How to set font weight in indesign character style

Question

I'm using InDesign CC 2015 to typeset a document which uses a font with no native bold style. I understand that I can simulate this by increasing the font's weight. It's not as good as a real bold font but works well enough for my purposes when I highlight some text and use the floating menu for stroke etc.

But this would be tedious to do manually throughout the document and I am already extensively using character styles so I thought I could just make a new "bold" style. The trouble is when you go to the colors tab of the edit character style dialog, the option to change font weight is disabled. It is available in the paragraph style dialog but that is no good for me as this is inline text. Is there any way to do this? (Or is there an alternative way to simulate a bold font in a character style?)

Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

The easiest way to simulate a bold in InDesign is to add a small stroke to the characters. This is not generally advisable, but it might be your only option, since InDesign doesn't have a way to artificially embolden type. This method does not automatically adjust type metrics to account for the stroke and there may be production and screen preview issues that come from using this method. A much better practice is to find a similar typeface that does have a bold variant.

Answer 2

I understand that I can simulate this by increasing the font's weight. It's not as good as a real bold font but works well enough for my purposes when I highlight some text and use the floating menu for stroke etc.

[^ emphasis mine ^]

You can add a stroke to a Character Style by altering the Character Color item in the Character Style Options dialog window. See below.

This does not "increase the font's weight". It merely throws a stroke around the characters.

Yes! It's a bad idea to do this.

Using a stroke generally is nowhere close to an actual bold face and it's much better to change to a typeface which does contain the bold face... but I assume you already know all that.

Answer 3

My problem is exactly the same as the OP:

The trouble is when you go to the colors tab of the edit character style dialog, the option to change font weight is disabled. It is available in the paragraph style dialog but that is no good for me as this is inline text. Is there any way to do this?

There are two buttons to the left of the colour selector. The top-left button is for fill and the bottom-right button is for stroke. If one clicks on the bottom-right button then the font weight options become available.

Answer 4

if it's one text box of type - copy text box 3-4 times; and place text box exactly on top of one another. blamo - bold type