Optional vertical space marker in CS4?

Hi,



Just wondering if anyone knows if there exists, in IDCS4, some sort of way

of creating vertical space between paragraphs that will not appear if the

paragraph happens to begin at the top of the page.



Obviously, until now I've been using paragraph styles. But some kind of

vertical space marker would be so much simpler. You could have one for a

half-line height, or a full-line height and just insert them as necessary.



If not, any workarounds except for paragraph styles?



Thanks,

Ariel

Win XPSP3, IDCS4ME
Optional vertical space marker in CS4?
When you say ''paragraph styles'' do you mean you want to aoid using any

paragraph formatting? Because if not, you could just manually add space

before.



And why are you trying to avoid using formatting?
Optional vertical space marker in CS4?
Hi Fred,



Yes I want to avoid using formatting.



Why?



Simple.



Let's say I've got 8 paragraph styles for various types of body text.

Sometimes, any one of these styles can need a full blank line before,

sometimes just a 1/2 blank line before.

If I were to create paragraph styles for each of these eventualities, that

would mean another 16 styles.



However, if there was a vertical space marker, I wouldn't need any extra

styles at all. It's much simpler.



Thanks,

Ariel

But that's what I was saying, you don't have to create paragraph styles,

just add the space before manually as local formatting.

I'm guessing you already know about Space Above (and Space Below), but I

don't understand why you don't want to use it.



As far as I can tell, CS4 has nothing for vertical spacing that CS3

doesn't have.



--

Kenneth Benson

Pegasus Type, Inc.

www.pegtype.com

Ah, I see what you're both getting at.



The answer is that I want to avoid using local overrides.

Ken, I skipped from CS2 to CS4. Maybe I missed something in CS3 that might

help?

Hi Ariel,



I don't understand either why you don't want to use Space Before and

Space After, but you can get the effect that you want.



Just use (invisible) inline (or above line) vertical lines to add the

space. You'll have to use set leading and not Auto or not use ''Leading''

as your First Baseline Offset.



--

Harbs

http://www.in-tools.com

Hi Harbs,



Thanks for your suggestion. It looks interesting, but I'm not managing to

find a TextWrap setting that will accomplish this.



However, an anchored object off the end of the previous paragraph with text

wrap applied may do the trick failing something simpler.



(And as I mentioned previously, the point here is to avoid local overrides

if possible.)



Ariel

%26gt; Just use (invisible) inline (or above line) vertical lines to add the

%26gt; space. You'll have to use set leading and not Auto or not use ''Leading''

%26gt; as your First Baseline Offset.



I get the opposite of what Ariel wants. If I draw a vertical rule, cut

it and paste it at the front of a paragraph, it takes up no space

*except* at the top of a page.



Why vertical?



--

Kenneth Benson

Pegasus Type, Inc.

www.pegtype.com

That is strange.



Nothing happens if it's at the top of the page for me, which is correct. But

for some reason if it's in the middle of the page it creates a one-line gap

below. Weird.

Okay, creating a 14.5pt square (=bodytext leading in this case), inserting

it as an anchored object at the end of the previous paragraph, adding

a -14.5 y offset, and setting textwrap to ''Jump object'' seems to work,

pending further experimentation (or a simpler method).

%26gt; or a simpler method



Perhaps I'm crazy but paragraph styles would be simpler.



Bob

Playing with inlines are very tricky. Inlines will only take the space

between lines if the leading is set to auto. Above lines will work much

better here, because they always take up space between lines. If you set

the first baseline offset to fixed + the normal leading, you should get

what you need.



I said vertical lines because they will take up the vertical space but

not take up horizontal space...



--

Harbs

http://www.in-tools.com

16 paragraph styles or more is simpler? You're crazy! ;-)

Just to clarify terminology: Above line objects are what I call anchored

objects, are they not?

Not using based on.



Bob

.and it's necessary to disable ''skip by leading'' in Preferences if a

half-line gap is necessary.

Using based on is very difficult to keep track of. One lapse of attention in

changing a para style and you've changed your whole document, possibly

without noticing until it's too late (think keeps, H%26amp;J)

Actually, I'm not seeing how it would even work with based on.

Say I've got 8 paragraph styles. Sometimes anyone of these needs a blank

line or half-line above. I would still need to create 16 new styles.

I had Text Wrap %26gt; Skip by Leading turned on in Preferences. Now it works.



Great idea, Harbs!



--

Kenneth Benson

Pegasus Type, Inc.

www.pegtype.com

%26gt; Ken, I skipped from CS2 to CS4. Maybe I missed something in CS3 that might

%26gt; help?

%26gt;

Nope. But Harbs idea should work in CS2.



