Creating side heads?

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

I'm laying out a book in ID CS. The design calls for a running 1" side-head area to the left of the main content area.

I searched in vain for a side-head feature similar to FrameMaker's, where you simply select a "Side Head" checkbox in that master's properties and indicate how wide you want the side-head to be. (ID is newer than FM, right? So it has more features, not fewer, right...?)

After mucking about in documentation, I found this in one of Adobe's PDFs on the Web:

Creating hanging side heads in InDesign





(1) Create a hanging indent: In the body text, set a left indent the width
of the "companion column" you want to the left of the paragraph; then
set a negative first-line indent equal to the width of the left indent
you just set. Place a tab stop at the left indent.





(2) Enter a tab character before the first character of the paragraph.
This pushes the text to the left indent.





(3) Paste a text frame before the tab character you just entered. Adjust
the position of the inline text frame using the direct-selection tool.





(4) Format the heading as desired and readjust the frame's position as
necessary.




Er... excuse me? I must do that each time I need to make a side head? This book is full of side heads---they're a basic part of its style. And that is not unusual.

Puleeeze tell me there's an easier way!

[Steve_Werner@adobeforums.com]

If you're expecting that InDesign has all the long document features of Framemaker, you'll inevitably be disappointed! It doesn't have a sidehead feature in the current version (except for the workaround that you've read). There are many other long document features it does not have yet either (footnoting, for example). I would say that it's likely that eventually over the next few versions those features will be added but don't expect that it will happen all at once.

I suggest that you post your request in the Feature Request section.

[Stu_Bloom@adobeforums.com]

Using InDesign for books or technical documents is a bit like using a claw hammer as a screwdriver. With great effort it can be done, but it'd clearly not the best tool for the job.

InDesign thus far has been aimed squarely at taking the newspaper/magazine/newsletter market away from Quark, not at cannibalizing sales of FrameMaker.

Maybe some day -- but then again, maybe not.

[Dominic_Hurley@adobeforums.com]

So, how do you use a claw hammer as a screwdriver?

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the fast replies. (I don't know if any of you actually work for Adobe, or if you're all just enthusiastic ID users, but it's impressive.)

I was a happy Frame user, and would be still if my main clients hadn't worried that, should I be hit by a truck, they'd be stuck with documents in a format that wasn't "industry standard." Their printer had informed them that "industry standard" meant QuarkXPress. After about 10 minutes looking at user forums, I knew I'd better talk them into ID instead---and that's what I did.

Well, I'm pretty happy so far. If this is the only major quark---er, quirk---that's not so bad.

Does anyone know of a third-party tool that can create side heads more quickly, until Adobe decides that side heads are relatively common here in the 21st century?

P.S.: Heh---"QuarkXPress" isn't in the online spell-checker. Adobe must be confident that the term will soon fade from people's vocabularies. :?)

[Bob_Levine]

Another workaround would be to simply use a 2-column table. And a nested
style could also work.

Bob

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

Bob: Tables had occurred to me, but it seemed like it'd just invite more problems and time-consumption. Nested styles, though---that'd be swell. If you have a moment, do you think you could give me a clue how to do that? (I've used nested styles for such things as adding an initial character style to a paragraph.) Thanks!

I can't help wondering: FrameMaker is not a ubiquitous app. (I'm in the writing and d/p business, and I'd never heard of FrameMaker till I started doing some technical writing as well as my normal copywriting and PageMaker design. So what do most people use for "long documents" (i.e. books)? QuarkXPress? Does QXP make you manually create side heads, too?

If not, and if InDesign was engineered to be a Quark-killer, why would Adobe omit such a prominent "long document" feature?

And if InDesign wasn't designed to handle books, why does it have other book-oriented features, such as the ability to combine sectional files into, well, books? (Er, sorry---"long documents.")

[Stu_Bloom@adobeforums.com]

if InDesign was engineered to be a Quark-killer, why would Adobe omit
such a prominent "long document" feature?




Because the big money is in magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and ad layout.

why does it have other book-oriented features




Because they look good on a feature list. An Adobe developer in another forum long ago admitted that marketing drives new features, not genuine user needs. (That's not exactly how she put it, but that's what she said.)

[Stu_Bloom@adobeforums.com]

how do you use a claw hammer as a screwdriver?




Awkwardly and occasionally painfully

[Dominic_Hurley@adobeforums.com]

Does QXP make you manually create side heads, too?

Yes, as far as I'm aware, but there is an extensive (and very expensive) plugin for Mac Xpress (Autopage) that has many book features, including, I'm sure, sideheads. Otherwise, FrameMaker or Ventura are the best tools for long documents.

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

Stu > how do you use a claw hammer as a screwdriver?




Don't know---but the Bush administration has been doing it to the American people, so it must be possible. :?D

Andy> If InDesign was engineered to be a Quark-killer, why would Adobe
omit such a prominent "long document" feature?





Stu> Because the big money is in magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and
ad layout.




