MoreInfo Improves Notes, Conditional Text, Tracked Changes and More

Much of my workflow involves obscure, little understood technical features of InDesign. Two of the features I use the most are Conditional Text and Notes. They were introduced many years ago and haven’t been improved since then. However, from time to time, independent developers decide to tackle some of the challenges faced by users of these obscure features. And for these developers I am extremely grateful! In this post I’d like to introduce you to a new commercial plug-in called MoreInfo by Kerntiff Publishing Systems. MoreInfo combines the information from several features and displays it all in one handy spot. With MoreInfo, you can see, well, more info, on conditional text, notes, tracked changes, overset text, and index entries.

MoreInfo Panel

Read the entire article at InDesign Secrets.

Help Make Adobe Products Better with UserVoice!

Recently, Adobe has totally changed the way it handles feature requests and bug reports. They used to seemingly go into a black hole at Adobe, never to be be spoken of again. Even on the pre-release forums they were difficult to find. The engineers would say that few people gave them feedback, and the users who did provide feedback complained that Adobe was ignoring them.

But good news! Adobe has now made the feature requests and bug reports open to the public! You can easily search through other people's feature requests, add comments, and VOTE!

Here is an example of a feature request. Notice that there is a comment from one of the Adobe engineers, who has assigned a status to the feature. Notice that there are also 13 comments, and 18 votes. Once you vote for a feature request, you are given the option to subscribe to the topic and be notified whenever there is a new comment on the topic.

So I've compiled links to the feature requests of my favorite InDesign features (which I personally think are extremely neglected). Would you please take a few moments and VOTE for this features?

I will update this list as I see more features that I'm really passionate about.

InDesign Notes

• Story Editor and Notes Panel font preference and display
• Add option To Find/Change dialog box to search within notes and conditional text
• Add Sticky Notes to Incopy like in Acrobat
• Get text corrections from Acrobat DC back into indesign (kinda like incopy does)
• Make InDesign be able to import/Export comments from/to PDF
• Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Sharing-Reviewing-Workflow

InDesign Conditional Text

• Add the Ability to turn off hover scrolling
• Add option To Find/Change dialog box to search within notes and conditional text
• Improved Find/Change with Conditional Text
• Allow manual reordering of Conditions
• Condition Sets: Show overrides when the set has a +
• Create the condition from a list of paragraphs/character styles
• Easier Conditional Text in Tables
• Make the color of the hidden conditional text indicator match the color assigned to the condition

Acrobat Commenting

• Customize Comment Pane
• Draw Shapes - add a no fill option
• Use the Drawing Tools to highlight objects
• Enable a keyboard shortcut to add a checkmark to a comment
• Right-click > Mark as Checked
• Provide option to customize keyboard shortcuts
• Comments and Annotations need marching ants
• Comment UI was better in former version
• Comment list takes too long to load
• Ability to undock the comments list
• Comments 'check boxes' saving/showing for other users viewing PDF file
• Auto refresh the sort by list when one of the properties changes
• Make sort by groups collapsed as the default behavior
• Add option to make comment pane open automatically if there are comments
• Comments pane window is too short and cuts off comments
• Make comment color in sidebar match the color of the comment

I love how Adobe is proactively seeking our feedback, and is providing a useful platform to do so. It is my understanding the David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion (from InDesign Secrets) pioneered the idea of using User Voice for InDesign feature requests.

Please consider visiting the InDesign UserVoice site where you become an active part of making InDesign better. You can also visit the Acrobat UserVoice site here.

Edit: 9-13-918

If you need an easier way to create and manage annotations in your PDFs, check out my article on Bluebeam Revu. It's an amazing program designed specifically to meet the needs of users in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction. Specifically, read about the Toolchest, where you can store annotations that you use frequently. Revu has done an amazing job of listening to their users and building a tool to meet their needs.

Create a Valentine's Day Pattern Using Conditional Text

Valentine's Day is coming up, and so for me it's time to take a break from the serious work in order to make a design full of fun and whimsy. Learn how to make this design using Conditional Text and a quirky little Rorohiko script.

Read the entire article at InDesign Secrets.

Making a Charlie Brown Shirt with Conditional Text

My love for conditional text goes deep. In my latest article, learn how you can use Conditional Text to make a charlie brown sweater. Read the entire article at InDesign Secrets.

