InDesign style question

[hyedward]

I am looking for a function of style but I dunno if there is any.

I need to work with chinese and english text.
In a paragraph of chinese text, I want to specify a style which can automatically detect the english and digit characters and set them to another english font.

So, for example if I need to change the english and digits in the chinese paragraph I dun need to change one by one,

anyone know if I can do it in a smarter way? Any idea would be deeply appreciated. Thanks a lot!

[spiceroy]

isnt the chinese a total different font already? coz then u can just use "change font" and change the 1st english font to another...

[hyedward]

isnt the chinese a total different font already? coz then u can just use "change font" and change the 1st english font to another...

But at first, I type all chinese text including english in one chinese font, so it is not the same case as you mention. I have to sort out the english and digit in the same paragraph and same font.... so....

[zhro]

hmm, i don't think you'll be able to automatically detect the english in the chinese text, unless you rly know grep coding... but you could create a character style with the english font and then make a keyboard short cut for it, so when you highlight the copy you want to change it is just one click or whatever.

[hyedward]

hmm, i don't think you'll be able to automatically detect the english in the chinese text, unless you rly know grep coding... but you could create a character style with the english font and then make a keyboard short cut for it, so when you highlight the copy you want to change it is just one click or whatever.

Hi zhro,
thanks for your useful suggestion. but how can I assign shortcut for a specific style? I am a beginner to style of indesign :) Thanks again.

[zhro]

ok so the way i thought you could do it doesn't seem to be working, here's what i got...
a.) set up your styles in the character style window.
b.) highlight the style which will change the chinese characters back into english ones and click the lightning bold at the top left hand corner of the window (this will load that action into the quick apply menu)
c.) when you want to change chinese characters to english, highlight the desired text, hit ctrl enter/cmmd return(mac) and hit enter/return again (this will apply the top quick apply action to the highlighted text)

if you have used another quick apply item recently it will be on the top, in that case you can just start typing in the name of your character style and hit enter. e.g. if it was called english probably typing in "eng" would bring it to the top.

hope that helps, sorry i couldn't find a way to do it in less steps :/