Creating a type style to use across multiple apps

[benc34199373]

Hi,

I'm wondering if there is a way to create a paragraph style in inDesign that you can then export to be loaded into other apps like Photoshop and Illustrator?
It probably sounds impossible, but the type treatment is fairly basic. Essentially it is DIN Condensed in all caps, with strict leading and a background colour bar that can be recoloured depending on the background (see image). I'm tired of seeing people within the company use the style incorrectly with different leading, wider colour bars and off-centred text etc. It looks terribly inconsistent and weakens the professionalism of the material it is used for.
In inDesign I can create paragraph rules to sit below the text. I'm assuming this is the best way to do this. I guess I can make a paragraph style and load it into libraries within inDesign for other to use, but the problem comes when it needs to be replicated across different apps (Ai and Ps) where basically this style needs to be made by hand, as far as I'm aware.
What should a pedantic graphic designer like myself do? I would greatly appreciate any suggestions.

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

Hi Ben,

you could do some tests with shared CC Library libraries.

But you also have to be aware that PhotoShop, Illustrator and InDesign do not share the exact same set of properties when it comes to paragraph styles and character styles. Not even the same concepts if we dig a bit deeper. For example you cannot share the value for languange between the three apps. And of course, not only because of that, hyphenation and paragraph composition could be and will be different.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[benc34199373]

Yeah I am aware that they're all different, hence the problem. I can understand why InDesign has a more complex set of parameters that you can adjust for paragraph styles etc, but why it can't be integrated or at least re-created in a similar way in other apps like Illustrator and Photoshop is a bit odd to me. We spend a lot of time duplicating layouts across platforms for various reasons, so to not be able to duplicate a type setting and use it in the same way is very frustrating. In an ideal world, everything is done in InDesign but that's simply not the case.

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

Hi Ben,

hm, yes. In an ideal world all the three Adobe main apps would use the same text composing engine with all the same features. Converting back and forth cries for trouble. So we need a differnt workflow for exchange.

You could go with the InDesign gold standard for text composing and exchanging PDFs that are placed and linked with Illustrator and PhotoShop or opened as Smart Objects… Edits would be made in InDesign and exported to PDFs. The PDFs would be updated on a mutual server or cloud service like Dropbox or OneDrive…

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )