By: David Blatner
October 5 2006 • 6:35 AM
Paste Into a Rotated InDesign Object
Bryan wrote:
I have a problem with pasting something into an object that has been transformed (ie. rotated, resized, skewed, etc…) Is there anyway to have it “pasted into” without haveing the pasted distored?
When you use Edit > Paste Into, the object you’re pasting always takes on the transformations of the parent object. I can see how that would be frustrating. You can, of course, simply reverse the transformations on the child object. That is, if the parent frame is rotated 30 degrees, you could select the nested object and rotate it -30 degrees. But this might get tiresome.
PasteWithoutTransform
- Place a new small frame on top of the transformed frame (the one that will be the parent frame).
- Select both emtpy frames and choose Object > Pathfinder > Add (or click the Add button in the Pathfinder palette). Because the result of Add uses the transformation settings of the top object, the new object looks like the original frame, but has no rotation, skew, and so on.
- Now paste the image into the empty frame using Edit > Paste Into (Command-Option-V/Ctrl-Alt-V). The image does not appear transformed inside the frame!
Wouldn’t the option “Something absolute” (I don’t have the English version) in the flyout menu of the Transformation palette do the trick ?
v2
1. I distort and rotate a rectangle frame.
2. I Paste inside a graphic frame with a picture.
3. I go to the flyout menu of the Control palette (Transformation palette) and reset the Scaling to 100%.
4. Then I select the pasted object inside and reset the Rotation and Distort values to 0° and that’s it.
5. Next time you paste again inside that object you just need to repeat step 4.
Very nice find by Branislav! Works for me too, but the reset (3) seems unnecessary in the test case he submitted?
1. Rotate/distort masking box.
2. Paste picture inside.
3. Select pasted-in picture frame (”blue” select, not “orange” direct silect). This can be done by option-clicking with direct silect or using the “select content” control palette item.
4. Zero the settings and picture should appear masked in the frame with its relative positioning to the masking frame before the paste into.
These all work, but the Tim/David trick is better if you are making a frame that you plan to duplicate. If you release the internal transformation before making copies, you save having to do step 4 every time.
What is the “Something Absolute” equivalent in the English version?
If you know what you plan to do ahead of time, you can place the graphic in the frame first, then turn off “Transform Content” in the flyout. When you apply the transformation, the content of the frame won’t transform. Unfortunately, this option is not available before the frame is filled with something and when you remove the image and place/paste another it jumps back to the transformation applied the frame. Or at least this is how it worked in my test case.
It seems that CS3 does this automatically, the problem I am having is how do you paste an image into a rotated object that retains the rotation of the object in CS3, am I missing something?
Kris, I’m not sure what the problem could be. When I copy an image out of a rotated frame, then select another frame and use Edit > Paste Into, it maintains the rotation of the original image.
Thanks for the quick response. This is the scenario. I have a new page. Draw a frame onto the page. Rotate it 5 degrees. I then place an image onto the page. That image is default set to 0 degrees. If I cut the image from the placed object and paste into the Rotated object, it retains the 0 degrees, unlike in CS2 when it would take on the 5 degrees.
Obviously this is for images already on a page or I would just place into the frame. The example is just for clarification.
Oh! I see now. You want the pasted image to take on the angle of the NEW frame. Drat. No, I don’t see any way to do that. InDesign CS3 always seems to remember the original “formatting” of the image.
How to un-”paste into” objects?