Make a placed object (from Illustrator) white

Question

I want to use the same Illustrator shape in two different colors in InDesign (the original, which will be used with Color blending mode to affect the background, and plain white as an icon). I can't just copy/paste the path and use fill color (however tempting that might be) because I want to retain the link to Illustrator so that if I change the path there, all instances in InDesign will change accordingly. I tried different blending modes and looked through the effects, but nothing seems to do it.

I was originally trying to do this project (a set of scifi book covers) mainly in Photoshop, but it was extremely slow and cumbersome, and I realized that most of it could be done much more easily in InDesign, which is also the Adobe app I'm most proficient in by far. But this little thing was possible in Photoshop with a Black-and-White smart filter, whereas I can't figure it out in InDesign.

Alternatively, if there is a way in Illustrator to have two paths that are somehow "parent and child" so that editing the anchors/handles in the parent path affects both, but the fill colors are different, that would solve my problem - I'd just use two artboards and place them as desired in InDesign. (Yes, I know this isn't the Illustrator forum, but perhaps someone knows.)

Dirk Becker · Accepted Answer

For the Illustrator side of the question: learn about symbols.

E.g. create your hand shape and a background.

Select both, and add them as one symbol in the Symbols palette.

Duplicate then means placing another instance of the symbol.

The interesting part of it - you can use the direct selection tool on any part of one placed instance, in our example that would be either the hand shape or the background, and modify / override them in the appearance panel. Different color, show hide that part, or apply any effect such as transform.

For example before UI became boring "clean", we had multiple shades of icons (for dark .. light UI), multiple scalings (normal, hidpi Windows 150% and Mac 200%), and a mouse-over version with colorful accents to better stand out. That would be 24 copies of the same icon, at different scales and few appearance tweaks.

Eugene Tyson · Answer

In InDesign

Copy your Hand into the layout

Add a background and set it to multiply

Copy the Hand

Use Place and Link

On the Placed and Linked object - set your transparency back to normal on the placed link (note it shows in the Link Panel)

On the Placed and Linked Object Change the colour to white

On the Links Panel go to Link Options

The top one is optional - the other is necessary

Click back on your original and make an edit

Link now is required to be updated

Update the link and the change is made - but the appearance is preserved.

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