Comments on: Creating a Reverse Indent

By: Old Jeremy

Old Jeremy — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:33:38 +0000

“I have tried to find a way to have the background shading as part of a paragraph style (ala MSWord), but alas.”

I wonder what MS Word is able to do beyond what Fritz described in the post linked below, used in conjunction with the first method above?

http://indesignsecrets.com/highlighting-an-entire-paragraph-with-color.php

By: Mike Perry

Mike Perry — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:28:20 +0000

I agree with Damlan: “I have tried to find a way to have the background shading as part of a paragraph style (ala MSWord), but alas.”

There’s not much I like about Word, but its ability to shade paragraphs or place borders around paragraphs and pages is absolutely marvelous. Word can even handle page breaks inside a paragraph with finesse and the user interface for those features could hardly be better.

Adobe should copy Word’s Borders and Shading feature set virtually verbatim. Matching Word feature for feature would make importing that sort of formatting easy and flawless.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:34:49 +0000

Thanks for the help guys. I’ve really enjoyed your video tutorials. I used Quark a little, maybe eight years ago but this is my first InDesign project (yikes!) and I’ve learned everything I needed to know in a couple days from watching your videos.

I played around a little with the “indent-everything” method but some of the text I wanted to extend began in the middle of one line and ended in the middle of another and I wanted just the bold half of the line to extend beyond the rest of the paragraph (along with a few of the following lines). So I used a combination of your suggestions and manually expanding the text frame to the width I wanted the bolded text to reach and added clear boxes with text-wraps to push the rest of the paragraph back to the original width… not a terribly efficient method but it got the job done.

Thanks again for all your help.

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:44:09 +0000

Great overview of the options, Fritz! Thanks.

@OldJeremy, yes you are correct — the rest of the paragraphs don’t have to be indented in either the Table or the Anchored versions.

By: Eugene

Eugene — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:06:01 +0000

The anchored object and the table cell option wouldn’t allow the paragraph to break over pages. Which could be problematic if you get to a large call out that was say a 1/4 or 1/3 or 1/2 the page, then you’d be left with the relative size gap, which wouldn’t be needed.

The indent all paragraphs except the callout is probably the best option to give flexibility in typesetting.

By: Old Jeremy

Old Jeremy — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:10:24 +0000

In the final picture, which shows the anchored object extruding to the left, the remaining text is indented. That’s a bit of extraneous “noise”, isn’t it?

By: Damian

Damian — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:02:59 +0000

I have often used anchored objects to outdent as many designs requires some sort of background shading. It becomes a real pain when outdented features have to break across a page. You have to find a good place to split the text, then create another box on the next page. Then do it all again when/if the text reflows.

I have tried to find a way to have the background shading as part of a paragraph style (ala MSWord), but alas.

Many thanks for a wonderful resource.

Cheers
Damian

By: Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:55:52 +0000

Interesting!

Couple fine points: Table boundaries can exceed either side of the column; they’re completely dependent on the paragraph setting that they live in. For example, make the paragraph containing the table cell center aligned and the cell will flop over both edges evenly.

I’m a big fan of the anchored object approach. But since I usually put them in their own paragraph with auto leading (and space above/below) then there’s no need for text wrap.

I can definitely see why Dave and Steve think the “indent everything else” is best, but if you’re positive your outdented paragraphs would never break columns or pages (e.g., pull quotes .. you’d always want that intact, no?) then anchored objects are the way to go… especially if you use the Object Style approach.

I hate having to deal with a fake indent on everything just to make a few outdented paragraphs work.

By: Steve Werner

Steve Werner — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:43:32 +0000

I’m with Dave. I’d go with what’s simple. Since you’re applying paragraphs with styles anyway, it’s easy to use the “indent everything else” method. And if you use “Based On” styles, you only need to put the indent in the parent style.

By: Dave Saunders

Dave Saunders — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:46:56 +0000

Another thing the indent everything else solution has going for it is the behavior at column boundaries. Both the table and the anchored object approaches will cause problems at those boundaries. The table will pop to the next page. The anchored object will either stick out of the bottom of the column or slide back up into the column overwriting the previous text.

Dave