Use conditional text

When planning a project with conditional text, examine the nature of the material and look at how several people can take turns working with it if the document is handed off. Plan to treat conditional text consistently to make the document easier to use and maintain. Use the following guidelines.

Number of versions

Define how many versions your finished project will contain. For example, if you’re creating a manual that describes a program that runs on both Windows and Mac OS platforms, you might want to produce at least two versions: a Windows version and a Mac OS version. If you want to produce these versions with editorial comments sprinkled in the text during the review process, you’ll want even more versions: Mac OS with comments, Mac OS without comments, Windows with comments, and Windows without comments.

For documents with many conditions, you can define condition sets that can be applied to the document for quick versioning.

Number of condition tags required

Decide how many condition tags you need to produce the desired versions. A version of a document is defined by a unique set of condition tags. For example, a version of a finished Windows manual might be defined by having a Windows condition tag showing, a Mac OS condition tag hidden, and a Comments condition tag hidden. In this example, you would need to decide whether to use one condition tag for Windows comments and another for Mac OS comments, or whether to use a single condition tag for both Windows and Mac OS comments.

Organization of content

Evaluate the extent to which the document can be conditional and how you can organize the material to simplify development and maintenance. For example, you might be able to organize a book so that conditional text is limited to a few documents. Or you might choose to keep versions of a particular chapter in separate files rather than in conditional text, and then use a different book file for each version of the book.

In some instances, such as when working with multiple languages, you may want to create separate layers that you can show or hide rather than using conditions, with each layer including text from a different language.

Tagging strategy

Determine the smallest unit of conditional text. For example, if a document will be translated to another language, a whole sentence should be the smallest amount of text you make conditional. Because word order often changes during translation, using conditional text for part of a sentence could complicate translation.

Decide whether to make spaces and punctuation conditional. If conditional text begins or ends with punctuation, make the punctuation conditional too. This makes the text easier to read when you're viewing more than one version.

To avoid word spacing problems, such as having an unconditional space followed by a conditional space, set standards for handling spaces following conditional text (either always conditional or always unconditional).

To avoid confusion, decide the order in which conditional text will appear and use this order throughout the document.

Indexes and cross-references

When indexing a document, pay attention to whether index markers are placed inside or outside conditional text. Keep in mind that index markers in hidden conditional text are not included in the generated index.

If you create a cross-reference to conditional text, make sure that the source text has the same condition. For example, if you add a cross-reference in a “Windows” paragraph and the text anchor appears in a “Mac” condition, the cross-reference is unresolved when the “Mac” condition is hidden. “HT” appears next to the cross-reference in the Hyperlinks panel.

If you create a cross-reference to a paragraph in which some text is conditional and then change the visibility settings of that condition, update the cross-reference.

Conditions you create are saved in the current document. If no documents are open when you create a condition, that condition appears in all new documents you create.

You can make conditional text easy to identify by specifying condition indicators, such as wavy red underlines.

You can apply multiple conditions to the same text. By default, condition indicators identify conditional text. However, if indicators are hidden, you can use the Conditional Text panel to determine which conditions have been applied to the current text. A solid check mark indicates the condition is applied to the current text. A dim check mark indicates that the condition is applied only to part of the selection.

When you hide a condition, all text to which that condition is applied is hidden. Hiding conditions often causes the page numbering to change in a document or book. You can use the Smart Text Reflow feature to add and remove pages automatically as you hide and show conditions.

Hidden conditional text is generally ignored in the document. For example, hidden text is not printed or exported, index markers in hidden conditional text are not included in a generated index, and hidden conditional text is not included when searching or spell-checking text.

When you hide a condition, the hidden text is stored in a hidden condition symbol . If you select text that contains a hidden condition symbol and try to delete it, InDesign prompts you to confirm that you want to delete the hidden conditional text. You cannot apply other conditions, styles, or formatting to hidden conditional text.

If text has several conditions applied to it and at least one of those conditions is shown while another is hidden, the text is not hidden.

A condition set captures the visibility settings for all conditions so that you can quickly apply different document renditions. For example, suppose you have a complex document with platform conditions for Mac OS, Windows XP, Vista, UNIX , language conditions for English, French, German, and Spanish, and editorial conditions such as Editorial Review and Internal Comments. For reviewing the Vista version in French, you can create a set that shows only the Vista, French, and Editorial Review conditions, and hides all the rest.

While sets aren’t necessary to do this, they help you quickly and reliably change different condition visibility settings.

Use the Find/Change dialog box to find text to which one or more conditions have been applied and replace it with one or more other conditions.