Comments on: Disappearing Paragraph Rules: A Mystery

By: Megan Strickland

Megan Strickland — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:23:51 +0000

I could not for the LIFE of me figure out why my paragraph rules were disappearing. Mystery solved! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

By: Ami Ohayon

Ami Ohayon — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:46:47 +0000

Very useful to know how to avoid that indent problem.

I agree with the other commentators who’ve pointed out how valuable it is to use paragraph styles as often, and wherever, you can.

Particularly when you’re working on a long document, it can take a task that would mean hours of work, and reduce it to minutes.

By: Andrew Herzog

Andrew Herzog — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:47:29 +0000

I have used the Rule above and Below feature to build the following things, all with just styles.

Boxes around single lines (headings) of text or boxes around multiple paragraphs of text if each paragraph is one line.

Vertical rules down either side of text or I guess you could put it anywhere in the middle.

Simply applying the style adds the boxes/rules and they go with the text, no need to anchor anything.

By: Ben Leivian

Ben Leivian — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:18:59 +0000

Paste contents of clipboard in Find/Change?!? WOW Thanks Sandee!

By: Terri Stone

Terri Stone — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 15:43:26 +0000

So THAT’s what was going on with that Rule Above. Thanks, David!

By: vectorbabe

vectorbabe — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:53:01 +0000

Yes!!!

Anytime you can make a graphic element part of a paragraph style, you are way ahead of the game.

However, I do want to mention that ID CS3’s new Find/Change command to “paste contents of clipboard” does make it much easier to add anchored objects to text.

But that will never be as wonderful as an automatic paragraph style.

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 13:31:55 +0000

No, it’s not useless trickery at all. Perhaps I should have used a more useful example, but the underlying technique is extremly useful. Perhaps I should have just come clean and showed the true example, which comes from the author bios in InDesign Magazine,, each of which is preceeded with a small red square. The square is built with the rule above.

There’s no doubt that the red square (or circle or whatever) could be created using other techniques (such as an anchored object), but as a Rule Above, we can make it part of a paragraph style definition! One click and the paragraph is styled and the red square appears. It works great (as long as there’s no pesky text wrap.)

By: Uncle Tom

Uncle Tom — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 03:23:15 +0000

In response to the big red circle, merrily floating above the text – ist’t that, that a useless trickery (kind of – I-can-scratch-my-left-ear-with-my-right-foot thing) prevents you from using the program in a far more creative way? The final output is – of course – a piece of paper, and no one would waste the time to think how was the red ball created, unless it’s a mind-bogglingly cool design (in our particular case it isn’t, however…).