I used Fontographer in the very early days, and if I dig into my ancient software archive I will probably still find an original installer disk floating around somewhere, if I remember correctly it was bundled with on of the MacroMedia Studio software bundles?

If you’re an old Fontographer fan, hop onto the new Product Page to find out more…

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

This is the second in a series of four short GREP Style tutorials.

Part 1: Automatically apply a character style to all text between parentheses

Part 3: Converting text typed in Capital Letters to Small Caps (OpenType feature)

Part 4: Formatting price tags containing dollars and cents with multiple character styles

In this second tutorial we look at how we can use a GREP style to change the appearance of any figures within a paragraph style.

Task at hand

Task for this GREP Style is that it changes the formatting on any numerical characters (figures) throughout the Body Text paragraph style.

We’re starting the same way once again. By creating a Character Style that sets the formatting for the figures.

OpenType Fonts and Figures

As I’m using a Open Type font in this example (Minion Pro). I can use OpenType features for figure formatting. Kind of cool.

To create a Character Style that has my figure settings included, I start by highlighting a figure and from the Control Panel menu choose OpenType.

Any OpenType font features listed between square brackets [] are not available to the font. The last group of features are figure specific features: Tabular Lining, Proportional Oldstyle, Proportional Lining, Tabular Oldstyle and the default setting Default Figure Style.

There’s much more to OpenType then just being a cross-platform font. As these fonts are double byte fonts they can contain an expanded character set and provide cool typographical features.  Adobe Systems Inc. has a good OpenType Q&A page available as part of their Open Type ‘branch’ on their web-site

In brief (and I’m not font expert to be honest): Oldstyle figures, are generally designed smaller and match with lowercase characters. Lining figures are designed to match uppercase characters. Tabular figures are designed for figure placement in tabular (tabbed/tables) format, e.g. as in financial reports etc. Proportional figures are designed to be proportionaly spaced.

I’m a fan of Proportional Oldstyle, I like the smaller font size.

From the Character Style panel menu choose New Character Style and set the Style Name for the style. I’m setting mine to “Proportional Oldstyle”.

Click OK to add the style to the Character Styles panel.

Paragraph Style

Time to start GREPPING again… and this one will be a quickie

From the Paragraph Styles panel, right-click “Body Text” (or the style that you want to edit) and choose Edit “Body Text”.

The Paragraph Style Options dialog appears.

Click GREP Style, and click New Grep Style… to add another GREP style to the paragraph style.

Choose the “Proportional Oldstyle” Character Style from the Apply Style list. And believe it or not you’re done.

That’s because the default expression that InDesign inserts is “Any Digit, One or More times”. But let’s imagine your setting the expression anyway

Clear the field data in To Text. Then from the Special Characters for Search pop-up choose: Wildcards > Any Character

Follow this with: Repeat > One or More times.

Click OK and you’re done

Video Tutorial

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

In all honesty it wasn’t a Warning dialog I had ever encountered before.

Basically it means that in the Units & Increments section of the InDesign Preferences dialog, the points/pica size reference was changed from the default “PostScript (72 pts/inch)” to “Traditional (72.27 pts/inch)“.

This particular preference setting was introduced in InDesign CS2, possibly for the reason of giving the “Traditionalist” the choice to stick to their old measurement systems. Changing the setting back to the default “PostScript” will likely result in seeing some very irregular point-sizes

As someone who’s gone through conversion from conventional typesetting systems to Desktop Publishing based on PostScript ‘points’ (yes, I am THAT old!), I remember that our first conversions of publications from typesetting systems to our then desktop application (QuarkXPress) caused some pain in getting the point sizes/leading right.

Especially where conversion was for the purpose of reprint. The text sizing, leading etc. needed to resemble the original as closely as possible. The original jobs were set using Didot points and originated from our Berthold typesetting system. The Didot points (12 points in a Cicero), was a point system based on the “pie de roi” and French inches. Hermann Berthold adopted this system and adapted it to the metric system later on.

Basically I remember us continuously setting small print samples at various sizes, making tiny size adjustments and then comparing the printouts with type set in the previous system.   Newer jobs  (and I’m talking about the late 1980s), would adopt the new point system and over a period of some years this difficult conversion process was gradually phased out and we were traditionalists no more…

This really makes me wonder why in 2009 I would be opening an InDesign file that has the points/pica size settings changed to “Traditional”… I dare not ask!

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

InDesign out-of-the-box, does not contain a ‘Make Fraction” command, like other applications such as QuarkXPress have, so if you’re a Quark converter (Welcome a-board by the way!!!), how do you go abouts creating fractions in InDesign?

So how can setting fractions be made easier? Well, there are a number of options available. Let me take you through five different methods…

Option 1 – Use OpenType font with fraction support

Quite a few OpenType fonts you use a font such as Adobe Garamond Pro, which has really good fraction support, creating fractions is pretty easy. Type the fraction e.g. 1/2, highlight the text, then from the Character panel menu select OpenType > Fractions.

