Participant

Question

Gradients in CS5 InDesign ("How the...")

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
September 13, 2011
9 replies
66936 views

I sure hope I can get some answers to this one - I posted another question regarding leading in Paragraph Styles two days ago and by now it has 28 views and 0 answers! Such support.

Just designing a two-color gradient in CS5 InDesign is headache enough...click on Swatches control panel, see that there is no "New Gradient Swatch" button at the bottom (despite what the books and online help say), click the microscopic menu at the upper right of the panel, select "New Gradient Swatch", only to find that there are only two choices - Linear or Radial - and fiddle with every feature in the window to finally get the color range you want.

Frankly, five very expensive versions of Creative Suite later, I am both amazed and disgusted at the fact that:

- There is no horizontal gradient, only "Linear" (and that is vertical; that is, each color within the range goes top-to-bottom; the range itself is left-to-right)

- There is no seeming way to get a horizontal gradient, or a vertical gradient with the colors reversed. InDesign decides the orientation and polarity (in this instance, dark (left) to light (right) ) of your gradient

And before anyone launches into a lecture about the Window > Color > Gradient option, I already tried that. I don't know what your copy of CS5 InDesign displays on your system, but on mine, that window has no OK button. In other words, you can play around all day long with the Window > Color > Gradient window but you cannot apply what you've settled on to your current project because there is no way to tell the program that "OK, I'm done, please apply the options I've selected to my project or selected swatch."

So, tell me truly, how can a newly-bald user design a simple two-color gradient that has vertical range, where lightest color is at the top and darkest color at the bottom?

This topic has been closed for replies.

M

MouseMonkey

Inspiring

Good to see that 5 years later and the gradient interface is still a confusing piece of #$#@. They really want you to use illustrator to make this kind of thing.

Steve Werner

Community Expert

It's probably confusing because you're not willing to learn how it works!

It's almost identical between InDesign and Illustrator. INDESIGN below:

ILLUSTRATOR below:

Steve Werner

Community Expert

Incidentally, Illustrator came first, and InDesign copied Illustrator's Gradient panel interface to make it familiar to Illustrator users.

tomp12297048

Participant

Just so you know. You are not crazy and I am having the same problem.

E

Eavisgrebe

Participant

Hi UWE. Many thanks - I think you're right, and it's a shame - I'll have to think of a new design as this directory is already built and populated almost entirely with tables. I'm using CS5.5 - have Adobe fixed this nuisance in later versions?

Cheers

grebe

E

Eavisgrebe

Participant

Hi,

SHOUTY STUDENT your caps are too much. You can't just wade into Indesign and expect it all to work, you need to learn the interface. Applying a gradient to an object isn't difficult, and some of the people here have tried to help - sorry if it's TOO COMPLICATED. Check you have the stroke and fill options selected appropriately (make sure you have the fill one selected,) and choose or draw an object like a rectangle to view it as you build it, and no clashing object styles. If you don't like black to white click on the colour in the slider and change it or drag a colour in from your swatches. Once you've made the gradient you like, drag it from the gradient to the swatches panel and you should be able to apply it to whatever object you want.

My problem is similar but i'm starting to suspect there's no easy fix - I have a cell style for table Header rows set up for this big directory I'm working on, and I'd like to apply a a vertical (90 degree) gradient to just that cell style so every instance of it changes but the rest of the table and contents of those text boxes remain unchanged. I can get as far as having the gradient in there but can't figure out how to make it a 90 degree gradient (high to low, rather than left to right) without individually dragging the gradient tool south through every row individually - which sucks, because this is a 300 page directory! I won't have time before we go to print. You can't apply an object style to a table cell can you (?), and you can't save a gradient swatch in an orientation other than left to right can you?

So is there a workaround for this I wonder, or if I'm wasting my time and need to alter the design please I'd rather know now!?

many thanks

grebe

L

Laubender

Community Expert

@Grebe – I think, you are wasting your time (and losing your mind), if you want to control gradients in table cells.

Apply a gradient to a cell, use the Gradient Tool to make it 90° from top to bottom. Everything is looking fine.