--

Kenneth Benson

Pegasus Type, Inc.

www.pegtype.com

Yes. Harbs idea is simpler than mine, because you don't have to fiddle with

textwrap settings.



So to summarize:

1. disable Skip by leading in preferences.

2. make sure the text frame you're working in has ''First Baseline'' set to

exact or leading.

2. create a line the length of the gap you wish.

3. cut and paste it at the beginning of the paragraph above which a gap

should appear.

4. Set it to an ''above line'' anchored object (or better, create an object

style to do this at a keystroke)



(If at some stage the leading changes, with CS4 you can do a search and

replace for the length of the line.)



I think that's pratical enough to be useable.



Here's a quote from ''The Complete Manual of Typography'' by James Felici,

published by Adobe Press:



''Dedicated typesetting systems typically had a command that let you add a

vertical space band of whatever width werever you wanted. Such a space band

was an independent entity, not tied to any paragraph. The software

recoginized it as a role-playing spacing element, and when that role wasn't

required-[as at the beginning of a page]-it would ignore the vrtical space

band. Unfortunately, this facility has yet to find its way into popular

desktop systems.''



But at least there's a workaround....



Thanks,

Ariel

Kenneth_Benson@adobeforums.com wrote:

%26gt; Great idea, Harbs!

%26gt;



Thanks.



I had inline graphics on my mind after making a complete fool of myself

on the Lassosoft list earlier this week... ;)



--

Harbs

http://www.in-tools.com

we've found the need for the same thing.. this is what we did! we created a small frame the width of a column and applied the ''Jump Object'' settings to it in text wrap, then i saved it to our library so we can insert it were ever we want to nudge or space between text or paragraphs.. you could make several and label them in the library for the spacing you need ''half line, full line, etc.''.. nice thing is if i need more or less space it's as simple as grabing the bottom edge of the frame and moving up or down.. i'm sure you can tweak the settings to make it more suited to your needs but this has been a quick lifesaver for us! as well with jump object set you could just draw a new frame were its needed when it's needed.. No styles to deal with! and it doesn't seem to have any negative affects that we've noticed..

~hope it helps..

Hi Ariel,



Wow. I think it'd be far easier to either a.) set a paragraph rule above with a stroke of ''none'' and Keep In Frame turned on, or b.) apply a character style with a leading value equal to the leading + space above to the first character in the paragraph. Either one could be made part of a style variant for the heading, and either one has to be easier than using an inline/anchored frame. It would be even easier to script the application/removal of this extra space.



re: ''Dedicated typesetting systems typically had a command that let you add a vertical space band of whatever width werever you wanted. Such a space band was an independent entity, not tied to any paragraph. The software recoginized it as a role-playing spacing element, and when that role wasn't required-[as at the beginning of a page]-it would ignore the vertical space band. Unfortunately, this facility has yet to find its way into popular desktop systems.''



Er, that's exactly how InDesign handles Space Before, except in that it's associated with a paragraph.



Thanks,



Ole

Personally, I don't see the need for this at all. What's the difference if you go in manually and add space before to a selected paragraph if you know you'll always want it except at the top of a column or go through all of this rigmarole to do the same thing by adding a new element?



Ariel says he doesn't want a local override, but it seems to me that what he's doing amounts to the same thing, only harder to find and remove if the occasion should arise, and space before is VERY fast and easy to add.



Peter

The 'invisible rule set to keep in frame' approach is an excellent way of adding space that applies only at the top of a frame, or of forcing InDesign to respect the space before of a paragraph style even when it does appear at the top of a column (by matching the position of the rule to the top of the desired space before).



Dave

Oh. I've just reread Ariel's opening request and he seems to want exactly what space before already does.



Color me confused or jetlagged.



Dave

''Using based on is very difficult to keep track of. One lapse of attention in changing a para style and you've changed your whole document, possibly without noticing until it's too late (think keeps, H%26amp;J)''



Just keep all the styles that are based on each other together in individual folders. I probably had over 50 styles in my last document, but they're organized into about 15 folders. Makes it easy to see what's changing. The alternative sounds more difficult to me, though I plan to use that invisible rule idea to add space at the top of a column for where the space-before doesn't work (good idea for that -- I sometimes encounter that as a problem).



Thanks, Phyllis

I have long wished there would be an option to have the paragraph style

panel viewed as a tree view where you could see which styles were based

on what. I suppose you could use folders, but it can be a little messy

if you have many based ons, for example:



Style 10 based on 9, 9 based on 8, 8 based on 7, etc. You would have one

folder for each style.



A tree view would allow you to see it without actually having to ''do''

anything (IOW, it would just be a view instead of actually moving styles

into folders).

I think a tree view would be great. Have you filed a feature request?



Peter