r/indesign • u/ThatsAllForToday • 1d ago
Final text checks
I use ID once a year (for a couple of months) on a project updating five different books. As I finish up each chapter I try and remember to do a search for double spaces, spaces before and after a paragraph, and spaces before and after a tab.
I was just going through this process on a chapter and found that I must not have done it last year as there were some errant leftover double spaces that weren't part of this years edits.
Is there a best practices process for these types of checks?
What similar things do you all look for?
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u/bliprock 1d ago
Have you tried GREP at all? Cos I’d use GREP for that
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u/ThatsAllForToday 1d ago
Are you suggesting a GREP Style in the Paragraph Style itself? I'll have to look into this.
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u/DrinkableReno 1d ago
I think they mean GREP find/replace. It's more accurate. There's pre-built drop-downs in Find and Replace for these searches. The script idea below is also what I was thinking.
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u/ThatsAllForToday 1d ago
Got it, thanks. I found the multi-space in the find replace drop down, that is another thing I've never explored.
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u/AdobeScripts 1d ago
You can either use sctipt I mentioned - or save your F&Cs as queries - number them and then execute in specific order.
This way you can set things up much easier - but you'll have to execute them manually.
Or, if you're on Windows - you could use free version of my ID-Tasker tool. It won't let you load more than 10x rules / commands per Task - but you can just load Tasks one by one and execute them. Then you can specify which Query you want to execute, in what order - and if you want to process whole Document, current Story or current selection only.
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u/ThatsAllForToday 1d ago
Thanks - funny enough I made the switch from Windows to Mac this year for my project or I'd give it a shot.
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u/ayayadae 1d ago
for some things like overset text and image resolution you can set up a preflight to make sure everything is all kosher from a technical standpoint.
for copy things i agree with the others that running a list of grep checks through find/replace would probably be the best.
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u/ThatsAllForToday 1d ago
Thank you - as I mentioned in one of the others, I didn't know about the pre-built find/replace drop down, so this will help.
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u/Boudyro 1d ago
Newspaper editor/layout guy here. I the text I pull into InDesign is already clean. I edit it and do all those mass find/changes in a word processor. I use Scrivener. The joke being I often will dump a piece with obnoxious formatting into ID first to mass-wipe most of it, then pull it back into Scrivener.
I dunno if that would be useful for your workflow or not. If you can't get the editors to do their job, then the script mentioned sounds like the best thing for ya.
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u/ThatsAllForToday 1d ago
My process, and I'm sure it is far from ideal, is I export each book and chapter to word and give it to the individual editors with tracking turned on so I can see each change. Some of the changes are minimal so it is (for me anyway) simpler to just retype in my ID file, and others that are more extensive where I copy/paste and reset the various styles.
I've not thought to do the clean up in the Word files prior to copy/paste, but maybe that is a try for next year.
No one involved is a "writer" and most just aren't careful with those extra bits, so it is up to me in the end as the final doer.
I do sometimes paste into a text editor first to get rid of the junk formatting.
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u/AdobeScripts 1d ago
You could use free script included with InDesign - FindChangeByList - you can put all your searches there - text and GREP - and then execute it with one click.