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I am getting crazy with these two things and after some days of getting nothing from Web search and experimentation I come to you. I am using Indesign CS4 and cannot get to do these two things:

1) Format a list for my chapters this way:

Chaper X
Title

So in the paragraph style - Bullets and Numbering - Numbering style - Number I have: Chapter ^#, which makes:

Chapter X  Title

But I CANNOT find anywhere how to input a "\n" after.

2) Indent all paragraphs (that is easy) except the first one as in:

Section 1
1st paragraph Blablablabla
Blablablabla
    2nd paragraph Blablablabla
blablablablabla
    3rd paragraph
blablablablabla

Figure X
1st paragraph Blablablabla
Blablablabla
    2nd paragraph Blablablabla
blablablablabla

Subsection X.x
1st paragraph Blablablabla
Blablablabla
    2nd paragraph Blablablabla
blablablablabla

I get the indentation right but it is also apply to the 1st line too. I am not sure how to use GREP to do this or if there is a better way. I'd like to do it automatically without having to assign a different paragraph style every first paragraph.

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  • What is the source of your content? Are you typing this content directly in to InDesign? Or do you have it in a database somewhere? If you are exporting it out of some other source, you may be able to take advantage of some InDesign Tagged Text, which I can provide more information on if applicable.
    – apex
    Commented Nov 5, 2013 at 22:55

1 Answer 1

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Although I don't have experience with GREP, I think you might be out of luck if you aren't willing to consider using additional Paragraph Styles. By definition, these "Paragraph Styles" apply to whole paragraphs only.
Regarding the Chapter/Title formatting (your 1st item), you can obviously achieve what you want by manually adding a line break Shift-Enter, but I'm assuming you are looking for an automated solution. Unfortunately, I don't believe there is one within InDesign.
For the first-paragraph formatting (your 2nd item), it sounds like something I'd call a Story Style or something. I believe as far as InDesign is concerned, each paragraph is completely oblivious to the content before or after it, so styles cannot be applied to the "first paragraph" as you desire.

If you are adding this content directly to InDesign, I believe you'll find you could create your document with 4 paragraph styles: Chapter, Title, First Paragraph and Normal Paragraph, and then apply all of these styles very easily using one or both of the the Next Style and Shortcut Key options within the General panel of each paragraph style settings box.
If you already have the content elsewhere though, and are simply trying to format the content inside InDesign, I can see that this is not a good solution.

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  • Thanks. I am looking for a automated solution, yes. And I add content directly in iD. I will follow your suggestion and create: Chapter style for the "Chapter X" text, then Title for the title behind the chapter X and use the "Next Style" option to get it selected. Then the first paragraph can be done the same way. Probably what I was looking for is the "Next Style" option (alth in the case of the chapter, there SHOULD be a way to use "\n" to avoid creating more styles!). The thing with the 1st par indent is strange because it is considered a quite common writing rule in (well-written) books.
    – user1156544
    Commented Nov 8, 2013 at 18:37
  • Another option is Nested Styles, which begin applying a new style at or after some marker such as 3rd word, or forced line break. For more on that, you can check out this tutorial
    – apex
    Commented Nov 8, 2013 at 23:53

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