Creating Snippets in Adobe InDesign

Snippets are reusable content similar to libraries but with two key differences. First, whereas libraries collect multiple objects into a single list, snippets are new external assets not gathered together into a panel. Second, library objects do not remember positioning data, but snippets do. A snippet is an encapsulated segment of XML code, but don’t let that put you off—after finishing this sentence, you need never again consider the words snippet and XML together. What is important, and the reason I mention it, is that XML can contain text, path data, imagery, attributes— all the structural data and everything InDesign needs to re-create a container, its content, and their attributes. Snippets even remember their relative location on the page and the layer(s) on which they originated. In the simplest terms, a snippet is a piece of an InDesign page externalized.
Snippets may be passed around and traded like baseball cards.
Create a snippet by selecting one or more objects with the Selection tool, and then drag the object(s) out of InDesign to drop on your desktop. An INDS file will be created, which is like any other file and can be managed through the file system, Bridge, or what have you. If the idea of dragging something out of an application onto the desktop gives you the heebie-jeebies, use File > Export; in the Export dialog, set Save As Type to InDesign Snippet. Placing snippets in documents is just as easy—through File ?Place or by dragging from the desktop into InDesign. Upon dropping (or placing), the object(s) dragged to the desktop will instantly appear with all formatting and appearance intact and on the layer(s) from which they originated.
By default in InDesign CS3, snippets will drop at the cursor location rather than at the position on the page from which they originated. Changing that behavior is a toggle. In Preferences, on the File Handling pane, change the Snippet Import option. Position at Original Location will place the snippet in exactly the same place on the page as the original set of objects from which the snippet was created. Position at Cursor Location will place the snippet content wherever a loaded place cursor is clicked or where a snippet dragged from the desktop is dropped.

Working Efficiently with Objects

Working efficiently with objects also entails employing reusable styles but goes beyond to reusable objects as well.
Object Styles
Let’s review: InDesign operates on a container-to-content model where everything in the document is either content—text, images, paths—or a container to hold content. Text, for instance, must be contained in either a text frame or a path text object. In addition to container and content, InDesign also cares about attributes. Thus, InDesign deals with containers and content and with the attributes of each. Paragraph and character styles govern text content formatting attributes but not the attributes of the frame containing the text. Paragraph styles, for instance, have no bearing on the number of columns in the text frame or the transparency of text. That and much more is left to the dominion of object styles, which record and apply the attributes of containers. If you open the Object Styles panel from the Window menu, you’ll find three preloaded entries—None, Basic Graphics Frame, and Basic Text Frame (see Figure A). Each style is listed in brackets denoting that it is undeletable; you can edit these styles and change their definitions, but you can’t get rid of them. The None style you want because it wipes out pretty much every attribute—fill, stroke, effects, everything. Basic Graphics Frame and Basic Text Frame reduce a selected object to default options; for a graphics frame, for example, that means 1 pt black stroke, no fill, nothing else. One extremely useful option is the ability to set a user-created object style as the default for newly created graphics or text frames. Remember, a graphic frame is not only one into which you’ll place imagery; it’s also any unfilled decorative path such as a block of color, an ellipse, and so on. On the Object Styles panel flyout menu, choose any existing object style from the Default Graphic Frame Style submenu to format every new graphic frame as you draw it, which is an even faster and more efficient method of styling multiple objects than drawing and then applying the style. The Default Text Frame Style offers the same choice for text frames. The rest of the panel is remarkably similar to the other four Styles panels, with a re-orderable style list, the ability to group styles in nested folders, and buttons for New, Delete, Clear Overrides, and Clear Attributes Not Defined by Style. What’s the difference between the latter two? Object styles can be defined to include every possible attribute but are rarely so defined. Instead, many attributes are simply not enabled. For instance, you may have an object style that doesn’t include a drop shadow. Now, if you applied the style to an object and then selectively gave the object a drop shadow, that effect is an attribute not defined by the style. Clear Overrides, on the other hand, is relevant if the style does define a drop shadow but you later change the shadow angle on the individual object. Double-clicking a style or choosing Style Options from the panel flyout menu will open the robust Object Style Options dialog (see Figure B). Every attribute that may be given to a container— and many for content—is organized within this dialog. On the General pane, in the Style Settings area, is an expandable tree detailing the attributes defined in the style. The list of attributes on the left matches the summary of Style Settings and offers in one place access to just about every option you can set on the Swatches, Stroke, Effects, Story, Text Wrap, and other frames and in the Corner Options, Text Frame Options, Anchored Object Options, Effects Options, and other dialogs. Beneath the deceptively named Basic Attributes list is a replicated Effects Options section. Using the Effects For drop-down menu to select the element affected, you can apply the various Photoshop-esque transparency effects to containers and contents and individually to fills, strokes, text, and images. Although most creatives prefer to design a live object on the page or pasteboard, applying needed attributes, and then produce an object style from the object, others know precisely what they want and can build the style in Object Style Options from scratch, by setting options without an object ready. Which way you choose depends on your particular work style. The Preview box at the bottom of the dialog will show changes in a selected object as you make them either during initial style creation or later tweaking.

next to come............
Libraries
Snippets
Style Shortcuts
Quick Apply
Scripting