Overcoming Limitations with Find/Change and Conditional Text

InDesign has a serious limitation with regard to Find/Change and Conditional text. Learn what the limitation is, and how to (sort of) work around it. Read the entire article at InDesign Secrets. http://indesignsecrets.com/limitations-findchange-in-conditional-text.php

Idea for a New and Improved Conditional Text Dialog Box

Conditional Text seems to me to be one of the most under-utilized features in InDesign. I think it would be used more if it was made easier to use. Here is my idea for how to redesign to Conditional Text panel as well as add additional functionality.

Read the entire article at InDesign Secrets.

http://indesignsecrets.com/idea-improved-conditional-text-dialog-box.php

Kelly’s Redesigned and Completely Imaginary New and Improved Conditional Options Dialog Box

Finally! Improved Conditional Text

Recently, I have been working with the great folks over at Rorohiko, and they have developed a robust solution to improve Conditional Text. Their plugin is called “Conditional Text Groups,” and offers several improvements over InDesign’s standard conditional text capabilities. I can't begin to describe how much I have wanted this plugin... and now it is here!

Read the entire article at InDesign Secrets.

InDesignSecrets Podcast 192

Some months ago, I had the opportunity to co-host the InDesign Secrets podcast. I dreamed of that day for about five years!

The episode was all about Conditional Text. I shared a bit about my Conditional Text workflow. At the bottom of the show notes is the answer to the Quizzler that David and Anne-Marie discussed in episodes 190 and 191.

I forgot to post this on my blog at the time it aired, but better late than never!

Indesign Secrets Podcast 192

Quizzler

Making a Chevron Pattern Within InDesign

This is a pattern I saw recently while in the stationary aisle at Target. I like this pattern because it reminds me of the brightly colored crocheted chevron afghans that my grandmother made when I was a child. We had a number of these afghans around our house growing up, and after learning how to crochet at age eight, some of my first projects were efforts to duplicate her handiwork. My early efforts were not as well crafted, but they were good practice for me as I learned to be diligent in improving my craft.

So, how to create a chevron pattern in InDesign? At first, it's not clear. Usually, when creating a pattern in InDesign, I use TeaCup PatternMaker. Other times, I'll use tables and apply interesting stroke styles to them. But to create a chevron pattern, neither one of those methods will work. But I eventually found a suitable method.

But first, let's explore why my standard go-to pattern creating methods won't work.

TeaCup PatternMaker has a pattern type called "Waves," but it is exactly that: wavy. It's a really nice pattern, and I even wrote an entire blog post about it. But in this case, I need my "waves" to have sharp points, not curved points.

The "Waves" pattern is neat because you can change the amplitude stroke weight, and angle. But...you can't specify sharp corners.

Another limitation of the Waves pattern (or any Teacup pattern) is that it must fill a graphic frame: you cannot apply Patterns to strokes. Nonetheless, the Waves pattern is pretty neat, and one of of favorite TeaCup patterns.

My second go-to pattern creating method involves tables and stroke styles. In a couple of instances, I've used the "Wavy" strokes style on a table. While the Wavy stroke style is great because you can (obviously) apply it to a stroke, you have virtually no control over how it is applied. You can't change the amplitude, wave length, number of waves... nothing. All you can do change the stroke weight.  There seems to be a fairly strict limitation on the shape of the wave, and the number of waves will change in order to keep the built-in wave shape relatively constant. Thinner strokes get more waves. Thicker strokes get fewer waves.

Now that we know why my first two ideas didn't work to give us the pattern we're after, let's talk about the method that will give us the pattern we're after.

But first, let's take a step back and look more closely at the image.

Do the blue wavy lines it remind you of anything in InDesign? No? Well, how about if the lines were red? Now do you see how it looks similar to the squiggly underline beneath a mispelled word?

So, we know that InDesign has the capability to create a chevron pattern, as demonstrated by the squiggly red underline of dynamic spelling. But we need to find a way to translate this chevron pattern into a printable, editable object. Now, I don't know of a way to print the dynamic spelling underlines (why would anyone want to? See note below...), But I do know of another feature in InDesign that also has a wavy underline. This feature is "Conditional Text."

In case you've never used Conditional Text before, it is a great feature. It's got to be among my top ten favorite InDesign features. Basically, conditional text let's you show and hide different bits of text. For example, if you are doing a textbook with both a teacher and a student version, you can use conditional text to hide the teacher's portion of the document (such as the answer key). You can also use conditional text to hide bits of text that perhaps you don't need right now, but might want to save for use later. But in this case, what's so cool about conditional text is that you can show AND print text indicators!

