• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
Locked
2

Stroke on only one side of a square?

Guest
Dec 01, 2010 Dec 01, 2010

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi folks!

Is is possible in InDesign to have a stroke on only one side of a square? And if so, how do i go about doing that?

On Mac OSX 10.6.4, InDesign CS5

TOPICS
How to

Views

96.0K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Contributor ,
Dec 01, 2010 Dec 01, 2010

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

is there any reason why you couldnt just add a vertical or horizontal line?

Andy Barrington

www.professionalaffordabledesign.com

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Guest
Dec 01, 2010 Dec 01, 2010

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Yes, related to the last question i posted, i am trying to hide a column in a table which i can't delete as i will need it later, and i don't want to have 2 documents. So i want the left hand stroke of the square I'm using to hide the column to look like the right hand stroke of the table. Sounds mad but it's about the best, easiest and quickest solution I've had so far lol!

I suppose i could just use a separate stroke and square but i want to keep this as simple as possible so if there is a way to have one side of the square a stroke, that would be fab. I fear there is not an easy way to do this.....

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Enthusiast ,
Dec 01, 2010 Dec 01, 2010

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Why don't you just fill the box rather than stroking the square?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Mentor ,
Dec 01, 2010 Dec 01, 2010

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

linziloop wrote:

Yes, related to the last question i posted, i am trying to hide a column in a table which i can't delete as i will need it later, and i don't want to have 2 documents. So i want the left hand stroke of the square I'm using to hide the column to look like the right hand stroke of the table. Sounds mad but it's about the best, easiest and quickest solution I've had so far lol!

I suppose i could just use a separate stroke and square but i want to keep this as simple as possible so if there is a way to have one side of the square a stroke, that would be fab. I fear there is not an easy way to do this.....

Have you tried to create a table cell style with a stroke on the side you want it, and a paragraph style whose character color is Paper, then select the column and apply the cell style to it? It will take a bit of fussing until you get it right.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Dec 01, 2010 Dec 01, 2010

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

The only way to have a stroke on one side of a squrae that I know of, other than drawing a separate rule (presuming you mean you want a stroke on a vertical edge -- for horizontal you could use a paragraph rule), is to use a one-cell table.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Dec 19, 2011 Dec 19, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

That would be a very useful feature. You can do it in tables but not in boxes.   I'm going to submit a feature request for it -- you can do the same and maybe we'll get it eventually!

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Dec 19, 2011 Dec 19, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

.. But InDesign isn't limited to just "boxes". What with triangles, or 5-pointed stars?

Even Illustrator -- fully targeted to illustrating, other than InDesign -- doesn't have this "feature". Possibly because there is no logic behind it.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Dec 19, 2011 Dec 19, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

@ Jongware - Sorry, should have said "frame" not "box." I would think the feature should work on any kind of polygon. And there is no reason not to ask for that feature. It's logical to me; I work at a company whose branding requires a thick green stroke at the bottom of all pictures, and a thin grey stroke on the other 3 sides.

Or by "logic" maybe you meant a technical developer term...

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Aug 30, 2016 Aug 30, 2016

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

There is plenty of logic behind it. What if I wanted to make a shape that has a stroke on one side? That's the "logic!" I didn't realize art had to fit rules of logic.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Dec 19, 2011 Dec 19, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I just has a flash and figured out a way to do it on one edge (doesn't work if you want to to turn a corner or do opposite edges to have more than one stroke). You can use the type on a path feature to put a tab character on the path of the frame (I use a right indent tab and adjust the start and stop marker positons along the path), then apply an underline to the tab.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Dec 19, 2011 Dec 19, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

@ Peter - interesting solution! That did work. Not as easy as a stroke setting but much easier than having separate boxes on top of the frame!

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Dec 19, 2011 Dec 19, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Make a style to add the underline.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Advocate ,
Dec 19, 2011 Dec 19, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

You could use the scissors tool to cut the image frame at the lower two corners. You do end up with multiple objects, but you can group them readily enough.

Screen shot 2011-12-19 at 1.25.48 PM.png

Save the group as a snippet for easy import into documents.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Apr 16, 2014 Apr 16, 2014

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I used this technique for quite a few projects, but with actually pasting a line into the text box. This is more elegant and flexible. Thank you.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jun 25, 2013 Jun 25, 2013

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

You could draw a 0.5pt line, then <cut> it and <paste> it in using the text insertion cursor at the top of your text frame. Select the line, and nudge it up by about 9pt.

Alternatively, you could use a Right-indent tab <shift+tab> at the top of your text frame, and give that line a paragraph rule above. If you offset the rule by about 3mm, it lines up okay.

Either way, it's a kludge. It would be nice if frames supported different strokes on each side. When going to HTML/CSS feels 'easy and liberating', something's screwy 😕

For non-quadrilateral polygons, Adobe could just do what they do everywhere else, and grey-out the options where a feature isn't supported. Given the number of times I use triangles and stars, this would inconvenience me approximately never.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Sep 11, 2013 Sep 11, 2013

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

This was bugging me too, and I tried this solution:

  1. Select your object
  2. Create a new Object Style (Window >  Styles > Object Styles)
  3. Under options for the object style, select "Inner Shadow"
  4. Turn "Preview" on because you're going to need to finagle with the settings
  5. Key settings to adjust:
    1. Blending mode should be normal,
    2. Opacity should be 100%
    3. Choke must be 100%
    4. Size should be 0
    5. Play with the position values. Usually X and Y offset will be 0
    6. Distance will determine the "border" width.
    7. Angle determines the side the border will be on
  6. Save the style

What I'm essentailly doing here is choking the inner shadow on the box to a solid line, then adjusting the position of that shadow to just stick in on one side. This creates the illustion of a solid line. You won't have to cut up the object, you don't need multiple objects grouped together, the line will always move and adjust with the object, and you don't need to add text to mimic a line. The downsides are that it takes a few minutes to adjust the thickness and position just right, so be sure to turn on your preview; and this works best on 4-sided objects.

Screen Shot 2013-09-11 at 9.48.32 PM.png

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Apr 16, 2014 Apr 16, 2014

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

this is a nice answer, but requires the background to be white and this also give me a thin border on the right and left.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Guru ,
Apr 16, 2014 Apr 16, 2014

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Setting one of the shadows or glows or any of the transparency effects to a solid line is problematic when the page goes to print.

You're basically creating a raster element at infinitly high resolution.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
May 27, 2015 May 27, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

It's not possible - but it should be.

Yet it is possible in Adobe Muse!!!

Are you listening Adobe? We want this feature in InDesign.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
May 27, 2015 May 27, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Use a table with a single cell.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Jun 16, 2015 Jun 16, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

so it took Adobe 5 years, but now you can...

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jun 29, 2015 Jun 29, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

You say that, but how does one do it now?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jun 29, 2015 Jun 29, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

It's a new feature in CC 2015....

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jun 29, 2015 Jun 29, 2015

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Sorry, I mixed up this question with paragraph shading and vertical rules.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines