Lines : How to "Gridify"?

[Roger Breton]

I was watching this video on YouTube (7) Master the Gridify Feature in InDesign - YouTube

At about 3 minutes, he demonstrated a technique I had no clue existed, in which a line can be interasctively duplicated while holding the Alt + Shift keys. The following Is a screen capture of my result: the red lines show the starting and finishing lines, while the intermediate black lines shows the lines created interactively using the "Gridify" feature. I made the lines thicker to facilitate following:

 Now, for the life of me, I can't find how to control the initial spacing between the lines?

I also wonder how is it that when I select ALL the lines and pull them down from the bottom, the spacing between the lines "increase"? Having a difficult time wrapping my head around this behavior.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

"Gridify" has been around quite a while, since CS4 or CS5. I think it's a variation of the 'step and repeat' feature, which is more sophisticated overall. You might want to look at it as well. Gridify is more or less limited to what you've done, creating an array of horizontal or vertical lines to quickly lay out a grid for... whatever purposes.

I think I used it a while back to lay out my own blueline paper with some varying grids, printed in a faint tint of pure cyan. For reasons that elude me, blueline pads, such as used to be under the elbow of every engineer and designer, have shot to insane prices, and I find it cheaper to print a dozen pages or so and keep them in a drawer. I can even do varyuing grid scales and layouts without investing in a stack of extremely overpriced products. 🙂

[Roger Breton]

Thanks James for your help and advices. I go back to QuarXpress where the Step & Repeat was the only game in town...

So this "Interactive gridify" techniqu works. It's very picky and finicky. Something about my keyboard layout?
I got it thanks to watching this video which explain the technique differently: (7) InDesign: Interactive Grid - Make a grid of duplicates fast! - YouTube

The trick is to hold down the Alt key, drag the object, release the Alt key while keeping the left mouse button down and up/down left/right arrow keys to one's heart content to create dusplicates. TO KNOW THAT THE TECHNIQUE WORKED: duplicates appear in dotted lines while being created.

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Roger Breton:

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Now, for the life of me, I can't find how to control the initial spacing between the lines?

You control the intital spacing between the lines by dragging up or down, before you release the mouse button. 

After you release the mouse button, the easiest option to change it is to use the Distribute Spacing button on the Align panel. 

~Barb

[Roger Breton]

Hi Barb,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I was running into "weird behavior" when I started experimenting with this "feature" which I never used before.

Please allow me to point out that, in your video, you use the Align panel to space the lines vertically but it's not necessary to do so, according to the bevior I observe here: as long as all the lines are selected, dragging the last one down automatically spaces them all equally?

[Barb Binder]

Hi Roger:

Please allow me to point out that, in your video, you use the Align panel to space the lines vertically but it's not necessary to do so, according to the bevior I observe here: as long as all the lines are selected, dragging the last one down automatically spaces them all equally?

This comes down to timing:

• If you are still holding down the mouse button—in the middle of the gridify function—then yes, you can adjust the lines up or down by dragging the last line.
• Once you release the mouse button, gridify is over. The easiest way to adjust all the lines is to use the Align panel. If you just drag the bottom line down at that point, then no, you will move all the lines but will not be adjusting their spacing. 

~Barb

[Roger Breton]

Wish I could do a Windows capture to show you but, simply selecting all the lines and dragging the last line down, all the other lines "reposition" automatically, maintaining whatever spacing there was between each one? I think this has nothing to do with Gridify. This is simply an existing mundane InDesign feature. Which, I must say, baffled me at the beginning.

[Barb Binder]

Hi Roger:

Initially you were asking about adjusting the spacing:

Now, for the life of me, I can't find how to control the initial spacing between the lines?

I also wonder how is it that when I select ALL the lines and pull them down from the bottom, the spacing between the lines "increase"?

Here is my first screen capture addressing how to adjust the spacing between the lines, both while using gridify and afterwards.

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Now you seem to be asking about maintaining the spacing...

simply selecting all the lines and dragging the last line down, all the other lines "reposition" automatically, maintaining whatever spacing there was between each one?

In my second screen capture, I was trying to confirm that after gridify is complete, you can move all the selected lines by dragging the bottom one. InDesign is not spacing them equally when I drag the bottom line—gridify did that already. Moving them simply maintains the spacing, as you can see below.

I hoping that at this point, we have fully addressed both of your questions and you are back on track.

~Barb

[Roger Breton]

Hello Barb,

You are right, I was stumped by the fact that, with the limited success of my technique, the lines were being duplicated "as expected" but there was no way to control the spacing between the lines which was coming all "packed" almost next to one another. I should have pushed the research further before posting. With hindsight, I had the technique wrong. I am sorry if I mislead you, Barb. I think you're a terrific asset here and I appreciate learning about the techniques your generously share. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Google your best friend:

https://tinytutorials.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/indesign-cs5-new-feature-grid-mode-gridify/ 

You can use arrows, PgUp / PgDown and more. 

[Roger Breton]

Thank you Robert. I fought the Polygon battle earlier but I confess I did not about the PageUp/Down options to control the spacing between the duplicates which, by the way, has not worked in my humble attempts so far. Does that option work for you on the Mac? I tried Ctrl (Command) + Arrow keys to increase/decrease the space but it takes for ever just to move a small amount. I must be missing something obvious...

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I'm sorry @Roger Breton but I'm PC only.

[Roger Breton]

Same here. Lenovo Legion Core i9 64G RAM Win11.

What is "ID-Tasker"?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Extremely advanced tool that I've created - fully functional on a PC - but can be used by Mac users when a PC is connected to the same network. 

It gives you access to everything that InDesign have "under the hood" - whole structure of the document(s) - and let's you modify them in any way you want by creating Tasks - kind of Photoshop's Actions - so you don't need scripting skills - just convert your clisks into Tasks. 

You can work in the Interactive Mode - 3rd helping hand, modify currently selected text / object(s) - or process multiple text(s) / object(s) in multiple documents - BatchMode.

And much, MUCH more.