Margin Notes aka Sidenotes

[#1]

Hello Guys,

(I had earlier posted this in InDesign forum as well. I need to account for inputs from Adobe FrameMaker community to get it right.)

I am trying to get the sense of how do people work with Sidenotes in their documents and need help from the community. I have put up a quick and short questionnaire which ask questions specifically around different aspects of Sidenotes in a document.

Below is the link of the questionnaire which you can answer if interested. It will take roughly 10 minutes of your time. (9 multiple choice questions)

Margin Notes aka Sidenotes Survey

As a quick re-introduction to Sidenote; it is a brief text positioned on right or left margin of the document, usually to provide additional information regarding the paragraph it placed against.

Thanks....

Abhinav Kaushik

[#2]

Sorry, never used them in my doc projects.

[#3]

I filled out the form yesterday when I saw it on the InDesign forum.

I'll reiterate here that would love to see FrameMaker's sidehead options incorporated into InDesign. The use of sideheads is such a great way to open up a single-column technical document by adding additional white space. This is so simple in FrameMaker—text can be in the main column, the sidehead column or it can straddle both. Tables will start in the main column, but automatically straddle when they get too wide. Heads can easily sit next to the paragraph they modify. I had a recent InDesign client who was trying to accomplish this with anchored frames—I had to convince him to change the layout because it was becoming a nightmare for him.

Happy to discuss this with you further and share examples.

~Barb

[#4]

Tables will start in the main column, but automatically straddle when they get too wide.

This is new to me. Can you please explain, how it is done in FM?

[#5]

Hi Lothar:

Table fits in main column.

Add a column and it straddles automatically.

~Barb

[#6]

Thanks Barb, you are right. But only when working with unstructured FrameMaker. Otherwise ...

But in the past few years, I've only worked with structured FM.

[#7]

Hi Lothar,

I get the behavior Barb described in the structure model I use in my structured Fm course, so the difference lies somewhere in your EDD.

-Matt