How to Add a .75 pt Stroke Preset
March 20th, 2008John wrote:
Has anyone see a way to add more stroke size presets in InDesign? I have a huge project that uses .75 pt and 1.5 pt strokes like a zillion times. I don’t want to use a style sheet, I want to get into the “guts” of ID and add the 1.5 preset.
Well, up until the last line, the answer would have been “use an object style.” After all, that’s just what object styles are for, and it sounds like it would be perfecct for you. I’m not sure why you don’t want to use an object style, but I’ll just go with it and tell you the secret:
No, there is no way to add a preset stroke width that would appear in the Weight pop-up menu. At least, no way that I know of. But there is one way you can fake it.
From the Stroke panel flyout menu, choose Stroke Styles, then click New. In the Type pop-up menu, choose Stripe. Now drag one of the little black arrows on the left side away (to make it disappear), and drag the other black arrow up to 50%:
You’ve just created a custom stripe that is half the width of a normal stroke. Click OK a couple of times and try applying it to a path or frame. A 1-pt stroke set to this Half Width stroke style will be… .5 pts! Make it 3 pts, and you have your 1.5-pt thick stroke.
These strokes act a little differently than normal because they’re really just filling half the normal stroke area. But with a little practice and judicious use of the Align Stroke buttons in the Stroke panel, you can almost always achieve the effect you’re going for.
One notable caveat, however, is when you’re using arrowheads. In this case, they may appear slightly off-center. Here’s a circle “End” cap, which looks slightly off with the Half Width stroke:
Oh well… back to object styles!
I don’t want to use style sheets because I am constantly going to the stroke menu and choosing the .75 already, I just thought it much easier to have them both in there as if it came that way. I am using these strokes exclusively in tables.
Arrowheads’ off-centeredness can be fixed by centering the stroke style around the 50% mark.
Brian: Oh! Yes, that makes sense. Thanks for that. Don’t know where my brain was.
OK, I’ve not submitted any lunatic ideas lately, so it’s about time. Produce everything in your document 200% larger than the final printed size. Then you’ll have access to the 3pt stroke preset which will make for a fine 1.5pt stroke at 50% output.
Well, at least I win today’s Originality Prize, right?
I’d give in and do it with styles, but adding a keyboard shortcut(s) to apply them quicker.
Back in the old Quark days, there was a trick where you had to go into the actual Quark code and add whatever line weights you wanted and they showed in the line dialog. It’s been too long ago for me to remember the process but maybe someone does and I wonder if a similar process might work in ID.
Close to the same subject, why, when you click on the down arrow to change the line weight, does ID jump from 1 point to 0 point, skipping .5 and .25?
Peter, you can find & replace an INX file - but since john needs to apply 2 different styles it would make searching more awkward, I’m sure you could find some pattern to search.
If you’re using these exclusively in tables, John, wouldn’t it be faster to just create a cell style you could apply to full rows or columns that uses the 1.5 (or .75 rule, or both — one for vertical and the other for horizontal) as necessary?
Like a character style, with cell styles you don’t have to specify anything else, just the stroke width.
cell styles might work. I have some cells that need JUST the bottom line 1.5, the rest .75. Then others that have just the right edge 1.5. It depends. I’d have to make a zillion presets and it would end up being just a big a mess. That Quark trick is what I had in mind, I read that years ago. That’s the kind of thing I thought might be around in ID. Why ID skips the .75 and others when clicking makes no sense to me either. Those little nags add up on a 400 page document.
John I do a lot of works with tables where different strokes are needed at different weights.
I would use CTRL ALT for .75 pt line widths and use the addition of 8,4,6,2 for the different sides (as seen on the number pad).
Similarly I would use CTRL ALT SHIFT plus the numbers to apply the appropriate cell side.
You could use 7, 9, 1, 3 for top left, bottom left, bottom right.
And 5 could be for all sides.
It works surprisingly well, and the number pad is a great visual for when working with cell styles and the sides of cells.
How about just having a .75 point rule on the master page and using the eyedropper?
I still don’t really understand why an object style isnt want you want here. If you set-up an object style and use quick apply, does that make it happen quick and easy?