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Old 08-18-2005, 09:21 AM   #1
helene silverman
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Default InDesign style sheets

This seems to work very differently than Quark did. I can't understand why it often won't let me style text—it just stays the same with a plus. Actually the whole thing is a mystery to me. It seems that sometimes I get it to a point where I feel like I have to trash the whole file to get the style sheets to work. All kinds of crazy wrong things happen, like whatever style I apply it just applies the same wrong one to everything. Also my paragraph default is stuck on a certain setting so everytime I make a text box it has an indent etc already on it. Sorry for not being able to take the time to really learn this now, I'm just kind of frustrated and in a work crunch.

Thanks
Helene
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Old 08-18-2005, 10:14 AM   #2
Adrian
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Helene,

Have you investigated the difference between the Paragraph and Paragraph Styles palettes in the Type menu? The former should let you change only the paragraph you're working on.

Best wishes, Adrian
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Old 08-18-2005, 10:26 AM   #3
helene silverman
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Hi Adrian,

I do know that. I change it, then when I put a new empty text box down, it reverts to the indented version over and over again. Its just part of what I dont understand thats different than Quark.

Helene
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Old 08-18-2005, 10:33 AM   #4
lefkoff
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Try to option click the style sheet in the Style Sheets Palette. It will delete any other styling you have on that paragraph and use only what is defined in the style sheet that you have defined when you option click on it.

One thing that might help is start the Indesign program. Make sure no Indesign files are open. Now set everything the way you want it. This will create new defaults for the program.
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Old 08-18-2005, 10:44 AM   #5
helene silverman
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hi,

That sounds promising, I'll try it. I will also, when i have time, really learn what the #$%& its really all about ;-)
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Old 08-18-2005, 01:30 PM   #6
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If you are having more transition problems than just this, I suggest you get a copy of the Adobe Classroom in a book for your version of ID. I had used Quark and PageMaker for years, but found getting into ID was frustrating, until I got the book. I didn't work through all the exercises, but found I could skim a chapter and find out how to do what I needed.

A good investment, overall.

Don McCahill
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Old 08-18-2005, 01:40 PM   #7
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You might want to take a look at this thread as there are some other book suggestions there too...

Terrie
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Old 08-18-2005, 02:28 PM   #8
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Quote:
I will also, when i have time, really learn what the #$%& its really all about ;-)
And when you find out, let me know! <g>

I'm in the same boat -- trying to learn InDesign after years of Quarking.

I did learn the Option-click trick for applying paragraph styles recently (actually it's Alt-click for me since I'm on PC), and it's changed my life.

But I didn't change my basic paragraph defaults until just this minute, after reading this thread. <g>

It's been frustrating, because it takes me much longer to do a project in ID than it would in Quark, but I really have to get a grip on ID whether I like it or not. All the jobs I do for one of my clients need to be in ID, so I am very slowly learning. But I'm finding that I have a lot of trouble remembering how to do things even after I've learned them.

It wasn't a problem when I was younger!

mxh
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Old 08-18-2005, 04:28 PM   #9
Shane Stanley
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One of the biggest traps with InDesign is the way imports work. The key is to make sure that the default paragraph style and character style are not accidentally set to other than the "[No .... Style]" styles, otherwise the selected style is applied to all the imported text, and becomes a real pain to remove.

It's very easy to do accidentally; get into the habit of always clicking back on "[No .... Style]" after editing a style.

Shane
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Old 08-19-2005, 07:56 AM   #10
Eggles
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Other than Shane's suggestion, you might also be having a problem because you are bringing in text (from example, Word) that already has some sort of styles applied and they are conflicting with IDs. I have found that it is best to strip all formatting from Word documents first by saving it to a TXT format (in Word) and then applying all formatting using paragraph and character styles once it has been placed in in ID.
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