Then add some new table rows below. Blam! The gradient fill of untouched cells has changed.

Step 1 of going mad with gradients in table cells; everything is looking perfect after dragging the Gradient Tool from top to bottom of a selected row using a gradient from 100 Cyan to 0 Cyan:

Step 2: The same table just after adding two rows below (Arrrgh!):

Uwe

F

freecondomap

Participant

Thanks guys! More than one way to slice a pie.

Ballard-

A

Anonymous

Hi, I'm going to mention two things...

The colours panel and gradient panel make colour on the fly and are not saved swatches. Once used, the only way to duplicate another object with that colour is to use the Eyedropper tool from the original object to the new. However, in order to reuse them (which is mighty handy) you need to save the swatch. You can do this via the options menu on each panel.
In regards to keeping angles, etc on gradients. The solution to reusing that same angle etc on other objects is to create an Object Style. The best way to do this is to have your object selected > create the gradient exactly as you please > save the gradient as a swatch > save an Object Style. You can then apply it to any object you like. If you want to use it on another document, you can load swatches from other files.

Cheers

F

freecondomap

Participant

I understand the effects option when trying to achieve a vertical gradient for an object.

But what if you are trying to use a vertical graident effect for alternate rows in a table.

Something that looks like this, but in a table.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Have you tried defining it as part of a cell style?

Larry G. Schneider

Community Expert

It's not really that hard. To make a new gradient Select New Gradient Swatch from the Swatches flyout. You should get a dialog that looks like this

When you click on one of the gradient stop at thebottom of the ramp you will activate the ability to choose a color for that stop in the color mode you want

If you choose CMYK you can mix the color or you can choose Swatches and choose from existing swatches in the file. This is how it looks with both selected

When youOK the dialog a new swatch is added to the Swatch panel. You can apply it by drawing or selecting an object in your file and making the fill box active . It should look like this

In the Gradient window shown to the right of the object you can change the angle by using either the Reverse button or the angle window like this

Or you can use the Gradient tool from the tool box to drag across the gradient to change it as you want

If you want here's the difference in a radial gradient changed with the gradient tool from the tool box

T

TechShellAuthor

Participant

Actually, it really is that hard.

What I tried to communicate in my original post was that in this window:

There is no way for me to make the changes I make in this window show up in the document. Where is the OK button? I really, really tried. Everything. I switched the Angle. I played with the Reverse. Nothing I did reflected itself in the actual document or the swatch.

So what am I missing here?

Incidentally, when the Gradient Options window is open:

The smaller window is inaccessible. I have to close the Gradient Options window to do anything in the smaller window, and like I said, anything I do in the smaller window does not manifiest itself in any way in the document or the swatch.

It's one thing to tell me "You can change the angle, you can reverse the flow, etc." but how do I tell InDesign to take what I've selected and actually implement it in the document or swatch?

Three different books on CS5 InDesign couldn't provide the answer, either.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

You can't make those changes to the swatch itself. You make them to a selected object.

So, if you select an object and apply the gradient, then open the gradient panel, any changes you make will be reflected in the selected object. You can also set the gradient angle as part of an Object Style definition.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

The easiest way to do it is to create the swatch with the gradient you want, then use the Gradient tool (now apparently renamed the Gradient Swatch tool to differentiate it from the Gradient Feather tool which is right next to it in the toolbox) to drag the gradient in any direction you like, and to set the start and stop points. If you start or stop inside the object, everything before or after the start or stop, respectively, will be the end color.

If you just want to fill the object, select it and choose the gradient swatch as the fill, then open the Gradient panel and you can set any angle you like, or press the reverse button to switch directions.

None of this, by the way is new.

I did look at your other thread the yesterday, but I'm not quite sure I understand the question, and my only conclusion was there is some sort of user error in how you are defining the styles, but without a lot more information I can't tell you what.

And this is NOT tech support, it's a user forum staffed by ordinary users like you who volunteer their time and expertise. If they have nothing to say, most don't bother to answer.

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