How to use anchored frames in side-by-side flows?

[Guest]

Hello,

I'm working in a bilingual document with two side-by-side flows and I cannot find the way of adding an anchored frame that runs accross both columns (to host a graphic for example).

I could manually split the flows after the required line and add a frame between them but this document is revised every couple of months (adding and removing big amounts of text) and it would be too time demanding.

Do you have any tip for me?

[Bob_Niland]

> ... two side-by-side flows ...

Side by side in what sense?

Facing pages?

Left & right columns?

> ... adding an anchored frame that runs accross both columns ...

The anchoring paragraph must have Pagination set to

<*> Across All Columns

For a long discussion on this, join this old thread at:

https://forums.adobe.com/message/3510197#3510197

[Arnis Gubins · Accepted solution]

The anchored frame will only affect the content in the flow that it is placed in. So, if you have a two-flow document, an AFrame placed in one column will never affect the content in the second flow. A graphic frame that spans both columns and has a runaround property will cause text to break around in it both frames. However, the graphic frame is tied to a location on the specific page and doesn't float with content changes.

If the the content in the two flows is spatially synchronized, i.e. each paragraph in both flows starts at the same baseline location, and the graphic is common to both, then you could just use an anchored frame in each column anchored left/right to create a 100% overlap and place the graphic in only one of these.

Alternatively, you could use a graphic frame across both flows and create a script that automatically re-positions a graphic frame, perhaps tied to a unique marker in both flows as the proximity indicator.

[Guest]

Thank you both for your answers. I specially appreciate the details Arnis.

I think I'll implement the first solution you pointed as I'm not confident enough with FM to explore its scripting. By the way I hope FM introduces something like an "anchored graphic frame" in next issues.

[Arnis Gubins]

If this is something that you need to do a lot of and on a regular basis, you may want to consider contacting Rick Quatro (see About ; his main site seems to temporarily offline for an update) about creating a custom script. From personal experience, the prices are very reasonable and save enormous amounts of time.