Auto-Reflowing Images in a Grid

David Blatner

10

Here’s a cool trick that I learned from Karin Söderlund at an InDesign conference a few years ago in Stockholm: Anchor graphics into a text frame to allow them to reflow. In other words, don’t just make a big grid of images on a page; make each graphic an anchored object. The benefits are quite amazing.

For example, here’s some images on a page, with captions:

In the above image, each graphic is grouped with a caption text frame and simply placed on the page. That makes it very hard to re-order them. I mean, can you imagine having to add a new image between the first and second frame, while keeping the others in order? Gah!

Here’s the same layout, but where each group is anchored into a text frame (each group has been assigned an object style to make placement and text wrap more consistent):

Suddenly, it becomes far easier to rearrange the items because each object (each group, that is) acts like a single character in a story. For example, here’s what it looks like in Story Editor:

To move one of the graphics, just select it with the Type tool and drag it to a new location in Story Editor (or copy and paste), or whatever. If you delete one, the rest all reflow into position. Or, you can add a new image easily by just inserting a new anchored object group into the proper place. Here, I’ve added a picture of a Zebra as the second image; note how all the other images reflow to make room:

What’s even more astonishing about this technique is that it also lets you apply text wrap to these images. For example, here’s what happens when I put a starburst violator over the upper-right corner of the page:

Because we’re treating the images (or, in this case, the groups) as text, they reflow around the starburst easily and painlessly.

I wouldn’t use this technique for all my images, of course, but when I need a grid of images (or text blocks, or any other object) that may need to reflow, Karin’s technique is awesome.