Alternatively, select OpenType > Fractions from the Control Panel menu or select OpenType > Fractions in the Character Style Options dialog.

If you regularly use this feature consider applying a shortcut to this comment, by choosing Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, then select Product Area > Panel Menus and scroll down to Character:OpenType:Fractions, set Context to Text, seen as you’d only apply this shortcut when working with text and for instance choose shortcut Command+Shift+F (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+F (Win). Click Assign, to add the shortcut to your shortcut set. If you’ve not yet created a new shortcut set you’ll be prompted to create a new set. Click OK to acknowledge the changes made and close the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog.

The advantage of using the OpenType Fraction feature, is that you can easily resize your text and the fractions will remain typographically correct. Something the “Make Fraction” command in QuarkXPress for instance doesn’t do, as it simpley resizes the text before and after the ‘/’ and amends the baseline shift when generating fraction.

Option 2 – Find/Change with OpenType support

Ok, so you’re using a OpenType font with fraction support. Yay!!!
With Find/Change you can to set your all fractions in one hit! Using the GREP feature, now, that would save some time.
Set Find what:
Wildcards > Any digit \d
that is Repeated > One or More Times \d+
followed by a slash-character \d+/
followed by another Wildcards > Any digit \d+/ \d
that is Repeated > One or More Times \d+/ \d+

Set Change to:
Select Found > Found Text $0

Set Change Format:
Style Options: Character Style > fraction.

This fraction Character style, would just enable the OpenType Features setting for Fractinos.When using Superscript Position setting, you’ll have to have a bit of a play with the Edit > Preferences > Advanced Type, superscript Position and Size settings for the document to ensure you generate the best looking fraction for the font you’re using.

Next… click Change All.

Option 3 – Use a Script

You’re using a font that doesn’t support Fractions? Bummer… Naaaaah… not really… Dan Rodney developed a Proper Fraction script that helps you generate fractions. The Proper Fraction script is available in Free format as well as low cost Pro Script (that finds all fractions and formats automatically).

The Free Script allows you to highlight some text, then generate the fraction either by running the ProperFraction 2.0-Size DanRodney.js script which really replicates what the “Make Fraction” command in QuarkXPress does (e.g. reduce font size, set baseline shift). I’d vote for not using this particular script as it has the same limitations when text is resized later on.

The second sript ProperFraction 2.0-HScale-VScale DanRodney.js is a bit better in that it utilises a combination of horizontal and vertical scaling and baseline shift. Although text resizing is still an issue, due to the baseline shift, which Rodney acknowledges in his notes for the script, he also recommends the quick fix to use after resizing text, which is utilising Find/Change to correct the baseline shift values as required.

Option 4- Find/Change no OpenType support

Ok, you want to set fractions for your core body text and don’t want to pay for a script and are not using an OpenType font with Fractions support?

Well here’s one way of fixing things… still a multi-step process…

Let’s look at using Edit > Find/Change again… and use GREP once more…

Set Find what:
Wildcards > Any digit \d
that is Repeated > One or More Times \d+
followed by a slash-character \d+/

Set Change to:
Select Found > Found Text $0

Set Change Format:
Style Options: Character Style > superscript.

This superscript Character style, would just set the Basic Character Position to Superscript and if I may recommend, also set the Kerning setting to Optical. If your text is formatted with an OpenType font that supports Denominator and Nominator font settings, then utilise the Nominator OpenType feature.

When using Superscript Position setting, you’ll have to have a bit of a play with the Edit > Preferences > Advanced Type, superscript Position and Size settings for the document to ensure you generate the best looking fraction for the font you’re using.

Next… click Change All.

Continue with the following Find/Change command:

Set Find what:
A slash-character /
followed by Wildcards > Any digit / \d
that is Repeated > One or More Times /\d+

Set Change to:
Select Found > Found Text $0

Set Change Format:
Style Options: Character Style > subscript.

This subscript Character style, would just set the Basic Character Position to Subscript and if I may recommend, also set the Kerning setting to Optical. If your text is formatted with an OpenType font that supports Denominator and Nominator font settings, then utilise the Denominator OpenType feature.

When using Subscript Position setting, you’ll have to have a bit of a play with the Edit > Preferences > Advanced Type, superscript Position and Size settings for the document to ensure you generate the best looking fraction for the font you’re using.

Next, click Change All.

Ok, so at this stage you would have ended up with a document that has fractions looking like this:

What we really need to do at this stage is locate all the /-characters in the fractions and turn the default slash character to a “fraction slash”.

Set Find what:
A slash-character /

Set Find Format:
Style Options: Character Style > subscript.

What we’d like to do at this stage is change that slash to a Fraction Slash. We’ll have to discover what the Unicode character for that is.

For my font ’2044′. We’re now ready to set the Change To settings.

Set Change to:
\x{2044} (use \x{nnnn} and replace nnnn with the Unicode).

