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Actually, I love the idea of having the same-named style in more than one group/folder. For example, a newspaper might have a “heading1” style in a folder called “Business Pages” and another in a folder called “Front Page”. The two heading1 styles could be totally different, but be in the same template.
That said, here’s the biggest problem I’ve encountered with style groups: They get totally messed up if you export your story as RTF. For example, if you need to send someone an RTF version of a story to edit. When you get the story back and reimport it, your styles are completely screwed up because the RTF export filter names them one way but the RTF import filter doesn’t understand what to do with that naming. (The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand did…)
Grrr….
Style Groups are good, but yes: Potentially Evil!
I haven’t used this yet mainly because I don’t normally work on documents that have that many styles, but how would that work with quick apply?
Would it show you which group the same named styles are in?
David, I’m surprised…RTF? You gotta get these folks using InCopy. :)
Oh yes, I agree with you, Bob. InCopy is the way to go. But let’s be realistic: RTF is still king in much of the world, and it’s an embarassing oversight that Adobe didn’t fix their RTF/Word filters to match this feature.
Yes, Quick Apply does show both instances of the style, with the style group name in parentheses.
I like having the style groups. Especially working on magazines, the magazine I work on is very structured. We used to get it done externally, but since InDesign was bought we’ve been doing it internally. When I opened the magazine to work on it, I noticed that the same styles were used in different parts of the magazine. If I changed the style, then there’s a change I don’t need on a different section of the magazine about 60+ pages down, how would I notice this change? So I grouped all the sections of the magazine and structured my styles as the structure of the sections of the magazine. So now, when I’m working on one section of the magazine, I can have just one group of styles that pertain to that section of the magazine and it doesn’t interfere with any other style that I might be using. If only this could be done with swatches too??? The only problem I have with it though is that the import RTF doesn’t function as well, you can’t save your preset and use it again for importing, as it doesn’t recognise the group that you want to use. I don’t think there is a way around that?
OK, how about this situation.
I’m working with two docs, one the previous version of my book and the other the current one. I’ve put para styles into groups in the current version, but not the previous version.
When I copy/paste items from one book into the other, the styles become duplicates because the previous version doesn’t have the style grouping.
But there is no warning or alert as to what it happening.
Can you synch the old file with old styles to the new file with the new style and groups? What I’m asking is, if InDesign would group your old styles as per your new file?
No, you’re absolutely right, Sandee: Style Groups is only half-baked. They didn’t really think it through properly. It’s a quite adequate implementation, but certainly not a great one. That’s why I like the name of your post. It is good AND potentially evil.
A huge problem (in my scripter’s mind) is that they have not reserved a character to be a separator in the public name of styles (e.g., the name that goes to RTF). They’re using the colon character to serve that purpose, but you can have colons in style names — result: ambiguity. So, you can’t even script your way out of this particular paper bag.
Dave
> So, you can?t even script your way out of this particular paper bag.
And if you can’t fix it with a script, that’s really evil!
I haven’t used that feature yet, but wondered if it might get confusing.
I sure would have liked ?Layer Groups? though? without having to buy a third party plugin I mean.
The good thing is: the use is optional.
I currently work on a book with about 20-30 styles and simply LOVE this feature.
All the problems (except the scripting one) become less daunting when you understand that the folder is part of the name. Moving a style is exacly the same as renaming it. So the style “Text” in the folder “Main” is actually “Main:Text” but with a nicer UI.
Understand that and you shouldn’t see too many surprises…
At least I haven’t.
But Gerald, I can create a style named Main:Text at the top level. It’s not just a scripting problem; it’s a built-in ambiguity.
Dave
But Dave, now you have the choice. You can group if you like, but you don’t have to.
My only foray into style groups resulted in breaking 31 mappings for the XML that I import for the calendar section of my newspaper. That was enough to make me pretty skittish. Caveat styleor.
So what’s the thoughts on the latest InDesign CS3 vs XPress7 report?
titled “creativity, and efficiency in QuarkXPress and InDesign” from IT-Enquirer link https://www.sourcewire.com/releases/rel_display.php?relid=32315&hilite=
I have not used Quark after 6.5, so is this true?
There was a free plug in for IDCS2 called “Style Flocker” that let you arrange your para & chara styles into groups. It was quite handy. I’ve yet to make the CS3 upgrade.
Sadly it appears it’s not fixed in CS4. See:
https://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b714b4/3