Lesson C: Clean Up the Formatting

Whenever possible, I try to use Find/Change to help me format text. This is no exception. We have bolds and italics that aren’t yet protected by character styles. We will find those and apply the correct styles to them, then clear the remaining overrides. After that, a couple more searches will allow us to format the rest.

Find/Change to the Rescue

• Summon the Find/Change dialog with ⌘-F/Ctrl-F. Check the scope of the search in the menu labeled Search. In this exercise we can use Document or Story.

Be careful if you highlight any text because that often changes the scope of the search to only the highlighted text!

• Click in the rectangle below the words Find Format. The Find Format Settings dialog box opens.
• Since we are looking for text that does not yet have a character style applied, but is italicized, go to the Basic Character Formats section of the Find Format Settings dialog. In the Font Style menu, choose Italic, then click OK.
• Click in the rectangle below the words Change Format. The Change Format Settings dialog box opens.

This time, we are choosing a style: the one we’re applying to italicized text to make sure it stays that way.

• In the Character Style menu of that dialog, choose my italic, then click OK.
• Click Change All. To confirm that something happened, insert the cursor in italicized text. The Character Styles panel should show you that the proper italic style is applied now.
• Use the small trash can icons to clear both the Find Format and Change Format fields.

Now we’re ready to do the same thing to bold text in the story.

• Click in the rectangle below the words Find Format. The Find Format Settings dialog opens.
• In the Basic Character Formats section choose Bold from the Font Style menu, then click OK.
• Click in the rectangle below the words Change Format. The Change Format Settings dialog box opens.
• Since text doesn’t have to be bold to catch the eye, in the Character Style menu of that dialog, choose just red then click OK.
• Click Change All. For the moment, text that was bold is now both bold and red. That will change shortly.

Now it’s time to clear out the other overrides that came over with the Word doc.

• Select all the text in the story; five clicks with the Type tool or ⌘-A/Ctrl-A will do that. At the bottom of the Paragraph Styles panel, click the Clear Overrides button:

• In this story’s text, there are many extraneous paragraph returns. Go back to the Find/Change dialog and in the Query menu, choose Multiple Return to Single Return, then click Change All. You’ll find there were about 29 extra returns.

Note that this is a grep query. Another one is to follow.

• In the Query menu, choose Multiple Space to Single Space. This search text looks even more strange and daunting. Nonetheless, click Change All to get rid of over 50 useless spaces.

This preserves the good stuff and discards the rest. You may notice that this space-saving has removed a page or two in the Pages panel. That’s Smart Text Reflow at work. When we need more pages, and we will soon, they’ll be there. Now it’s time to apply the other styles.

• Just below the Query menu, click on Text to get back to more ordinary text searches.

Notice the markup in the text (e.g., “<h1>” ) that the writer inserted so we can locate and format headers and subheads.

• Make sure the previous format searches have been cleared (use the trash can icons).
• In the top Find what field, type “<h1>” (there are six instances of this in the text).
• Click in the rectangle below the words Change Format. The Change Format Settings dialog box opens.
• In the Paragraph Style menu of that dialog, choose topic header, then click OK.
• Click Change All. We now have six pages, one for each topic.

Each paragraph that begins with “<h1>” is now formatted correctly, so we no longer need that code. It’s easy to get rid of it:

• Leave the Find what field alone, but clear the Change Format field by clicking on its trash can icon.
• Click Change All.

Since there was nothing in the Change to nor the Change Format field, InDesign assumes you are replacing text with literally nothing. Now for the subtopics.

• In the Find what field, type “<sub>” (notice that these are scattered about in the text).
• Click in the rectangle below the words Change Format.
• In the Paragraph Style menu of the Change Format Settings dialog, choose subtopic, then click OK.
• Click Change All.

Each paragraph that begins with “<sub>” is now formatted correctly. But we no longer need that code prefix, either:

• Leave the Find what field alone, but clear the Change Format field by clicking on its trash can icon.
• Click Change All.

Notice that the work we did on the master, like the vertical alignment to center (on the left) and to bottom (on the right), is apparent. If we forgot to do that earlier, we can go to the master now and apply those settings to those frames. Then, on each page that uses that master, the text will go where it’s supposed to.