Hi!
My paragraph styles are growing in numbers and I just have a feeling that there's a better way to do what I'm doing, so I have to ask you about it.
I'm working on the insert of a Bible. The chapters start with a chapter number, then a verse number and then the text. We're using drop caps for the chapter numbers, so for chapters 1-9 I have a paragraph style set to use drop caps for one character and for chapters from 10 and up I have a different paragraph style with drop caps set to two characters.
Question 1: Is there a way I could achieve this with just one paragraph style? The chapter numbers can all be idintified by their character style.
In addition, some chapters start of with a heading. In those cases there is no space between the heading and the following paragraph, but 3mm space above the heading. In the cases where there is no heading I will need those 3mm of space above the chapter paragraph instead.
Question 2: Is there a way to automatically set the space above to be 0mm if the previous paragraph is a heading but 3mm if there is no heading?
Right now I have 4 paragraph styles for what I think is essentially one style, and I don't think I've seen the end of it yet.
We all run into things like this and develop our own ways of dealing with them. Actually, 4 styles for what you're doing isn't all that many, so don't get caught up in that. Then again, degree of economization is indeed up to you. On the chapter number/drop-cap thing, you could use a nested style instead, and apply your chapter number character style through (1) [whatever character always follows the number...a space?]. That will accomodate any number of digits in the chapter number.
As far as I know, conditional application of paragraph styles isn't really available in the way that you seek.
I tried to do what you describe but there's no way as far as I know to give a character style the drop caps feature. It's only available in the paragraph styles setting and therefore I can't use nested styles for this.
Thanks for your reply nonetheless. It's good to know that this is how it is and that I have to solve the problem however I can.
but there's no way as far as I know to give a character style the drop caps feature
Sematically speaking, that's true, but everything is available in a Character Style to style your chapter numbers the same way your drop caps treatment is styling them. They don't have to be systemically designated "drop caps" in order to look and function like drop caps.
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