So, now we have a way to create a chevron pattern, and to also print it. So how to get a whole frame of these wavy conditional text indicators, but not have any text to get in the way and obstruct the pattern?

First, let's attempt removing the letters, while still having the conditional text indicator. The solution is a right-indent tab (Shift + Tab). Right indent tabs are neat because they are dynamic. However wide your text frame is, a right-indent tab will extend all the way to the right-most edge of the text frame.

Now, we need to get a whole bunch of these little conditional text indicators stacked on top of each other. You may think that we would simply add a bunch of paragraphs, and the tighten up the leading to zero. That will work, but it would be very difficult to edit. Plus, it limits you to one color of chevron. Instead, we simply need to make more Conditions. InDesign will by default, want to make them all different colors, so you'll have to change the colors one by one.

Because I want to replicate the chevron pattern I saw at the store, I'll make all my conditions Light Blue.

Now, select your text (which is just a right-indent tab), and apply all five conditions. You have a chevron pattern!

You can add as many new conditions as you want, apply them, and the little chevrons will just be added to the top of the stack.

If you want to change your chevron colors, simply double click on the Condition, and change the color.   Here, I changed all the odd conditions to Blue (as opposed to Light Blue). Note that the conditions at the top of the panel are actually displayed at the bottom in the text frame. The conditions are sorted alphanumerically (top to bottom) in the Conditional text panel and in the reverse order (bottom to top) in the text frame.

So now that we have a chevron pattern that will show and print, and it's the colors that we want, it's fully dynamic and will extend as high and as wide as we want it to... what if we want to edit it further? What if I wanted real live strokes instead of just conditional text indicators?

A few weeks ago, I heard about a new plug-in from Markzware that converts a PDF into an InDesign layout. There is another piece of software (PDF2ID) that's does something similar, but I haven't tried it. During the course of my experiments with chevrons, Markzware was calling for beta testers for their new plugin, so I leaped at the opportunity. I think the original intent of the plugin was to translate recognizable patterns in text formatting of PDF documents, and recreate that text formatting as InDesign character and paragraph styles. But the cool thing about the Markzware plugin is that it will allow you to OPEN a PDF and have live, editable vector objects right in InDesign. Wow!

So, I exported my chevron pattern as a PDF, and then converted it using the PDF2DTP plugin. Once it's converted, when you select all the blue lines, you'll see that they are now fully editable strokes (click on image to enlarge).

If I wanted to, I could further stylize these strokes. And you can see that I can now easily change the stroke width, the amplitude, the stroke height, the colors, and pretty much whatever I want to change about them. I now have a fully editable chevron pattern, created right within InDesign.

Author edit on 6-10-12: If you don't have a copy of PDF2DTP, you can still use this method to create a chevron pattern. Simply open your PDF in Illustrator. If you like, you can simply copy and paste the strokes from Illustrator back into InDesign. The PDF2DTP plugin is very neat, because it allows you to "open" PDFs and edit them without ever having to leave InDesign.

Author edit on 8-24-12 regarding dynamic spelling underlines: I found a plugin that will include dynamic spelling indicators when exporting to PDF.

Did you like this article? Then check out my article about Chevrons at Creative Pro. That article discusses how we see chevrons and the simplest way to create a chevron in Illustrator.

http://www.creativepro.com/article/seeing-patterns

How to See Hidden Conditional Text in InDesign, Without Making the Condition Visible

Have you ever wanted to know what's hiding in your conditional text? If you've ever tried to locate a string of text that is in a hidden condition, you'll be familiar with the following error message: "Cannot find match.

Why, you ask? According to the Adobe help file:

"Text in a hidden condition is always omitted from searching."

Lovely. Well, you figure, "maybe it will show up in the story editor, like notes do." But alas, no.

So how can you see what's hiding in that hidden conditional text?

Well, you could simply unhide all your conditions and then search for the bit of text that you want. But, what if you have a large number of of conditions, let's say 20 or 30 in one document? If the conditions aren't applied perfectly to your paragraph returns, then showing and hiding conditional text can really mess your paragraph styling. H1s can turn into body type, body type can be turned into headings, etc. And then you'd have to go back and fix it all.