Set Change Format:
Style Options: Character Style > [None]. (to remove the subscript style).
Basic Character Formats: Normal (to remove the subscript)

Change All…

Wow, that is a lot of steps to get some fractions set in your document.

Luckily InDesign comes pre-installed with the FindChangeByList.jsx script that allows you to perform multiple finds in ONE hit! So yes, you can perform all of the preceding tasks in a single hit.

Option 5 – FindChangeByList

The FindChangeByList.jsx script utilises a text file located in the InDesign CS3/Scripts/Scripts Panel/Sample Scripts/JavaScripts/FindChangeSupport directory, called FindChangeList.txt as way of setting a series of Find/Changes and applying them as a single command.

If you rename the default .txt file in this directory – which is the text file containing instructions the script uses by default – and create a new file called ‘fractions.txt’ somewhere, you’ll prompted to point to the .txt file that contains your Find/Changes when running the script.

Rather than typing out all of the previously set Find/Change settings (option 4), I’ve attached a sample .txt file for you to use, simply change your style names and the script will work for you too!

The one thing that you’ll have to do is to adjust your Preferences > Advanced Type > Character Settings for Superscript and Subscript to provide the best positioning and sizing for the core font you’re using.

Here’s a link to the fractions.txt file I’ve created as a sample for you.

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

As someone who used to carry a Dutch passport prior to swapping it for an Australian one over a decade ago, this book triggers more than an interest in fonts. It somehow takes me back to my roots Remembering how whilst attending Rotterdam’s Print Technology Trade College (Grafische School Rotterdam), we had to handdraw typefaces. We learnt about the history of some common international typefaces, serifs, sans-serifs etc. Sadly little was taught in those days on the history of Dutch Type, Jan’s book would certainly fill that gap in my opinion.

Web-reference: Dutch Type (Jan Middendorp, 2004)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Web-reference: Terminology (2007, Typophile)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Unicode values are the unique numerical value assigned to literal characters. In InDesign you’ll see them predominantly used for Find/Changes or Scripting.

How can I find the Unicode Value for a particular character? Other than visiting the official Unicode web-site and accessing the Character charts, how would we find those Unicode Values in InDesign? 

I was looking for Unicode values the other day and was surprised by the number of methods there are in InDesign through which you can display Unicode characters. Have listed the ones I encountered in another InDesign technique.

Like the previous tip this isn’t an exclusive CS3 feature. As far as I’m aware you could use Unicode values in InDesign all the way back to InDesign 2, possibly even earlier? What is new to CS3 is the Glyph option in the Find/Change dialog.

Method 1

Patient User Mode: Hover your mouse over the Glyph in the Glyphs panel and wait for the tooltip to appear.

Method 2

Insert the character in your text and highlight just the single character.

The Info Panel will display its Unicode Value.

The following methods work as well albeit in a round-about way…

Method 3

This method uses a Glyph Set. If you’ve not yet added any Glyph Sets before, start by selecting New Glyph Set… from the Glyphs Panel fly-out.

I’ve named mine myGlyphSet

When you’re back in the Glyphs panel, select the character you want to add to the set.

Add a Character to myGlyphSet in the Glyphs panel, by right-clicking the Glyph or selecting Add to Glyph Set from the panel’s fly-out.

To see the Unicode Values, select Edit Glyph Set from the contextual (right-click) or fly-out.

Next select a character in the set, the Glyph Options list the Unicode Value for the selected character.

Method 4

An InDesign CS3 method only

In the Glyphs panel select the Glyph of choice and from the fly-out or contextual menu select either Load a selected Glyph In Find or In Change.

Select Edit > Find/Change to open the Find/Change dialog. You’ll see the Unicode Value for the loaded character listed in the new Glyphs section of the Find/Change dialog.

In addition you can use the Glyphs pop-up menu in the Find/Change dialog to access Glyphs, including those stored in myGlyphSet.

Have you discovered another method? Then drop me a line and I’ll add it, with credit to you, to this list

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Web Reference: Fonts shipping with CS3 (2007, Adobe)

Web Reference: Arno Pro (2007, Adobe)

Web Reference: Robert Slimbach (2007, Adobe)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Web Reference: Chinese Mac (2006, Yale University)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

"Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives."

Web Reference: Helvetica – A Documentary (2006)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Most people might not realise that InDesign also subsets fonts, and even has a preference setting controlling when fonts are to be subset. By default any font with a glyph count greater than 2,000 will subset fonts (Preferences > General). That is… embed only those glyphs that are used within the document. Distiller has an additional percentage setting that is called to determine when font-subsetting occurs. Font subsets are send to the PostScript stream under their own name preventing unwanted font substition at output end. Where PDF size is important, subsetting will result in smaller PDF file sizes in comparison to full font embedding.

Web Reference: Adobe InDesign CS2 Print Guide for Prepress Service Providers (8.2Mb) (2006, Adobe Systems Inc.).

Web Reference: Font Handling in Acrobat Distiller – Support Knowledgebase (2006, Adobe Systems Inc.)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker