calling all InDesign studs!

[AgentFitz]

what's up fellas I'm working in InDesign CS2 and I have a question about auto-numbering.

I'm familiar w/ the auto-page numbering function, and it's great, yada yada yada. buuuuuuut I'm working on a LONG technical installation manual and each page features 6 numbered "frames" [see image]

http://www.verseonedesign.com/images/install_sample.gif

so my boss wants to add and rearrange the sections in this manual and it's gonna take me years to renumber every single frame manually! there's gotta be a way that Indesign does this automatically, since it does have the "auto-page number" feature. right? right!? :)

[jimhere]

You mean there are six numbered images per numbered page? And this happens several times?

[simplistik]

So what you have is a page, and on that page 6 image frames, and those images frames have 6 numbers? What you want it to be able to do is once you move it to a page auto detect what it's position is in a string of images, and then number it accordingly? If so... no you can't do that, nor would it make sense. These are directions that go in a sequential order so I don't understand why it matters what page they are one, and how the numbers would be affected. Since they aren't relative to the pages, only their sequence.

Auto page number is for pages... nothing else ;P

[AgentFitz]

yeah...but it'd be dope if you could thread the items and have them linked together...you know like text frames, except auto-numbering.

damn, Indesign slackin' on it's pimpin' these days.....like the lack of table styles! what's up w/ that??

[punkerton]

couldn't you leave the numbered frames where they are on a locked or master layer and just move the content in and out of the frames? if there are always six frames to a page i see no reason to move the numbers around.

hmmm, or do the numbers need to change around alot? well you could have master pages of 1-6 then 7-12 and so on and just use the approriate master.

[simplistik]

yeah...but it'd be dope if you could thread the items and have them linked together...you know like text frames, except auto-numbering.
No program has ever done that... html/php ish things can but that's in coding. If you felt like writing a little AS, or JS script for IDCS2, you can make it detect the position of each frame on a page and then depending on it's x and y relative to the next frame it'll number it appropriately. :D



damn, Indesign slackin' on it's pimpin' these days.....like the lack of table styles! what's up w/ that??
What do you mean lack of table styles?

[AgentFitz]

What do you mean lack of table styles?

I mean, when you style a table - ie change the padding, color of cells, cell stroke weights, border stroke weight, etc. - it would be nice if you could save a "table style" so that you could apply the same style settings to a number of other tables with one click (like a paragraph or character style) rather than having to re-apply the styles manually to each table.

as far as the scripting...I ain't thaaaaaaaaaaat nice man - not yet anyway! :)

[simplistik]

I mean, when you style a table - ie change the padding, color of cells, cell stroke weights, border stroke weight, etc. - it would be nice if you could save a "table style" so that you could apply the same style settings to a number of other tables with one click (like a paragraph or character style) rather than having to re-apply the styles manually to each table.

as far as the scripting...I ain't thaaaaaaaaaaat nice man - not yet anyway! :)
Oh... well... not w/o a plugin but it can be done :D. There is a table formatting plugin for InDesign that saves styles and lets you reuse them. I got this email newsletter the other day promoting this software: http://www.teacupsoftware.com

As for the scripting... doesn't matter to me if you're nice or not, I was just givin you the solution to your problems ;)

[AgentFitz]

couldn't you leave the numbered frames where they are on a locked or master layer and just move the content in and out of the frames? if there are always six frames to a page i see no reason to move the numbers around.

hmmm, or do the numbers need to change around alot? well you could have master pages of 1-6 then 7-12 and so on and just use the approriate master.

Hmm...well that wouldn't allow them to update dynamically. say you have 70 pages, some with 6 frames, some with 4, some with 5 - or all with 6, whatever.

And then you're on page 62 and your boss says, "ok tiger, I need you to add this additional frame back on page 14 because we want to show a little more detail here..."

so when you add that additional frame, all the frames after that point are one off and you need to go through and re-number each of them, rather than having them update dynamically. that's the prob

[AgentFitz]

As for the scripting... doesn't matter to me if you're nice or not, I was just givin you the solution to your problems

True that -- thanks for lookin' out

[punkerton]

And then you're on page 62 and your boss says, "ok tiger, I need you to add this additional frame back on page 14 because we want to show a little more detail here..."


i see. that's what i was afraid of. i hate when they do that.