I thought I would throw out a request that should help every InDesign CS user out there. I posted this request on Adobe’s InDesgin Scripting forums but received little help. (which is rare)
I do not have CS2, so this may be a non issue. But for CS, InDesign does not offer a “Paste In Back” feature the way “Illustrator” does.
Yes, there are easy workarounds such as “Paste in Place” then using "Object>Arrange>Send Backward. But this is cumbersome in comparison to the one click method found in Illustrator.
This may appear easier than it looks to solve. But it is not because InDesign always pastes an item to the front most item within a stacking order within the “layer” it is on.
So, if you were working within a layer that had 10 items, each item essentially has a stacking order assigned based on the order in which it was added to the page. So if you selected the 5th item (middle item), copied then pasted that item, the new (11th item) would default to the topmost object. (Not a helpful thing”in many instances)
An InDesign effect we often seek, are frames or text with multiple strokes that vary in thickness and weight. This is very easy to accomplish in Ai, since you can copy the object paste it behind the other object and thicken its stroke. (this effect I am mentioning would resemble a wall painting with a “matte” and a “frame”)
I don’t know how to script my request, but I am thinking the logic would work something like this:
Note, an object would ideally be an “active selected” item on the page, and also copied to the clipboard prior to activating the script.
With that in mind, the script would have to know the level that selected item falls with the stacking order on its layer.
To perform the “Paste In Back” the script could utilize InDesign’s “Paste in Place” feature and then use InDesign’s Object>Arrange>Send Backward. BUT, it would have to apply Send Backward repeatedly equaling the (selected item’s stacking order + 1). This is assuming the top most item is consider “1” in terms of the stacking order, not vice versa?
I have no idea if InDesign could return such values?
All said and done, if such a script could be written, I cannot see how it could not benefit every InDesign user out there? I am still baffled why Illustrator has such a feature but InDesign does not?
Thanks,
jeff