to do it.

Find
ParaStyle B
Lookbehind for ParaStyle A

[dublove]

I can do it with regular expressions.
But what I want is the paragraph two styles to be recognised automatically.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Is this a long document? If so, you could look at structured FrameMaker that can use contextual formatting. Does some things better than InDesign--and InDesign does some things better than Frame.

[dublove]

Just a suggestion, just hoping Adobe will see it and optimise it for improvement.
InDesign is already perfect.
Getting old and not enough energy to learn other software.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @dublove,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and I understand how important this functionality is to your workflow. I apologize for its unavailability at the moment. I encourage you to submit this as a feature request on our UserVoice page [here](https://adobe.ly/3XV7c3C). This will help us prioritize the request, and you'll be notified if there are any updates.

If you have any further questions or need more assistance, please feel free to reach out. We're always here to help.

Thanks,  
Abhishek Rao

[dublove]

I've already posted the URL where I made the suggestion at the beginning of the post, so that would be the same site as the one you posted, right?
Don't scare me.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @dublove,

Don’t worry at all-it’s the same site! You’ve already posted the suggestion in the right place. If possible, you might want to drop the link in this thread so others can upvote your suggestion too. 😊

Thank you again for your contribution, and feel free to reach out if you need any further assistance!

Best,
Abhishek Rao