Back

If your email is not recognized and you believe it should be, please contact us.

  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.Login

How to create multiple text frames with border at the bottom of a page

Return to Member Forum

  • Author
    Posts
    • #14361682
      Valentina Truneanu
      Participant

      Last year, I worked on a book project with bilingual text in parallel pages and a monolingual commentary running from one page to the other.
      The commentary text frame has different baseline settings than the main text, and it has an upper border. I created an object style to this frame and a divider. Following an advice read in a forum (which I can’t find anymore), I grouped the text frame and the divider, and I added them as an image to my CC library.
      This solution was not practical. Although the divider and the text frame worked together, I couldn’t set the object in order to align the last baseline of this text frame to the last baseline of the main text. Since the commentary had more or less lines in each page, every time I resized the group it changed the space between the margin and the frame. See the difference in this image: https://www.dropbox.com/s/drppst2snq1yg9k/Screenshot2022-03-10_10.29.49.png?dl=0. It was very time-consuming to manually adjust the bottom of every grouped object.
      Now I am working with the second book of this series, and this issue blocks my workflow. How can I make a text frame with divider, whose last line always aligns with the bottom baseline of the main text?

    • #14361684
      David Blatner
      Keymaster

      Are you trying to make the divider line match? Or the amount of text in each frame match? I’m not 100% sure what you are trying to achieve.

    • #14363702
      Valentina Truneanu
      Participant

      Hi David.
      Sorry I didn’t make myself clear in my previous post.
      I am trying to match the last baseline of the text frames at the bottom of the page with the last baseline of the main text frames. If you see the image, you’ll notice that the one on the right matches, but the one of the left doesn’t. Every time I resize that text frame, the last baseline has a different position, and it is quiet difficult for me to find manually the perfect spot.
      The text frames have an object format with position adjusted to X & Y, and a custom baseline grid relative to the top of the text frame inset. The divider has an object style as well.
      My current method to add these text frames is the following:
      1. I select the last text frame from the previous spread and click the out port. There is a whole story inside these frames, and it is showing as overset, because I place it manually.
      2. I create a new text frame at the bottom of the left page.
      3. I apply its object style.
      4. I repeat steps 2 and 3 to create another text frame at the bottom of the right page.
      5. I resize the text frames with the mouse up and down until I reach the desired amount of text. The amount of text and the divider line do not necessarily match.
      6. I place the dividers from my CC library.
      7. I select the text frame with its divider, and I distribute the tops with Align to Key Object selected.
      8. I group both objects.
      9. I move the group with the cursor until the last baseline of the text frame is aligned with the last one of the main text frame.
      10. I repeat steps 7 to 9 for the divider and text frame on the right page.
      There must be a better method to achieve this result. It takes a lot of time to do that for every spread.

    • #14363752
      David Blatner
      Keymaster

      Have you tried working with Vertical Alignment in the Text Frame Options dialog box? Would vertical justification work?
      See:

      InDesign How-to: Balance Columns with Vertical Justification


      or

      Keeping our (Vertical) Balance…

    • #14363967
      Valentina Truneanu
      Participant

      Yes, I tried working with vertical alignment, but it is not what I need. I don’t want to change leading or space between lines, just to keep the last baseline in the same place when I adjust the height of the text frame.
      I adjusted the margins of the main text frames in the master pages and the commentary frame, in order to make the bottom match. Finding the perfect spot when changing height is still an issue. I don’t use the mouse anymore for this task, but I make sure in the Transformation panel that the height value is always a multiple of 12 (because the custom baseline is set to 12 pt).
      If there were a Last Baseline Offset inside the Baseline Options section of the Text Frame Options dialog box, it would be what I need.
      It would help me to increase or decrease the height of the text frame (without scaling) in 12 pt increments with the keyboard. Is that possible in InDesign?

    • #14363978
      David Blatner
      Keymaster

      What about setting the Vertical Alignment to “Bottom” instead of “Top” or “Justified”? That way, the bottom would always be in the same place (but the top would be different).

      You can change the text frame in 12 point increments by setting your measurement system to Picas, then place the cursor in the H (height) field in the Control or Properties panel, and then Shift-click the up arrow on your keyboard. Shift-click will move in 1-pica increments, which is 12 points.

    • #14364049
      Valentina Truneanu
      Participant

      Setting the vertical alignment to “Bottom” makes no difference, because I checked the option “Balance columns”.
      Setting my measurement system to picas and increasing the height as you said did the trick. Thank you very much, David. Now I can quickly change the height of the text frame.

Viewing 6 reply threads
  • The forum ‘General InDesign Topics (CLOSED)’ is closed to new topics and replies.
Forum Ads