No doubt that's because people's attention spans have been engineered to be progressively shorter and shorter, to keep them craving novelty and buying more stuff. (I read a book about that.)

[Brian_Smithson@adobeforums.com]

> So what do most people use for "long documents" (i.e. books)?

Corel Ventura!

Brian

[Philo_Calhoun@adobeforums.com]

For better or for worse, FM is still the most used relatively inexpensive solution. Corel Ventura has lots of features, but less stability. At the high end are LaTeX/TeX solutions.

For graphic intensive long documents, InDesign and Quark do in fact work. But add cross refs, conditonal text, equations, footnotes, varieties of inline graphics, lists, numbering, etc. and you are looking at a painful proces in Quark or InDesign.

[Dominic_Hurley@adobeforums.com]

But add cross refs, conditonal text, equations, footnotes, varieties of inline graphics, lists, numbering, etc. and you are looking at a painful process in Quark or InDesign.

Have you tried the AutoPage plugin for XPress? I haven't, but I've read the promo literature and it looks like all these things would be a breeze in XPress using it. It also offers features not seen in Ventura or FM. If only they did the same plugin for ID.

[Kevin Gibson]

Hi All,

I'm a long time ID user that now works in Frame and haven't worked
with ID for quite some time (1 year) however I think this may help...
Sorry if I've missed the point.

In IDCS you can create nested styles, meaning that you can nest a
character style into your para style. So if your para style is defined
as lets say "10 pt Univers" and your char style called "Side-Head" is
"12 pt Univers Bold" then this might work. Basically, you can define
most of the para attributes using a style called say "Heading 1".

The attributes of "Heading 1" will contain a tab character set to "1
inch" with a "Left Indent" of "1 inch" and a"First Line Indent" of "-1
inch". You will also set the type style to be "Univers 10 pt". Next
create a "Character Style" called "Side Head" that has the attributes
of "Univers 10 pt Bold".

Now, "double-click" the "Heading 1" style in the para catalogue and
click on the "Drop Caps and Nested Styles" option. Within this
dialogue box, choose the following:

1. Click the first column and select your "char style" called "Side
Head".
2. Click the second column and select the "through" option
3. Click the third column and enter "1" in the text field
4. Click in the fourth column and select the "Tab Characters" option.

Now anytime you wish to enter a "Header" where your "Side Head"
appears at the "left margin" and your "content" appears "1 inch" from
the "Header" just press the tab key and start typing.

Now on the other hand, if you are importing content from Word or
something, then you will need to apply the "Heading 1 Style" to the
entire para. Hopefully, the author has included the tab already, if
not you will need to insert a tab between the "Header" text and your
para text...

As I said, I don't know Frame that well so I may be missing the point
of what you want to do, but otherwise this might work.

I have included some files for you to download from my website:
[url]http://www.kevin-gibson.ca/side_heads.html[/url]. Just right-click and
download each file. Then download the Word file into ID, then follow
the instructions. Again I'm sorry if this is totally not what you
wanted.

K

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

I ended up using tables for my "side heads." It wasn't as bad as I thought. I just had to be sure to format the table's last text line, and the text line that followed, to produce the same leading as normal text. (Once I'd done it with one table, I could just copy and paste the table elsewhere.)

Sure, it's a kludge, but this method was easier than learning true side-headery in FrameMaker. Whee.

Philo Calhoun> But add cross refs, conditional text, equations, footnotes,
varieties of inline graphics, lists, numbering, etc. and you are looking
at a painful process in Quark or InDesign...




Ack---wait a minute! Are you telling me InDesign doesn't have a simple cross-reference feature? You know, where you insert a marker, give it a name, then that name appears in a list of markers you can reference?

The project I'm working on is full of "(see page n's)". I assumed that because ID supported index topics, cross-references would be a cinch. But no? Guess I'd better ask y'all for a clue as to how to do it. [girding self for pain]

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

Yikes---one must resort to third-party plug-ins to refer to another page in ID? I just found this (at <http://www.virginiasystems.com)>:

Cross-Reference Generators





Imedding page number references in your document is a snap with Virginia
Systems' cross-reference generators for both Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress...
No more worrying that page references in your document (like "see figure
6 on page 92") are wrong after pages are inserted, deleted or edited!




And it's only $200---a mere third of the price of InDesign. Such a deal! I'm sure my clients will be glad to cough it up. :?P

Please, someone tell me there's a native way to do this simple thing.

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

Now I'm really confused. I've found several reviews that confirm that ID CS can't do cross-references. And yet, Adobe's own ID CS marketing material says it can do them.

I'm starting a new thread on this.

[oliver_metson@adobeforums.com]

I just ran into the same side-head requirement (and thank you for posting the work around AF!) for a short report.

I was wondering what would be considered a long document as I intend to use InDesign for business reports/proposals and so on up to about 120 pages or so: is ID the right software? Or should I start learning/using FrameMaker?

tx

-OM