How to create cell style just for fills?

[ori manor]

Hi

I have a table where some of the cells have borders and some not. I want to create a cell style for the color, but it also affecting the borders. So, cells that had no borders now get borders, and it's not what I want.

I want to create a cell style that will only affect the fill of the cell, but will retain it's existing border settings.

Is it possible?

Thanks

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

Try this: with no table or cell selected, select the None cell style and clear any overrides that might be appled to it. (clear any + flag, that is).

Create a new style from None and name it appropriately (Hot Pink Fill, etc.)

Then in that style, under Fills and Strokes, all the fields should be blank, which usually means "don't change" or (in CSS terms) "inherit what's there." Set your fill color there but don't touch any other field. Save.

That should apply the fill without changing any other characteristic — strokes, spacing, etc.

[ori manor]

You are a genius!

Thanks, it worked like magic.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Not sure about genius, not on a pre-holiday Monday anyway, but it's basic to how InDesign manages defaults. To set a default, you make a change (font size, color, stroke, etc.) with no object selected, and that is then the default for all operations until you change it again. (That is, if you set a red 1pt stroke with no object on the layout selected, everything afterward will get that red stroke.)

The opposite of that is the blank fields in any style setting. Amost none have a "clear" or "inherit" or "blank" setting, so you have to start with a carefully cleared style and set only the aspects you want to change. If you touch a field, it will set to something in the list and can't be cleared again without starting over.

Glad it worked — in some cases this approach doesn't.

[ori manor]

Didn't know that... Thanks for the detailed explanation.