Toggle Text Highlighting?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

So I have a peculiar technical need, and I can't figure out an elegant solution. I feel as if I'm overlooking some simple, integral ID function.

I use a layout method in which Body, BodyA, BodyB and BodyC are identical clones in the InDesign layout, and for print (PDF) export. However, these styles are processed differently for EPUB export, mostly with spacing variations. It's essential that I use each variant in the right place/s, and be able to know at a glance what styles are applied.

The only method for managing this I've come up with is to define three color swatches (HiliteA, HiliteB, HiliteC) and assign them as an outline stroke to the three variant styles. When each is defined (with a faint tint of red, blue, green etc.), the related paragraphs have that halo color. Easy-peasy to visually track and validate my layout. At print time, I set each swatch to None or Paper/White, so the halo/outline disappears for print/PDF export.

It is fairly tedious to do both swaps, the more so to set a precise tint on each that's distinctive but doesn't overwhelm the layout.

What I am seeking is some way to toggle this highlighting, with some single and preferably integral ID feature — something vaguely like having the type on one layer and the highlight (which could be anything, including shading) on another, so switching that layer on and off would show/hide the highlighting. (No, that doesn't work, as far as I know.)

Yes, yes, a script could toggle the values of those three color swatches, but that (starting with all the linked swatches) seems clumsy, I'm not really a script guy and, as I said, I feel like I'm missing some obvious technical solution here.

Thoughts?

[brian_p_dts]

Sounds like you might want to use Conditional Text?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Good shot; clean miss. 🙂 I already use CT for other purposes in this process. None of this text is conditional; it all needs to go into all exports. It also needs to be by style, not by manual application.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@James Gifford—NitroPress 

I'm not sure I follow?

Do you need to see different texts - in the same place? Because setting color to "[None]" will still leave an empty space?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

The text, and style, need to remain under all conditions. The only thing I am changing i n my method is the text outline, which as a faint 1pt tint works perfectly for my needs, and set to White/Paper effectively disappears.

The highlighting can/could be anything, as long as it doesn't show on print/PDF export (or distort the text layout). But most forms need to be turned off before PDF export, lest they show, even as a faint haze around text.

They're completely irrelevant to the EPUB export.

I would like an easier way to toggle the highlighting on and off, between editing mode and PDF export mode, while preserving the multiple colors or variations (I need to know WHICH variant is applied, not just that ONE OF the variants is in play.)

A script to turn text shading on and off, setting it to specific faint values for 'on,' is the only solution that comes to mind, but it's not very flexible should I change my highlighted styles around.

Picture, thousand words, all that—

— I need this page to print exactly as-is to PDF, sans the color halos. But I need those halos during editing to make sure I have the correct styles applied. Some way to toggle this highlighting, as easily as possible, is what I'm after.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@James Gifford—NitroPress 

How about using BasedOn in styles - so one "master" style at the top = change in one place?

Or ... Book option?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

These largely are Based-On; each is part of a hierarchy that has few or no variations in InDesign but has variant CSS applied on export. That doesn't solve anything. Nor would a Book.

There is no variation in content... only in styles applied, with almost no variations except the style name. I just need to see where those variations are applied without it gooping up the print output.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@James Gifford—NitroPress 

But how about two Books and Sync=ON:

a) master doc with highlights ON,

b) master doc with highlights OFF.

In both cases - your INDD doc as a 2nd document in the book - or 1st.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

That might technically work, but the root of all this fussing around is to maintain a single source file for multiple export editions. Multiplying entities up the chain would tick off Mr. Occam. 🙂

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

That might technically work, but the root of all this fussing around is to maintain a single source file for multiple export editions. Multiplying entities up the chain would tick off Mr. Occam. 🙂

By @James Gifford—NitroPress

But you still have a single source file? 

Just a different way of opening it... 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Maybe. Worth some experimentation, anyway.

I still feel there's something more organic/native/integral, like the way show/hide conditional text works. Maybe not.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@James Gifford—NitroPress

Master BasedOn that will control Stroke's thickness - and children will control Stroke's Color?

[brian_p_dts]

Just two paragraph styles for each variation, and do a Find/Replace on paragraph style to swap out at print time? Keep em in a style folder for ease of toggle? One style has the stroke/swatch applied, the other doesn't? 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I've tried several variations of "load alternate style [element]" with the idea of swapping either the Paragraph Styles as a set, or the color swatches as a set. If there's a method that doesn't load identically-named styles as copies, I can't find it. Not helpful.

RT's book-sync method seems to be the only configurable, one-step process and I think I will find gotchas in that, too.

It's not a huge problem; I only do a comprehensive edit like this perhaps once a year, and I can simply be cautious in checking the styles on a few pages of shorter edits. It just seems like there should be some way to semi-automate this change, without going around seven sides of an octagon to get there. 😛

[brian_p_dts]

It would be rather trivial to use either the builtin MultiFindChangeByList script or a custom script to toggle the changing of three paragraph styles with the click of the button, but executing three saved FR queries seems like a very easy lift and as close to builtin functionality I think you can achieve. Book method seems clunky to me. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Yeah, as it's becoming evident that there's no simple answer, I'll have to choose from complicated, wonky workarounds. Resetting the highlight color swatches is ugly, but works. 😛

[Barb Binder]

James, is this a book or a single .indd file?

