Auto-instantiated text boxes in ID?
May 11, 2017 12:51 PM   Subscribe

Can I tell InDesign to auto-spawn multiple identical linked-and-flowed text boxes on the same page based on well-structured text data? See extended explanation.

I have a range of projects I will be creating in InDesign which require multiple small text boxes. The text boxes will all hold short data-blocks of text, from three to six lines, and to begin with will always be 1.25 x 1 in.

The source text can be premassaged such that each record is delineated by a hard return and a text-box break while the lines in each record are delineated by soft returns.

Rather than prepopulating a page with a couple hundred of these boxes or manually clicking along to produce them, is there a way to get this to occur automatically, along the lines of the auto-pagination text flow? I mean, I could set the page size to 1.25x1 in and pop a text box on the master page, but then I have to pull the text boxes back on to the page I will be using to actually lay them out, which seems like too much work.
posted by mwhybark to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)
 
I'm not sure I understand completely what you're looking for, and I don't know your level of InDesign knowledge... but here's a guess as to what could help you.

Set up a master page with text frames, sized at your 1.25x1" size. Click the 'out' port in the bottom right and connect it with the next frame. Repeat throughout the whole page.

Be sure your preferences allow for smart reflow, which will paginate the document with as many pages as needed.

Set up paragraph styles for what would be the first line in each text box to have 'start in new frame'. This is set using the keep options. No need to use a combination of hard and soft returns. Use all hard returns for new lines.

Place the text in the first frame on your first page, and flow into the rest of the frames using 'Autoflow', described about halfway down this page.
posted by hydra77 at 2:24 PM on May 11, 2017


Response by poster: This is more or less what I had expected, the only real issue being the need to manually set up the master boxes and links. I suppose setting up a row or column first, linking that, then duplicating and linking first and last boxes in each column or row would save some time. I think that's what I will do.

My final projects are likely to all be single large pages, poster-size layouts, so using a master page approach may not be time saving unless I plan to keep all the projects in one large multipage file, which is worth a thought.

(I was a pre-release user for iD 1.x and helped set up many of the initial shipping samples that came with the product, but have only had a couple of gigs using iD since - print just doesn't generate the same job and gig footprint it used to, as far I can tell. It's still a piece of software I look forward to working with.)
posted by mwhybark at 3:05 PM on May 11, 2017 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Quick update - I started by making and linking three text boxes on the MP and then option-shift-dragging to duplicate, then linking the first and last boxes of the set, followed by Transform Again until I had a completed column, and then option-shift-dragging to get a new column, followed by repeated Transform Agains. So it was fairly easy to get the text box grid I wanted.

Weirdly, the linkages were sometimes there and sometimes not. I *think* I ended up having to option-shift-drag each set to preserve then rather than being able to use Transform Again. I started by grouping the first three boxes before I duped them and then noticed that the linkages were coming undone; I don't think I kept the grouping in place after that.

I did actually have a reason for soft returns - I had intended to use paragraph styles to differentiate certain data blocks via a left-justified horizontal color bar, but I'm using an older version of iD which lacks Paragraph Shading so the indicator feature will have to be built and styled using drawing tools rather than type tools.

Frame Break works perfectly, so my next step will be massaging the inbound data.

Anyway, thanks for the sounding board and for helping me think this through!
posted by mwhybark at 1:38 PM on May 12, 2017


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