How to make fractions?

[rigoliarts]

(Mac OS 10.6.8  CS5 about to upgrade to CS6)

I'm typesetting a cookbook and there are tons of fractions including 1/3, 1/4, 3/4, 1/2. Please tell me there's a key command to use to create fractions. Help!

[Steve Werner]

If you choose a OpenType font (there are several included with InDesign and the Creative Suite), then you can apply the OpenType fractions attribute. For example: Minion Pro or Adobe Garamond Pro.

Select the fraction with the Type tool. Then choose OpenType > Fractions from the Control panel menu or the Character panel menu to create an arbitrary fraction from the type. This can be included into a character style to speed up the process.

[rigoliarts]

Steve, Your suggestion  seems like a good solution but not all of the fractions appear (1/3, 2/3) and I'm using an open type font. Also, I notice that some of the options in the charachter panel are in brackets. What does that mean? See attached screen shot below.

Thanks.

[Steve Werner]

The designer of each OpenType font can choose which attributes they choose to implement. The particular font you're using, Parisine Claire, hasn't set up the font do use more than the minimally included fraction glyphs. (You can see the exact fractions included in the Glyphs panel.) When InDesign puts attributes in brackets, it means they're not available.

To get more fractions, you need to use another method of generating them or choose a different font.

[BobLevine]

http://www.danrodney.com/scripts/properfraction.html

Bob

[peter_minneapolis]

Fractions are one of the many features in the commercial Blatner Tools InDesign plug-in from dtptools.com. There's a free trial.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

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Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices