How Auto Thread Text Frames

Aha. There is news.

Retain contents could be tough when threading text frames of unknown contents and size.

Hm. I wonder why the frames should be threaded at all, if contents should be retained.

You could work my script on your document after you first split all threaded stories in the document.

For that purpose use Ariel Walden's script BreakTextThread.jsx that can be found in the Community folder of your InDesign Scripts panel with InDesign 2020 and 2021.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Chronologically?
You mean page by page in order of your pages in the document, don't you?

And threaded stories should not be touched?

That script should do the job:

var textFrames = app.documents[0].pages.everyItem().textFrames[0].getElements();
var textFramesLength = textFrames.length;

var textFramesToThread = [];

// Get all text frames that should be threaded:
for( var n=0; n<textFramesLength; n++ )
{
	// The story of the text frame has more than 1 text containers? Do nothing and loop on:
	if( textFrames[n].parentStory.textContainers.length >1 ){ continue };
	
	// Last character of story is not a end of paragraph character? Add one:
	if
	( 
		n+1 < textFramesLength &&
		textFrames[n].parentStory.characters.length > 0 && 
		textFrames[n].parentStory.characters[-1].contents != "\r" 
	)
	{
		textFrames[n].parentStory.insertionPoints[-1].contents = "\r";
	};
	
	// Add text frame to the array of text frames that should be stitched:
	textFramesToThread[ textFramesToThread.length++ ] = textFrames[n];
};

// Thread the text frames:
for( var n=0; n<textFramesToThread.length-1; n++ )
{
	textFramesToThread[n].nextTextFrame = textFramesToThread[n+1];
};

Before running the script:

After:

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

This will thread every frame together, from first to last page. Is that what you want?

var pages = app.activeDocument.pages.everyItem().getElements(); 

for (var i = 1; i < pages.length; i++) {

      try { 

           pages[i].textFrames[0].previousTextFrame = pages[i -1].textFrames[0];

     }  catch(e) {}

}