Select a particular font and specific character and change its color?

[DCurry]

(Pitstop 11)

I'm not at work right now so I can't try it myself, but does anyone know if it is possible to select a certain character of a particular font and change its color globally?

Here's the scenario: I've got a variable data project (using HP SmartStream Designer) that uses dynamic tables (this means that in my data file there are multiple rows per record, and my InDesign SmartStream template adds as many rows to the variable table as necessary until a new record is reached, at which point it makes a new page and starts again for the next record). Normally I can make a variable item change its color using a rule, but based on my experimentation dynamic tables do not take kindly to rules in SmartStream. There is a cell that contains one of two possible bullet characters, and when the character is "!" it needs to be orange, and when it is "@" it needs to be green. Because rules don't seem to work in dynamic tables, I am limited to making the bullet one color, no matter if it is "!" or "@".

So, I'm hoping that there is a way to use Pitstop to select all the "!" characters of that particular font and change its color to orange. If that's not possible, I could settle for a way to select all "!" characters and change them no matter what the font is (there are no other exclamation points in the document.)

[mattbeals]

split the word into characters, select the character.

I suppose with SmartPreflight it could be possible. That would take a bit of time to investigate.

[Joe]

Try this one Dan.

[DCurry]

Joe, YOU DA MAN! That works perfectly.

Thank you!

[DCurry]

I was able to simplify Joe's action further, while at the same time making it more specific (safer). I don't really need the "split into characters" step because the character I'm changing is always alone anyway, and I don't need the steps for changing the "@" to green because my variable template has them green already. Finally, I included a font selector as well, so it will never change the color of "!" in other fonts.

[Joe]

Yeah I added the "split into characters" because my test file had other characters on the same textline and it changes the color of the whole textline.

It's pretty amazing what you can do with Pitstop these days.

[DCurry]

Agreed, Joe.

[abc]

You ain't seen nothing yet!

Much more to come.  :-)

[Farabomb]

Good, That's more ammo for my battle for a new machine.

[swampymarsh]

I don't know the HP app in question, however you mention that it uses an InDesign document as a template. If the HP software runs inside InDesign and all of the InDesign features are also available – I would suggest using a GREP Style in InDesign.

Create a character style for each of the colours to be applied to the ! or @ symbol.

Your table text would be using a paragraph style, this paragraph style would use two GREP Styles.

The GREP search pattern is too easy, one does not even need to know GREP, all one does is use ! or @ and link the required character style to the character in question.

Now every time a ! or @ character appears in the table text, it would automagically be coloured the correct colour.

In my opinion, it is better to do this at the source when authoring, than to do it in post on the PDF. That being said, it is nice to know how to do it using PitStop too.

[DCurry]

Swampy, that is an excellent idea, and I do concur that it's always best to do things the right way as early in the process as possible, rather than after the fact in the PDF.

I've never used GREP, but I am definitely going to give it a go in this instance. I shall report back with the results.

[DCurry]

Success - works perfectly!

Thanks, Swampy.

[swampymarsh]

 

Success - works perfectly!

Thanks, Swampy.

Glad it worked for you!