Sorry to take so long to reply. There could be several causes for this, depending on how your frames are set up. It probably has something to do with where and how your anchored objects are placed.

First…they should be set to be “Custom” objects in the Anchored Object Options dialog box, not Inline or Above Line. That gives you the most flexibility. Second…it depends on where in the frame they are placed.

In my example, all of the items above the timeline had the anchored object inserted immediately after the last character of the text in the top cell of the table (not in the bottom cell that has the strokes to create the bracket look).

In the items that fell below the timeline, the anchored objects were inserted just before the very first character of the text in the bottom cell (not the top cell with the strokes to create the bracket look).

If you check this and it still doesn’t work, send me a copy of your file (or a snippet) to info@theindesigner.com, and I’ll take a look at what’s going on.

I’m sure you could take this as far as you wanted, but it could make for some really weird effects!

Thinks: wasn’t I supposed to be working this morning?

Anyway, thanks for explaining. I adopted your process this very morning on a diagram I was working on.

“…the anchored object as callout point trick: how did you keep the other end still? Or did you gloss over the need to move the pointer back where it belongs?”

Yes, I did gloss over that…not seeing the forest for the trees, I suppose. In any instance that I re-positioned or re-sized any of those tables, I did have to re-position the point where it touches the timeline.

The trade-off of having to move those endpoints is a small price to pay compared to consistency and effiency afforded by the overall approach.

I’ll have to remember that — just because I knew that the whole time — a video podcast can’t connect me telepathically to people so that they know it, too.

Thanks for catching that, Dave!