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[jett]

Long story short, I have to edit a file made by someone else and it's driving me insane. There are these text boxes everywhere in the file that have to be aligned with images that just won't scroll along with the rest of the text.

This is what it looks like now:

So I say I want to add some text, it becomes all screwed up like this:

Those little text boxes just stay where they are without scrolling along with their corresponding image, so to speak.

Is there an easy to make this thing behave like an unfucked word processor would behave? I know little to nothing of this program, btw.

 

[Jimnymebob]

The simplest way to solve this problem (if you're allowed to alter the textboxes completely) would be to create a separate textbox for each paragraph with the correct font and font size etc., then piece those together.

So basically just act as if you're quoting a big post on GAF but instead of quoting the whole thing you put each paragraph into quotes.

It's not the most effective solution, but considering you're not familiar with the software this is a fairly easy way to do it.

InDesign isn't really a word processor at all though.

 

[jett]

The simplest way to solve this problem (if you're allowed to alter the textboxes completely) would be to create a separate textbox for each paragraph with the correct font and font size etc., then piece those together.

So basically just act as if you're quoting a big post on GAF but instead of quoting the whole thing you put each paragraph into quotes.

It's not the most effective solution, but considering you're not familiar with the software this is a fairly easy way to do it.

InDesign isn't really a word processor at all though.

Thank you! I'll try that the next time I work on something like this. I ended up modifying every little text box and graphic one by one when needed... that was really annoying. I'm so unfamiliar with InDesign I'm not quite sure how to do what you just said, though

 

[Jimnymebob]

Thank you! I'll try that the next time I work on something like this. I ended up modifying every little text box and graphic one by one when needed... that was really annoying. I'm so unfamiliar with InDesign I'm not quite sure how to do what you just said, though

Alright, quick example to give you an idea of what I meant, just to help you understand further.

So this is what you started off with basically.

Spoiler

The lovely Nathan Drake can be our illustration for the sake of it being the first picture I found on my Mac.

You want to use the Text tool, left click onto the work area, then hold and drag to create a box like you do if you're selecting multiple things on your desktop or making a square shape in paint or something, which'll create a text box that you can move and resize. You then want to copy and paste each paragraph into a separate text box so that you end up with something like this.

As you can see here, you have the same information from the previous image, but because the main body of text is broken up into separate text boxes I can move each one independently of one another. If some of the text gets cut off the bottom of the page you can simply make a text box on the next page, and cut and paste the part of the text that was cut off into that.

Finally,

I know it's obvious, but even though you can move each paragraph or what have you individually, you'll still need to reduce the font size of the whole body of text depending on how much you're planning to fit on each page. For example, I've moved the position of the three text boxes here, and added another individual paragraph, but I've had to reduce to the font size to fit it in here; obviously you'd need to lower the size of all the fonts more than likely in this case.

Hopefully you understand all of that, because I think I lost myself 3 times typing it out. And to state again, this is far from the ideal way to do this, and it can cause things like justification to get screwy, but it's the simplest solution for someone not aiming at a pixel perfect layout.

 

[Blood Red Sky]

That's because the image is inside the text box. Copy the picture, deselect the text box and paste it anywhere, then move it into the right place and apply a text wrap so the words don't overlap it.

Edit - Sorry, I can't take screengrabs cos I don't have InDesign at home, but I use it every day at work.

 

[santi_yo]

That's because the image is inside the text box. Copy the picture, deselect the text box and paste it anywhere, then move it into the right place and apply a text wrap so the words don't overlap it.

Edit - Sorry, I can't take screengrabs cos I don't have InDesign at home, but I use it every day at work.

This. Just paste the image outside the text box and edit the text wrap options.

 

[jett]

Alright, quick example to give you an idea of what I meant, just to help you understand further.



So this is what you started off with basically.

Spoiler

The lovely Nathan Drake can be our illustration for the sake of it being the first picture I found on my Mac.

You want to use the Text tool, left click onto the work area, then hold and drag to create a box like you do if you're selecting multiple things on your desktop or making a square shape in paint or something, which'll create a text box that you can move and resize. You then want to copy and paste each paragraph into a separate text box so that you end up with something like this.



As you can see here, you have the same information from the previous image, but because the main body of text is broken up into separate text boxes I can move each one independently of one another. If some of the text gets cut off the bottom of the page you can simply make a text box on the next page, and cut and paste the part of the text that was cut off into that.

Finally,



I know it's obvious, but even though you can move each paragraph or what have you individually, you'll still need to reduce the font size of the whole body of text depending on how much you're planning to fit on each page. For example, I've moved the position of the three text boxes here, and added another individual paragraph, but I've had to reduce to the font size to fit it in here; obviously you'd need to lower the size of all the fonts more than likely in this case.

Hopefully you understand all of that, because I think I lost myself 3 times typing it out. And to state again, this is far from the ideal way to do this, and it can cause things like justification to get screwy, but it's the simplest solution for someone not aiming at a pixel perfect layout.

Hmm thanks but I don't have a problem with the main text, it's the little boxes of text that surround that image that I have a problem with. I actually want the images to scroll down along with the main text, what I want to do is have those little boxes scroll along with them (the ones that say frontal plane, transverse plane, etc.). They don't. Thanks though.

That's because the image is inside the text box. Copy the picture, deselect the text box and paste it anywhere, then move it into the right place and apply a text wrap so the words don't overlap it.

Edit - Sorry, I can't take screengrabs cos I don't have InDesign at home, but I use it every day at work.

This. Just paste the image outside the text box and edit the text wrap options.

Thanks, it's not the solution I was looking for but that could help next time. I think I didn't explain myself well in the OP, though.

 

[Nbz]

Hey, found this topic as I have an issue with Indesign myself. I have a file that crashes the program as soon as I try and open it, and I want to find out if the issue is with the file itself, or with my copy of Indesign. If anyone has Indesign and can make a generic .idml file that I can use to test, that would be very much appreciated