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Don't add space between paragraphs of the same style

I'd like the option to not add space between paragraphs of the same style, even if those paragraphs have space above or below. Microsoft Word has a checkbox that does this, and it's great for list styles. You can create a list style with space above and below and then check that box so that space only appears before and after the list, not between list items.

In order to achieve the same effect in InDesign, you need three or more styles (one with space above but not below for the first item, one without space above or below for the middle items, and one with space below but not above for the last item). It makes setting documents with lots of lists a real chore.

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Jonathon Owen shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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  • Rhiannon Miller commented  ·   ·  Report

    I agree with this. You can work around it a little using span columns, but that has its own problems. Interestingly the span columns spacing does not stack with the paragraph spacing, showing that it can be done.

  • Georg Stadler commented  ·   ·  Report

    I'd love to see InDesign paragraph styles learn a thing or two from CSS.
    This would be useful for so many things.

    I.e.:

    - Two Headlines appear directly after one another. Both have "Space after" and/or "Space before". These two gaps add up right now. This is not desired in typesetting. Only the bigger space should be used.
    - Making a box with a paragraph style with shaded background. This needs 3 Styles now if the box has more than 2 paragraphs.
    - Lists, same issue

  • Jonathon Owen commented  ·   ·  Report

    Olaf: At my last job, our template had probably over 50 list styles for that reason. We had bulleted, numerical, and alphabetical lists, with four or five levels each, and a first, middle, last, and only style for each. Then we had the same thing for block quotes, but at least we had only a couple of levels for those. It was a nightmare.

  • Jonathon Owen commented  ·   ·  Report

    It would also be helpful with block quote styles, since I often like to have a space above and a space below the block quote, but no space between the paragraphs of the block quote.

    I imagine it would work much the same way that it does in Word. You add space above or space below to a paragraph style, but then you can check the box to have it not add the space between paragraphs of the same style, so it could be applied to any paragraph style.

  • Joachim Tillessen commented  ·   ·  Report

    I see a similar use case for conditional spaces between paragraphs for optional sub-headlines. The space after the main headline should only be rendered, when a paragraph other than the sub-headline follows.

  • Olaf commented  ·   ·  Report

    And if you have even a few different types of lists, you can end up with literally a dozen or more list styles. If you name them descriptively or following a pattern (especially if you want others to be able to figure out what they are by reading the name) and you don't like your styles panel to take up half the screen, you end up with a bunch of styles that appear to have the same name.

  • Tobias Wantzen commented  ·   ·  Report

    I strongly second this! I'm dreaming of conditionals for paragraph styles giving CSS like power (CSS selectors and advanced selectors like + > :nth-of-type ...) to InDesign:
    if ( head1 followed by head2 ) { head2 has no margin-top }
    if ( head2 followed by body ) { body has no indent }
    ...

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