While hyphenation preferences can be refined at the Paragraph (style) level, Character (style) options only provide a boolean “No Break” attribute which prevents line breaks whatever the location of the text in the layout.

Note, for example, that “Hyphenate Across Column” is available as a paragraph option while the user may actually want to turn on/off column breaks from within a character style. The “No Break” attribute is then too harsh, since it fully disallows line breaking.

Suppose a ITEMS character style is associated to proper names or book titles. We may want to allow regular line breaking for these ITEMS within a frame or a page, but we may need to exclude breaks across frame or page, making sure that ITEMS always appear in full within a visual block.

A way to fix this would be to make the character “No Break” attribute more detailed. Instead of a true/false value, a dropdown list of distinct options could be implemented: [No Break (full), No Break Across Column, No Break Across Frame, No Break Across Page]

Note: The option “No hyphenation” (i.e. “No Word Break”) could be added in that list as well. This would address another feature request which is clearly connected to the present one: https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/32293963-add-no-hyphenation-as-a-character-style

Thanks for considering this idea.

The new paragraph shading feature would be fantastic to use for laying out text message conversations in books/long from documents, but needs a few tweaks to make is fully functional. Text messages in books is becoming very common and having them run in the text while paging is crucial.

It used to be that you had to create shapes and anchor each in for a text message. Now you can use Paragraph Shading defined in the style for left side texts with no adjustments, but because right side text messages need to have the "bubble" shape aligned right, but the interior text left aligned. My solution is (see sample file):
Create three base paragraph styles:
1. <leftsidetext>: Defined: All text styling, paragraph shading set to Text, right/left indents, alignments, and space above/below, etc.
2. <rightsidetext>: Defined: Based on <leftsidetext>, but remove left/right indents
3. <rightsidetextalign>: Defined: Based on <rightside_text>, but change to align flush right, add right indent (if needed), turn off paragraph shading.

Next steps:
1. Cut out all the <rightsidetext> and create a standalone text frame for each text message.
2. Create (or leave) empty returns where each right side text was and apply <rightsidetext_align> to the return.
3. Paste the text frames into the empty returns where appropriate to anchor frame.
4. Select each frame and apply the Object style (Text Message Right in sample file).

Could there be a way to separately control the shading alignment from the interior text alignment within the paragraph style? Much like how text functions within a div?

For about 14/15 years I never had to reset preferences in InDesign.

Since CC2017 it's more or less once a week.
Colors disappearing.. panels blind or empty.. tools not working.. font now showing.
Panels self increasing size...

But it seems we have to deal with it, so we probably need a way to SAVE PREFERENCES.
Save preferences in a moment everything work fine.. and restore it when (after just few days) nothing works anymore.

Every time people have to reset preferences, they have to restore everything. UI colors, workspace, Application Frame (that mac users normally never use) Old Dialog way (the new are unusable and way too slow).

Too many things to restore and too often.

Currently the ‘Space Before’ value is ignored when that paragraph appears on the top of any container—frame/column.

There are innumerable occasions when we need the above space settings to be honoured even when the paragraph appears on the top of the column. We InDesigners resort to various antics and workaround like keeping an ‘Invisible Rule Above’ or use a character style with extra leading etc..

It is very easily solved by a simple checkbox in the Indents and Spacing tab just below ‘Space Before’ selection which says ‘Add Space Before on column top’. If checked, the value will always be used even when the paragraph appears on the top of the page.

After the last update(2020) of InDesign, i started creating a book file. When I loaded the files in the book file, all files had to manually be saved again in the new version of InDesign. When creating a book of more than 100 files, it is verry time consuming. To create alle the books(multiple each month whit files that are already created), i have more than 1000 files wich have to be updated to the latest file. To do this i have found a script wich make this less time consuming, but it is still a lot of work. I dont want to do this at every large InDesign update.

I have asked how to do this on the Adobe forum, there i found out that there is no future for this in InDesign itself, but someone has written a script to do this. The question and answers can be found here:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/InDesign/Multiple-files-to-be-saved-manually-in-a-book/td-p/10713906

It is possible to create an option to automattically update each file that is being opened or place in a book file? Maybe create an option wich you can select when you want to. When this is possible I do not have to reserve time to update everything, but I can update the files automatically when used.

Thanks in advanced,

Jasper Scheffers.