Creating Two Or More Automatic Text Flows
May 31st, 2007Andrew B. wrote (on the InDesign mail list):
I have yet to find out how to set up two flows that actually work, easy in Quark but apparently impossible in ID without accidentally stumbling over the right combination of preferences and settings, if there is one.
This trick, like many others, is actually simple after you see how to do it, but I agree that it’s not immediately intuitive. The first trick is to set up frames on your master pages. (This is one of the few times that I bother with making master page text frames anymore. They’re just not nearly as important in InDesign as they are in XPress.)
Now, if I just leave it at that, it doesn’t work. Here’s what happens if I try to place a text file into one of the frames on page 1:
Instead, I’ll undo that and go back to the master page and link the frames from the left page to the right page:
In the image above, the tall frame on the left is also linked to the tall frame on the right. This tells InDesign how you want to text to flow. What’s weird about this (to me, at least) is that this looks like it’s saying, “Just link from the left page objects to the right page objects,” but it doesn’t say anything about linking from right-to-left. It’s okay; it works anyway.
Now when I place the text into the first frame (and hold down Shift when clicking the Place cursor, so that it places the whole text file, adding pages as necessary), I get this:
Great! Now I place the second text story (again, by Shift-clicking):
Of course, this works with more than two frames, too. As long as you tell InDesign which frames should connect to which across a spread, it works beautifully.
This is great if my master page is a spread, but what if it’s only a single page? My document may be 30 single pages — it’s being published as a pdf—no need for left and right pages. How do I get the frames to link throughout?
Charleen, just to confirm: You want two or more separate text flows through your document? If so, just make the frames on the master page, then Place each story into each frame with a Shift-click. That should do it, no? It’s weird, but InDesign just figures out how to link by itself!
Note that if you have several pages already created, and you only want to fill those pages (without adding more pages), then use Shift-Option/Alt-click.
I prepare ID files for XML. When I flow in an xml file I would like my document to create new pages itself (by linking text boxes together). (When I use the Shift-Option/Alt-click this is a manual action which can not be automated.)
In Quark this was possible by ticking the ‘Automatic Text Box’ in the new document window.
Does someone know how to solve this?
my issue is the same as charlenes, but i actually have 2 questions.
1) i want to flow 2 stories into 2 separate master text boxes. I start with one page in my document and shift click in the box on page 1, works great, adds pages. but when i shift click my second story into the second box it creates a new large box on the page with nothing in my desired box. HELP!
2) the second part to my question is if i can get the above to work, how do i then “unlink” all the boxes and get the text that is in each box to remain in the box on each page?
Maartjenr1: Importing XML and having it add pages can be tricky. We discuss this in some detail in Real World InDesign.
There are also plug-ins, such as InFlow or EasyFlow to help automatically add pages.
Michelle: I’m not sure what the problem could be. This works fine with me. You have put two text frames on the master page? Don’t link them together there. When you place the second story, make sure you’re over the second frame, so that the Place cursor changes (the straight lines become like parentheses).
As for unlinking all the stories, you could use the Split Stories script or the Aextra Clever Textink. We talk about both of these in podcast 49, for which there is an easy-to-search transcript.
Question - in doing a mail merge, you must set up one text box, post merge each record is an individual text box. How can I auto link those so text flows thru the whole document post merge?