So randomly showing and hiding all your hidden conditions may not be the best way to find out what's hiding behind that little conditional text indicator marker.

For the sake of this discussion, let's say you set up your conditions many months ago, and forgot the rationale behind your setup. Or, perhaps the conditions were set up by someone else entirely, and you've inherited the document.

I stumbled across an interesting discovery recently and I wanted to share it with you. It's obscure, but that's why I love it.

Edit 10-11-11: Please see note below for more recent (and better) understanding of how this feature works.

First, in "Normal" mode, select your hidden conditional text indicator marker. The easiest way to do this is to put your cursor near the marker, and then use your arrows keys till you get over to the marker. Then shift+arrow to select the marker. It will just look like a little sliver is selected.

 

Now, go back to the bottom of the toolbar and change your viewing mode from "Normal" to "Preview." I've usually find it easier to simply press the W key to switch back and forth, but since I've got text selected now,  pressing W would replace my hidden conditional text with a W. So, for the first time ever, I have a found a need to use the mouse to click on the view options button at the bottom of the toolbar.

Now, without deselecting the text, hover over the conditional text marker. Be patient. Sometimes the pop-up will show up right away, sometimes it takes a few seconds. You may need to try hovering over the top of bottom of the highlighted sliver. It's a little finicky. But be patient. Wait for it...

Please forgive the poor picture quality. Remember how I said this feature was finicky? Well, pressing any keystroke to take a picture made the little dialog box disappear. And waiting more than about eight seconds also made the dialog box disappear. So I had to quickly take a photo with my iPhone and then colorize it in Photoshop.

So you can't Find-Change hidden conditional text, but you can still find out what's behind it...if you're patient.

If you want to learn more about find-change with conditional text, check out this InDesign Secrets article: Find/Change with Conditional Text.

Edit on 10-11-11: After working with this feature for a few months, I finally figured out the logic to get the hidden conditional text to display in a pop-up. It turns out to have absolutely nothing to do with the Preview mode. The trick is that you need to have your text insertion point within the story frame containing the hidden conditional text. Then, hover over the hidden conditional text marker, and the yellow pop-up will appear.


Edit on 10-26-11: I recently discovered that you CAN see hidden conditional text within the Story Editor. It works similarly to seeing hidden conditional text in Layout view. All you have to do is hover your mouse over the hidden conditional text marker and you'll get a little yellow pop-up window displaying the text.

Edit on 8-23-18: A new plugin makes this much easier! It's called MoreInfo by Kerntiff Publishing Systems. It a panel that shows the contents of overset text, notes, index markers, track changes, and more! 

A new use for InDesign Notes: Sub Conditional Text!

For awhile now, I've been wanting a way to have multiple levels of conditional text. Let's say that when the main option is Option 1, I also have two color choices available: Blue triangle and yellow triangle. But neither Blue triangle nor Yellow Triangle is available for Option 2.

I have been using conditional text to turn on and off the appropriate main options. But for the additional sub-options, I have run into problems trying to find the best way to have them available within the text flow. Usually, I just put the extra graphic off to the side somewhere on the pasteboard. The problem with that is when the text reflows, that pasteboard graphic might be somewhere else, on another page's pasteboard, and I have to go looking for it.

So I thought about using a layered PSD file, and using Object  Layer Options to turn on and off the appropriate layers for Blue Triangle or Yellow Triangle. But I don't want to do that. I want an inline visual indicator (and layered PSDs don't offer that).

Today I figured out that by converting inline graphics to Notes, you can create your own quasi-sub-conditional text. InDesign conditional text only allows for either visible or invisible (not if/then). So if I have conditions (blue triangle and yellow triangle) that are dependent upon other conditions (Option 1) being visible, I need to be able to choose which one is showing when I make Option 1 visible in the Conditional Text panel.

Enter "Convert to Note." I've honestly never found this feature useful. But for this purpose, it will be quite handy. I can turn on the main conditional text, and then using "Convert to Note", I can keep both sub-options (Blue Triangle and Yellow Triangle) available as independent objects within the text flow. But they will only be available when Option 1 is visible.

For another great article about InDesign Notes, check out this one at InDesign Secrets.

Author edit: 9-14-13: The amazing team over at Rorohiko took on the challenge of subconditional text and developed a plugin specifically for this purpose. I wrote an article about it at InDesign Secrets: Finally! Improved Conditional Text