If a single file, why can't you save save two copies, one with the colors and one without and remove the content to remove confusion and just load the styles you need. You could do it with a keyboard shortcut. 

~Barb

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Yes, single file. That's not a perfect[ly clean] solution but it's probably the most manageable overall, as long as I make sure to sync any style changes (not too many on this mature project).

Thx!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

And a late (postmortem) report back: while this method has promise, it's a wonky nightmare in real use. (Thanks again for the suggestion, though, @Barb Binder !)

I was doing a major edit of a book and using the style highlighting system mentioned to keep easy visual track of where the special styles are applied (they are visually identical to the base styles). I started by creating the two "style change" files, with no content, and the relevant paragraph styles assigned to use the highlight color in one version, and shed it in the other. Tests worked fine.

However, on moving forward, I had the common issue of needing to tweak styles in the work document. So to keep the style-load from reverting these changes, I stripped each to just the affected styles.

Which lost me a day of work when I discovered the fault in this approach by stepping in it. Some of the "switched" styles are dependent/children of styles that are not highlighted... so I left the parent styles out of the format documents. Which means that when I loaded, say, the "no highlight" version, the child styles were no longer properly anchored to the parents, even though those styles were in the master document. The link broke at some point in the import/update process.

So this method would work as long as (1) no styles are changed in the work document without somehow updating them in the two format docs as well, and (2) any weeding of the styles in the format docs is done with a very, very careful eye to parent/child hierarchies... which in most documents means few styles could actually be deleted.

Good idea, too fragile for use except in those very narrow conditions. Oh, well.

So my conclusion is that no, there is no way to do this "switch" using any combination of ID native features. One of those things that seems to be accessible and trivial and turns out to have a bad case of "Ya can't get there from here, buddy!" 🙂

A script could do it easily, I think. Maybe I'll draft a functional description and ask real nice.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@James Gifford—NitroPress

How about my Book idea?

You wouldn't have this problem - as you would be only "using" colors from the "color template" file - and working on your original file.

So any changes to the styles - are always made in your main file. 

Kind of importing same data - using different templates. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Same issue with keeping all styles in sync and intact, I would think. If the book is COLORS-ON, COLORS-OFF and MASTER PARENT, syncing styles from the first two would overwrite any changes in the primary, much the same as just loading the styles as an isolated step. Perhaps a more "organic" approach, but same two limitations. Unless I'm missing something.

It's really a trivial need — I just took a whole 42 seconds to null out the highlight swatches to white when I was done editing. It's just annoying to have to reverse the process and set fairly precise tint shades for those swatches (each color has an optimal percentage for a balanced, non-distracting look while editing).

And I can't think of a good use for this switch except in my very narrow workflow of editing certain dual-format books.

I would have just gone with a script except for my crankiness about them. 🙂

[Robert at ID-Tasker · Accepted solution]

Same issue with keeping all styles in sync and intact, I would think. If the book is COLORS-ON, COLORS-OFF and MASTER PARENT, syncing styles from the first two would overwrite any changes in the primary, much the same as just loading the styles as an isolated step. Perhaps a more "organic" approach, but same two limitations. Unless I'm missing something. [....]🙂

By @James Gifford—NitroPress

Two books:

Book-ON:

1st_file_ON - master for synchornisation - with colors-ON - no need for any Char/ParaStyles

Your_file - your document using colors defined in 1st file

Book-OFF:

1st_file_OFF - master for synchornisation - with colors-OFF - no need for any Char/ParaStyles

Your_file - your document using colors defined in 1st file

In the 1st_file_ON/OFF files - you would have colors with the same names - but in OFF they would be Black - and in ON - yellow/green/etc.

In your document - you would use those colors in the Styles you want to highlight.

When you open Book-ON - your document will use yellow/green/etc. colors in your Styles - "imported" from the "master" - 1st_file_ON file.

When you open Book-OFF - your document will use Black color in your Styles - "imported" from the "master" - 1st_file_OFF file.

It's like with WordPress - or any other CMS - you have your data in a database - but you can easily switch between Templates.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@James Gifford—NitroPress

In your main document - you can add / modify styles whatever way you want - you just need to use specific colors - and Book that you'll open - will determine DEFINITIONS of those colors.

The same idea / way that is suggested to others when they need to share large portions of the documentation between different manuals. 

When they open Book that includes those shared parts - they at least need to update page numbering. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Well, hellfahr and dahmna'shun. It works.

I can see some hurdles, such as making sure only Swatches are selected for sync (not sure yet if that's persistent). Wait, tested, and yes indeed that's a saved parameter with the Book.

All in all, this seems to be a workable approach that makes a peculiar little task more organized. Thanks! 😄

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Well, hellfahr and dahmna'shun. It works.

I can see some hurdles, such as making sure only Swatches are selected for sync (not sure yet if that's persistent). Wait, tested, and yes indeed that's a saved parameter with the Book.

All in all, this seems to be a workable approach that makes a peculiar little task more organized. Thanks! 😄

By @James Gifford—NitroPress

You are welcome.