: How can I automate this repetitive Design? I need to put a pre-written dialoge into graphical chat boxes using Adobe InDesign CC 2015. I've finished the Chatbox and everything I'm doing now

@Voss6371140

OK, this turned out to be trickier than I'd thought. But I was able to get each chat contained into one text frame with one anchored object.



Object Styles

I ended up needing to only define one object style. The key settings are the rounded corners, text inset added, and text frame auto height turned on.

Paragraph Styles

Setting up the paragraph styles took the most work, but using parent-child relationships, I was able to cascade my tweaks as I worked. The key settings are the paragraph shading set to span the column and offset the chat text a bit and turning on "balance ragged lines."

Anchored Objects

I turned your squares into triangles by deleting one of the anchor points. Then, I anchored the image to just before the first word in the chat paragraph. You could set the anchored object to always fall at the correct spot. I did not take the time to do that here.

Align

There are several ways to make the spacing between the boxes consistent. For consistency, I used the "Distribute Spacing" option and set the spacing to 4mm.

Repeat

With these styles set up, I could make mock chats quickly from scratch. However, to speed creation even further, I'd take each of the chat configurations (self, contactA, contactB) and make three library items that I could pull from. Then it's just a matter of pulling the right library item, pasting in the text, and then hitting the align button in the end.

I'd be interested to know how others would tackle this. Thanks for the fun mental exercise!

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