Autoflow Text when Pasting
O.B. wrote:
Let’s say I am online and I see an article on a web page. I copy and paste the whole article into InDesign, but I only get one frame. Is there an option that automatically add pages so that I see the whole story?
One of the most important hidden features in InDesign is Shift-clicking with the Place cursor. When you hold down the Shift key, the Place cursor changes from placing a single text frame to creating an automatic flow of text, adding pages to the document as necessary, until the whole story is imported.
However, this doesn’t work when pasting text, because there is no Place cursor! Drat, foiled again. Fortunately, you can kind of work around it:
- Make sure the Selection or Direct Selection tool is chosen in the Tool panel.
- Paste the text in. InDesign creates a small, square frame in the middle of the page.
- Click in the out port (the one with the red + symbol in it). That loads the Place cursor with the story.
- Press the Delete key to delete the frame you just created.
- Shift-click to create a new frame with auto flow (adding frames and pages as necessary).
Seems line a painful workaround, but it goes really fast when you get used to it.
Of course, if you do this a lot, or you really want the autoflow feature built-in to the program itself, there are also two plug-ins you should know about: InFlow from Em Software, and EasyFlow from 65bit software.
That’s a great tip, thanks!