Two Columns In Sequence and in Flow
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Tagged: columns flow
- This topic has 6 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 9 years ago by Brother Gabriel-Marie.
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February 26, 2015 at 8:27 am #73533Brother Gabriel-MarieParticipant
In our book, there are places where I need to render Latin and English prayers side-by-side.
This is easy enough by using two columns,
putting Latin on the left with a column-break at the end,
so the English will flow automatically to the top of the right column.This is fine so long as the columns will fit onto a single page.
When the columns are too long there is no way to flow the text in their proper columns onto the next page’s frames.You see, the Latin always needs to be in the left column,
and the English always needs to be in the right column.But I can’t figure out any way to do this whilst preserving the story’s automatic flow.
I am reduced at every instance to breaking the flow entirely for the whole book and manually checking overset text on every frame on every page.Is there any way to preserve the flow whilst keeping Latin in the left column and English in the right?
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February 26, 2015 at 9:45 am #73540Brother Gabriel-MarieParticipant
I’ve tried using a 2-column table, but again, you can’t break a table across text frames and expect the text to flow.
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February 26, 2015 at 10:34 am #73541Colleen ShannonMember
If I were to do this job, I would have 2 separate text frames, one for Latin and one for English. If you need to separate them out, you can do that through Find/Change or by Convert to Table/Convert to Text.
Good luck.
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February 26, 2015 at 10:39 am #73543Brother Gabriel-MarieParticipant
Ugh! I figured that was probably the only way to do this.
The problem with that is that if the prayers are too long for the page, you have to create 2 more text boxes on the next page and manually link them.
You end up with 4 text frames, and they won’t autoflow with the story. -
February 26, 2015 at 12:24 pm #73553Colleen ShannonMember
Hold the phone – I am not sure how to make my version work.
Here’s someone with a similar issue (though I think theirs is on separate pages)
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February 26, 2015 at 1:49 pm #73558David BlatnerKeymaster
Not sure if this will help, but it might be relevant: https://creativepro.com/creating-two-or-more-automatic-text-flows.php
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February 26, 2015 at 2:38 pm #73562Brother Gabriel-MarieParticipant
Thanks, Mr. Blatner, for the example.
The problem is though that even if I can get the frame to break over pages, to get it to flow in the story I would have to insert that frame as an anchored object – and an anchored text frame *does not* continue across pages.(too bad this forum doesn’t allow you to insert images!)
I’ve tried making the primary story frame in two columns,
and since I am using CS5, I can make the other styles span the columns,
and this works okay until the side-by-side prayers in the columns have to break across pages,
because the texts can’t be “assigned” a particular column to stay in.The only way to keep text in a specified column is to put it in a 2-columned text frame, insert a column break at the end of the first prayer, and insert that text frame into your main story.
This works perfectly as long as your 2-columned text frame does not need to break across pages.
Adding text before or after the 2-columned text frame will let the frame move up or down dynamically in the parent frame.
But as soon as there isn’t enough room for the entire frame, bam! it jumps to the next page.Mr. Blatner, the idea from your link will work only on statically-arranged pages. Even if I inserted the prayers as anchored objects in the main story, then I’m back to the drawing board.
I’ve heard about Autoflow Pro (https://in-tools.com/products/plugins/autoflow-pro/) – can anyone tell me if that addon will do what I want?
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