How to sort a list of things in indesign by rags automatically?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
January 22, 2025
2 replies
408 views

Hi everyone. I remember once in a class I was shown a feature in indesign, which you can automatically sort the order of a list of things, for instance, names, by how they looks best with their right side rags. Not just by their length but by how the block with the names look best with their right side rags. If that makes sense

I saw tutorials of using scripts to sort list alphabetically but that is not quite what I am looking for

I have been trying to figure out how to do it, looks like no resources on line and the class was years ago so I can't go back and ask. If anyone knows how to do that please let me know greatly appreciated!

How to

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

InDesign has a built-in Script in the Scripts panel called Sort Paragraphs. It can sort long line length to short line length. or vice versa.

Also, there is a free script called SmartSort from...

https://indiscripts.com/

Mike Witherell

R

Raina375529702qlsAuthor

Participant

Thanks Mike! I am looking for a feature that sorts a list of things by their rags if that makes sense, like it would reorder a list of names based on how they would look best together on their right side rags. I think the sort paragraph doesn't quite do that

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

I have to confess I don't understand what you are asking for.

Mike Witherell

Barb Binder

Community Expert

That actually is not a feature of InDesign.

The only thing I can think of that you're remembering is the Adobe Paragraph Composer, which arranges word spacing within a paragraph of justified type so that the spacing looks good for the entire paragraph and not just line by line. But that's not sorting.

~Barb

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

R

Raina375529702qlsAuthor

Participant

Hi Barb, thank you!

I was pretty sure the teacher clicked some keyboard shortcut in indesign to
sort a list of names automatically, but I just couldn't figure out how she
did that

It has been a long time now I really need this feature to shorten my work
time

I know how to use the paragraph composer but that's not the feature

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