How to keep space between objects the same after resizing?

denetterae  wrote That is bad news. …

Hi denetterae ,

scripting aside I can think of two ways to accomplish what you want. But both are workarounds and require a bit of preparation. Means you cannot use the group of objects you already built.

1. Use a group of objects where all edges are without a gap.

The "gap" is simulated by a couple of strokes set to the background color of your page.

So objects in the background of the group would be obscured.

When scaling use the Transformation Panel and uncheck the option in the flyout menu of the panel that strokes are scaled.

The screenshot below is showing some tests with that. Group of frames in the upper left is the "original", strokes are colored "Black" just to make my point clear. Right to this group is a scaled down version, below a scaled up version where I colored the strokes with "Paper" and one flaw you have to correct after scaling.

Also note, that you cannot do strokes around individual frames.

2. Use a table where all images or graphics reside in graphic cells. Text in text cells. The distance between every cell is a cell stroke with the stroke style set to "None" so that all objects stacked below the table will look through.

Note: If you scale the text frame holding the table the strokes around the cells will be scaled as well. But you can easily correct that after scaling with changing one single value! Also note, that you have to use the option "Adjust Scaling Percentage" in the General preferences of InDesign for scaling. Otherwise the graphics in the graphic cells will not scale with the text frame and the table.

This screenshot below is showing the "original" table to the left and a scaled down version to the right where I already adjusted the stroke weight for the cells. The formula to do this is: Stroke weight * 1/scaling factor. In my case I scaled down to 70% so the scaling factor is 0.7. So I had to change the stroke weight to:

Stroke weight * 1.42857142857143

Regards,
Uwe