InDesigning.net

Good morning, Thomas.

Thanks for the tip. I downloaded your script and tried it. It works great except for one major limitation (major at least for me): the frame it creates is column width rather than slightly larger than text width.

For me, where this fails is when I need to have the frame behind text that is indented left and right from the column margin. For example, if a standard paragraph runs the full column width, say 144 points, but the text I need framed runs only 72 points wide and is indented 36 points on both left and right, the script creates a frame that is 144 points wide, not 72 points + x points on either side (so that the frame extends beyond the text). Perhaps there is a way around this, but I couldn't find one with the script.

Elsewise, the script works great.

Rich: I'll just answer here as well as on InDesignSecrets, and rephrase a little.

What you request is quite easy, since scripting a way to find the columns position on a page is quite harder than finding out where text is. That is the way I find the ascenders and descenders location for the box.

What you really need though is perhaps not calculating where the text begins and ends - since it is not the same as the indents of a paragraph. E.g. for ragged right text, the text lines ends different places for a paragraph. So how can I fix the script?

1) Enabling "negative padding", so you can easily control the amount of negative space from the columns.

2) Enabling a box that checks for indents in the paragraph style and uses the column placement -/+ the padding for the box.

I will be delighted to release an update with the feature :)

Best,

Thomas

Thomas, I left you a reply on InDesignSecrets, which I won't repeat here. But let me add this to my other response. Each paragraph style that I use has its own left and right indents. If the script could pickup those indents and +/- to them, the effect would be uniform. It isn't clear to me how "negative padding" would work. If it would let me set the frame width in the object style and have multiple object styles, each with different frame widths, that would work well.

Sorry for my confusion and for not being clear. I am not a sophisticated user of InDesign and am just now approaching 10 months of using it (for the previous 15 years I had used Ventura for typesetting and just made the move to ID with the release of CS4).

Rich: As it is now, you can add a "padding" to the box to define how much you want to size the box "extra/more" than the column width.

By adding an option for working with "negative" paddings, I can allow the box to shrink from the column width. So if you have a 30pt left and right indent you would perhaps define a -25pt left and right "padding" for the boxes.

I think this is the best solution - will also look better in a design/page layout that all boxes are equally wide, and not defined by the text length (in my opinion).

Thomas, the negative paddings sounds like it would work just fine. I agree it would look better if all the boxes are equally wide, and that is what I am trying to accomplish (albeit not saying it very well). I, too, do not like boxes defined by text length.

Rich: I have uploaded an updated version with support for negative padding now.

Hope it suits your needs!

Thanks, Thomas. I will give it a try later on in the week and let you know.

Thomas, thanks. It works great.

Hi Thomas
Thanks for the script! I'm not sure what I am doing wrong -- I cannot get the script to work. I get an error on line 67 of the script. Not too sure what this means. This occurs even when I copy your object and paragraph styles to a new document.

Mary Jane: No problem! What version of InDesign are you using, and did the script work in the packaged sample file?

Hi Thomas
Thanks for the response! I use CS4 and the script did work in the sample file.

Mary: You don't by any chance have any text overflow in the document? If you don't mind, please send it to silkjaer at theundersigned dot net, and I will check it out :)

My friend created a plugin, which adds boxes and frames to paragraph style (Paragraph Border). The frames are reflowed dynamically.

demo version for CS4/Mac here
http://www.beeasy.ru/pb/?id=4

Absolutely awesome! I love this script for saving me probably hours and days of work, even though it runs just over a half hour in an 900 page text-only INDD.
Could you please add support for more than one layer, e.g. all object styles starting with “Box1: …” go to layer “Boxes1”, all “Box2: …” go to layer “Boxes2” and so on? That would be very helpful for creating “brackets”, i.e. frames where only the left and the right edge is supposed to show (and the rest is covered by a [Paper] box that is placed on a separate layer above “Boxes2”, but below “Boxes1”.  :o)
Thanks a lot!

Do you have any InDesign CS3 version for this?

Hi Thomas,

We would like to reference your script on our website : http://www.scriptopedia.org

Do you agree ?

Regards,

Loic

Loic: you are more than welcome :)

Hi Thomas,

Sorry for the delay, I checked the site for a moment and thought that maybe I will receive an email and then Time did teh same to me than to all of you, it just swooooooooooooooshhhhed.
Thanks a lot for your agreement. Your scripts are awesome and I am sure our readers will enjoy them and have a look on your website ;-)
I put you scripts in my todo list :-)

Keep up teh good work.

Loic

Thank you for this script.
I am using indesign cs5 and I have 2 problems: 1. A paragraph begins in a column and continue on the next one. The box for the first column is ridiculously large. (i just found a fix: I works great if I dont use full vertical justify)
Next one: I expected that every relaunch of the script will delete old boxes... Or I have to do that manually?