Scaling an Illustrator vector in a non-uniform way

[apinhas]

I am working on a manuscript in InDesign whose left-hand pages have a frame that surrounds text. The frame was created in Ilustrator, and I am new to both applications. The frame that surrounds the text on the text page does not act like I want it to when I change its size. Please see the downloadable video at the following link to get a feeling for what I mean (https://gofile.io/?c=hU3j43). As you can see from the video, when I make the frame smaller in order to border a small amount of text, the top and bottom portions of the frame become distorted. There is no longer a “pointy” design as is the case when the frame is quite large.

If possible, I would like this to be fixed so that when I change the size of the frame, the top and bottom portions do not change their look. I would just like the left and right vertical lines of the frame to be made smaller or larger, so that the top and bottom portions of the frame remain the same in all cases. I have been told by a person who has experience using Illustrator that this would require expert Illustrator skills. 

Does anyone know how this could be done?

[Mylenium]

Long and short: You don't scale. You have to create a custom frame shape or piece it together from separate objects. I'm not enough of an ID user, but I'm sure there's some way to have 9-slice scaling like behavior for graphical frames, so ask over in their forum.

Mylenium

[federico platon]

The object is INSIDE a frame in InDesign. to reshape or transform it, not both the object and frame, you need to select it separately.

How?

a) With the Selection Toool, doble click inside the frame, or

b) Place the cursor and click on that small circles near the center, that appears when you hove, move over, the frame, or

c) Select the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow) and click inside.

A frame of a different color, orange or brown (complementary of blue) appears around the object. Now you will be able to to reshape it, using either of the two tools, on the whole with the Selection tool or on some selected points and segments with the Direct Selection Tool.

You can also try to edit the original item in Illustrator, with the very same tools. Use the Selection tool, hiold Alt and click. Or Select the frame and open the Links panel, bottom right is a pencil icon for Editing Original. Click save and close Illustrator to return to ID with the edited object refreshed in InDesign.

Please let us know when you succeed and the procedure selected. Thanks.

[apinhas]

Thank you for taking time to respond, Frederico. 

I tried the suggested methods, but (unless I am doing things wrong) they do not allow me to scale the object differentially so that the top and bottom spikey portions remain unchanged when I make the frame bigger or smaller in the y-direction. 

[Luke Jennings3 · Accepted solution]

You can edit a copy of the placed frame in Illustrator to make a shorter version. Use the Direct select tool to select just the points at the top of the frame, (the selected points will be a solid color and the unselected points will be filled with white), drag the selected points down to the desired size. (screen shot 1).

In InDesign, you can fake a new frame size by duplicating the frame on top of itself (copy> Paste in place) then cropping the bottom off of the top frame and cropping the top off of the bottom frame and butting them together. In the 2nd screen shot, I left a small white gap between the cropped frames for clarity, you would want them to butt together. Use a separate text box for the copy.

[federico platon · Accepted solution]

Yes Luke, explains it clearly with the direct selection Tool in Illustrator, select the points on top side (Drag around all of them) and move trhem down (you can even use the (up/down) arrow keys or hold shift while you move the cursor placed on a selected point.

Alternativaly, ingenously, in InDesign you can also do what Luke suggests, make a duplicate, Copy and Paste in the same place, then reduce the height from the top, you can use the dimensions (H) small window on the top control bar. then repeat the same from the opposite side for the original placed below. It may help to separate them and after transforming select both and Align back again.

[apinhas]

Thank you for your help with this.