Vertical text inside a text box

[ayumi_m]

Hi there

I used to be able to set vertical text inside a text box in InDesign however the 2018 version only allows me to do that by tying on a line.

My Indesign is in English as I live and work in Australia but I need an option available for vertical text in a text box as I am Japanese and sometimes need to create a multipage document for my Japanese client.

Is there a way to do this?

It use to be as simple as drawing a text box and set text to vertical.

Thank you so much for your support and knowledge in advance.

[Steve Werner]

InDesign has no vertical text feature in the non-CJK versions.

You could (1) create vertical text in Illustrator which supports a vertical text tool in non-CJK versions, save the text as an AI file and place into InDesign;

Or (2) install a Japanese version of InDesign on a different InDesign version, and set the type there. You can have InDesign CC 2018 and CC 2019, for example, installed concurrently. One can be set up for one language, the other for another language.

[ayumi_m]

Hi Steve

Thank you for your help.

I am interested in trying this out. How do I go about doing this when I already have InDesign CC2018 in English version??

If you could help me a bit more on this that would be very much appreciated it!

Thank you

Ayumi

[Steve Werner]

Here's a link to a thread about downloading a second version of InDesign (in this case so someone can use Arabic and English). It should work the same for English and Japanese:

Mixing Arabic and English Text

Here's another reference I found by Google searching:

Adobe InDesign Tips: Japanese/CJK Functionality + English UI

[Barb Binder]

Hi ayumi_m:

I used to be able to set vertical text inside a text box in InDesign however the 2018 version only allows me to do that by tying on a line.

Photoshop and Illustrator both have a Vertical Type tool—so maybe that's what you are remembering. And Photoshop has the Toggle Text Orientation in the Options Bar.

InDesign does not have this feature, but this article might be helpful: https://indesignsecrets.com/setting-vertical-text-in-indesign.php

~Barb

[Laubender]

ayumi_m  wrote

…Is there a way to do this?

It use to be as simple as drawing a text box and set text to vertical. …

Hi ayumi_m ,

you could try a script that is rotating any character to 90° and then rotate the text frame.

Such a script has to use one of the two Japanese Paragraph Composers that can be applied in all versions of InDesign.

Here the ExtendScript ( JavaScript ) script code that will work if you selected some characters:

/*
    Rotate selected characters.
    WARNING: Japanese Single Line Paragraph Composer applied
    Select some characters before running the script.
*/
var rotationValue = 90 ;
var newTextProperties =
{
    characterRotation : rotationValue ,
    composer : "$ID/HL Single J"
};
app.selection[0].properties = newTextProperties ;

A screenshot where you can see three steps for faked Japanese text in my German InDesign CC 2019:

1. Before running the script on the selected text of frame one.

2. After running the script on the selected text. All characters are rotated.

3. After rotating the text frame. Story Editor is showing the unrotated text.

Don't know any Japanese, but I guess some glyphs are a problem like the comma and the full stop at the end of the text.

How to save code, install script files and run ExtendScript script files in InDesign:

Indiscripts :: Indiscripts for Dummies

Regards,
Uwe

[ayumi_m]

Hi Laubender

Thank you for your help.

This sounds very complicated!! You must be tech genius!

As I am creating multi page documents with all text set vertical, this might be hard for me to execute.

Also the detailing of typography needs to be manually adjusted as I can see Japanese version of comma isn't in the right place.

I never had to deal with this when I was using the old version of InDesign though.

It's making my designer life hard when I am a Japanese designer who need to create work with both Japanese and English..

Anyway, thank you so much for your help.

Very appreciated.

Ayumi

[Laubender]

ayumi_m  wrote

…As I am creating multi page documents with all text set vertical, this might be hard for me to execute.

Also the detailing of typography needs to be manually adjusted as I can see Japanese version of comma isn't in the right place.…

Hi Ayumi,

indeed, my solution above is working only for one line of text.

It's not better than setting text along a path like that:

FWIW: The Stair Step effect did not work with the Japanese Paragraph Composer applied to the text.

I had to use the Adobe Paragraph Composer.

More on Type on a Path:

Create type on a path in InDesign

Hm. How about using colums with a text frame to force every single character to its own line?

Ok. That would only work if every glyph has the same width. Are there any Japanese monowidth fonts?

One test below where I experimented with 24 columns in a text frame, gap value between columns set to 0.

Because every glyph has different width this is not exactly working as expected, but it is close:

In the second frame I added a line break after every character to visualize the desired result.

For that I selected all the text and ran GREP Find/Change. You can see the patterns in the screenshot.

Also an ugly solution.

Better GREP pattern for Find:

(.(?!\x{000A}))

Replace with:

$1\x{000A}

Regards,
Uwe

PS: Edited

[Laubender]

I should have looked it up before. With vertical Japanese text reading direction is from top to down, from right to left.

Ok. We can change that with the columns of a text frame as well. With a non-MENA version of InDesign like my German one, this requires a little script to get a result like this:

Script code:

/*
    First select a text frame, then run this code to
    change storyDirection to:
    RIGHT_TO_LEFT_DIRECTION
*/
app.selection[0].
parentStory.
storyPreferences.
storyDirection =
StoryDirectionOptions.RIGHT_TO_LEFT_DIRECTION ;

Regards,
Uwe

[Rafael5C40]

Dear Laubender,

thank you so much for sharing this.

It helped me a lot (there were a few haiku japanese poems I needed to set vertically, so your script was really useful!!!).

cheers,

Rafael