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Question

Paragraph on outside edge?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
October 29, 2024
3 replies
895 views

I feel as if I'm missing something simple here, but — is there any way to have a paragraph, in a continuing flow, sit at the outside margin whether it falls on a left or right page? Without assigning different styles, using text boxes, or the like? A limited form of this can be done with the toward/away from spine justification setting, but it affects only justification and not overall paragraph position. I keep thinking of that, and float left/right in web code, but... it seems like there's a way to have a formatted paragraph hug the outer margin, automatically, and retain justification, spacing, rules/border, etc.

Am I missing something?

How to

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Peter Spier

Community Expert

How about putting those notes in a frame as an inline anchored object? That frame can have an object style that aligns away from spine.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

I really should have read the whole thread before posting. (feeling sheepinsh).

James Gifford—NitroPressAuthor

Legend

Thanks, all, for the feedback and suggestions. My main question was "does ID do this?" and the answer is clearly no; I must be thinking of some melange of other doc platforms and tools.

My solution is simple, just use two (actually four, sigh) styles to position these notes at the outside edge, with manual style assignment. The book is mature and doesn't change much, so one pass will do all but a few touch-ups on each new addition, no need to get into any automated solution. But all those kept in mind for future projects. (It's the four styles that make the automated options a bit too complex; two basic styles and then two options within those choices, for a very complex formatting scheme. A wetware solution is most straightforward, here.)

Just editorailizing*, I could center the notes, but I long ago took the position of a wise mentor that "centering things is one step from making them invisible." Up til now, the right-offset has worked fine on recto pages, but looks increasingly awkward on versos. So I need to come up with 2 (x2) styles that make the most of an outside-margin hug. And then spend a tedious hour applying them... and move on.

This would be a nice feature, though, right? Kind of like LTR/RTL, a general switch for paragraphs that have two style forks based on which page they're on.

* Not a typo. Points for recognizing the influence. 🙂

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

I would put the text in an ancored frame. Width and parafraph style defined via object style, height auto size. Position relative to spine is possible for anchored frames and can also be defined via oject style.

Only a page break is in the paragraph not possible.

James Gifford—NitroPressAuthor

Legend

A good general solution, but one of my priorities is seamless EPUB export, and text boxes get messy and complicated for that. This text needs to stay in the main flow, not in a frame or table or other separate element. (But that's just my specific needs; a text box is probably the right solution for many layouts.)

jmlevy

Community Expert

Hi @James Gifford—NitroPress

Do you mean this?

James Gifford—NitroPressAuthor

Legend

No, more like this:

I'd like these text note/warnings to stick to the outside margin on any page they fall, without using two styles or manually positioning them or such, while remaining part of the text flow. The details (shading etc.) are not the point — I use this general style with shading, top/bottom rules. borders etc. but it always has to be hard-positioned on the page, which is not what I'd like.

Ideally, the formatted paragraph with all attributes should stick to the outside margin as it flows from left to right pages and back.

For some reason, I think this is achievable.... but I may simply be mixing up document techs and platforms in thinking ID can do it.

No, not really interested in scripts or such — I can solve the problem with several kinds of "intervention." But an automated positioning method would be great.

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

Yeah, I don't think InDesign can do this the way you're asking. Right indent is always going to be right indent, instead of the "inside indent" and "outside indent" you'd need to achieve this with straight text formatting. I can't recall where I've done this myself- I remember only the feeling of satisfaction when I finally got it set up correctly, making me suspect that it must be something in the vein of LaTeX or Arbortext.

In InDesign, I've always done this with anchored objects. I know you don't want to put your callout in a separate frame, but you could just use an empty frame as a custom anchored object, and check the "Relative to Spine" box in the Custom Anchored Object options. Then give it a a text wrap, and anchor it spinewards of your callout. It's a lot of clicking, though, for something we'd want to be a comparatively automatic process.

I've seen people use single-cell tables, as you can give the table an Away From Spine alignment without regard for its contents. That's not technically "using text boxes" but it's awfully close.

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