Join Nigel French for an in-depth discussion in this video Placing the text and looking at flow options, part of Designing a Book (2013).
It's time to place our text. And I'm on page one of our document. So if you are anywhere other than page one, make sure you go there now. As I mentioned in an earlier movie, I set this document up with a primary text frame. Now if you have InDesign CS4 or 5 you did not have the option of choosing Primary text frame. You had what was called a Master text frame, but that behaved somewhat differently. So I'm going to also show you how we can do an auto flow place that does not use a primary text frame. Either way we're going to end up with all of our text on as many pages as we need to accommodate that text.
Of course that page count is going to change, but we want to see all of our text to begin with. So first of all, working with the primary text frame, I'm going to press Cmd, or Ctrl+D, and then come to my text file, Alice text. Now I have my Show Import Options turned off. I've already familiarized myself with this text, so there are going to be no big surprises. But we'll see In a later movie how you might, in certain circumstances, want to have Show Import Options turn on.
Now, if I see this missing fonts message, I don't really care, because all of the fonts I've got in this text file are going to change. All we're concerned with is getting the text in here to begin with. There's my loaded type cursor. When I move that over my primary text frame, the shape of that cursor changes. I can now just click, and after a brief pause, if I look on my pages panel, we see that I now have, in this case, 87 pages. You may have a slightly different number because maybe you didn't have a missing font, maybe you had a different default font.
It doesn't matter at this point, just so long as it's all in there. Okay, now I'm going to undo that, press Cms+Z twice. And then I'm going to delete that primary text frame. So, let's see what would happen if we didn't have a primary text frame. If I click I get just one text frame and then it stops. And I have over set text. So what I need to do to flow all of my text is hold down the Shift key while I click.
And I need to come to the top margin as well. You can see how my cursor changes its appearance ever so slightly. There's a black arrow in that cursor and then when I, and overall when I am snapping to my top margin, it turns white. At that point, I'm going to hold down my Shift key and click and I arrive at the same place that I was at before with 87 pages. Regardless of which approach you are using, I suggest you turn on this preference.
Preferences, type, and for Windows users your preferences will be at the bottom of the Edit menu. Smart Text Reflow, now in the first instance, Limit to Primary Text Frames. So in that case, it's already on. But in the second instance, Smart Text Reflow would not have any effect. All I'm going to do is uncheck Limits to Primary Text Frames so that Smart Text Reflow is applicable whether or not we are using a Primary Text Frame. That's going to mean that as our text expands or contracts, extra pages will be Added or Deleted. And I just need to do one more thing to make sure that last thing is true. Delete Empty Pages.
So, I've unchecked that, and I've checked that. And we now have all of our text flowed into our document, and we're ready to move on to the next step.
Author
Released
5/21/2013- Getting to know your text
- Choosing a page size and format
- Setting margins
- Creating and applying paragraph styles
- Wrapping text around images
- Creating a table of contents
- Designing the front cover, spine, and back cover
- Exporting a print-ready PDF
- Uploading to Blurb
- Making an EPUB
Skill Level Intermediate
Duration
Views
Related Courses
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Designing a Book Cover
with Nigel French2h 46m Intermediate -
InDesign CS6: EPUB Kindle and iPad
with Anne-Marie Concepción7h 32m Intermediate
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Introduction
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Welcome1m 3s
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1. Getting Started
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Getting to know your text2m 32s
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2. Document Setup and Strategy
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Setting margins10m 11s
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Adding line numbers3m 21s
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3. Placing Text
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Cleaning up text4m 8s
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4. Styling the Text
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Applying a style sequence2m 27s
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Adding pauses1m 58s
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Styling verse5m 14s
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Adding typographic effects8m 33s
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5. Working with Images
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Placing inline graphics3m 3s
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Positioning images9m 21s
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6. Finessing Text
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Fixing widows and orphans10m 32s
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Fixing awkward line endings3m 47s
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7. Creating the Front Matter
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Adding a half title and title10m 40s
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Numbering the front matter2m 10s
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Reviewing your work2m 11s
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8. Creating the Cover
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Creating a layout grid3m 34s
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Adding cover elements4m 12s
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Designing the front cover5m 38s
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Designing the spine4m 15s
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Designing the back cover4m 15s
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9. Preparing for Print
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Exporting to print-ready PDF3m 53s
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Uploading to Blurb2m 18s
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Archiving the project3m 37s
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10. Making an Ebook
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Generating a screen PDF5m 13s
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EPUB overview1m 37s
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Adapting the EPUB file6m 15s
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Viewing on an iPad1m 7s
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Exporting for the Kindle3m 12s
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Conclusion
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Next steps25s
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Video: Placing the text and looking at flow options