• Adobe InDesign

  I’m looking for a way to automate coloring text.

  Posted by Tal Amiram on July 23, 2011 at 12:22 am

  I have a long list of around 7,000 names,
  I’m looking for an automated way to color them in alternating
  colors.

  for example:
  Every other name is Grey, and every third name is Yellow.

  I got pretty close with converting the text (list) into a table, however I was only able to control the table-cell fills and table-cell strokes. One can automatically alternate their fill and stroke.

  I searched all over and I couldn’t figure out a way to automatically control the text inside the cells.

  Tables, GREP, an External script perhaps?

  Any and all answers/ideas/suggestions are greatly appreciated.
  Thanks in advance

  Kelly Johnson replied 15 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Kelly Johnson

  August 4, 2011 at 8:33 pm

  What format is the list in? Can you use XML to apply a tag that could be read inside InDesign upon import and then colored?

  Maybe there’s an idea there…. use something else to format that list via XML or other then set up rules in InDesign to format.

  Another more painful way is to maybe think about setting up 5 or so text boxes sized to house only one name and styled w/different colors then flow copy between them. Then, you could have a copy/paste party…

  Just some ghetto ideas there… there’s probably a more elegant scripting way but I’ll have to look around as it’s been some time since I’ve used InDesign “(!)”

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