1 Correct answer
Hi @ibnabouna:
This is a challenging layout. The answer is no to being able to span a heading across three separate text frames. Span only works when you have one text frame with multiple columns defined within it. You could go old-school and draw one new frame that spans all three columns on the page and then have three separate frames, for one for each language underneath, as you mentioned.
As for the automatic spill-over, that only going to work if you have three separate frames, one for
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Replies
Hi @ibnabouna:
This is a challenging layout. The answer is no to being able to span a heading across three separate text frames. Span only works when you have one text frame with multiple columns defined within it. You could go old-school and draw one new frame that spans all three columns on the page and then have three separate frames, for one for each language underneath, as you mentioned.
As for the automatic spill-over, that only going to work if you have three separate frames, one for each language. Otherwise, there is going to be a lot of cutting and pasting to try to keep the languages in the correct columns after edits.
Neither option is ideal, but I'd chose the one I'm showing below because it would be slightly easier to control. If you follow the text threads/frame colors you can see how I have the frames connected. I'm making the assumption that you're going have heads in the middle of a page which would be the most problematic. Because the column lengths will never match up when you have multiple languages, you can use column breaks to force the text to hop over the middle-of-the-page heads and onto the next threaded frame.
~Barb
Hi @ibnabouna, I was intrigued by this problem and I've written a script idea called "Align Paragraphs". It's a slightly complicated set up, as you can imagine, but I'll attach a sample document that you can use to see what I've done. I've put a bit of documentation in the script itself, too.
UPDATE 2024-09-08: I have re-written this script from ground up, and i think it is now much easier to use, and better. See documentation in the script listing. And definitely try out the attached demo.indd.
- Mark
/**
* @file Align Parallel Paragraphs.js
*
* Purpose: to align "marked" paragraphs across different stories.
*
* This is useful for situations with "parallel" text threads,
* for example, a layout where each page has a column of English,
* a column of Hebrew, and a column of Greek (the texts are
* translations and semantically linked). It is desired that
* every subheading line up across the different languages
* to make comparison by the reader easy.
*
* To achieve this scenario, you would add a marker to every paragraph
* that needed to line up, in this case to each subheading.
*
* Set up:
*
* 0. Your document must have:
* - "Alignment Marker" object style (suggest specify size and non-printing)
* - "Spacer" paragraph style (suggest with tiny 0.01 leading, 0 paragraph spacing)
*
* 1. Create a non-printing marker triangle and apply "Alignment Marker" object style.
* The top of the marker's geometric bounds will be the alignment point.
*
* 2. Copy/paste a marker at the start of every line you want to align.
* Note: every time you add a marker, you must add one for each story.
* The script will attempt to align these "sets" of markers, eg. if you have 3 stories
* it will align the first marker of each story, and then align the second marker, etc.
*
* Usage:
* 1. Select multiple text frames, each having a separate story.
* 2. Run script.
*
* Technical:
* - the spacing is done by adding a "spacer" paragraph (with "Spacer" paragraph style)
* directly before the paragraph to be aligned, and setting its `spaceAfter`
* - all "spacer" paragraphs will be removed every time the script is re-run.
* - `settings.reset: true` will remove spacer paragraphs, but perform no alignments.
*
* @author m1b
* @version 2024-09-08
* @discussion https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/3-column-multilingual-book-with-spanning-headers/td-p/12923098
*/
function main() {
var settings = {
markerStyleName: 'Alignment Marker',
spacerParagraphStyleName: 'Spacer',
reset: false,
};
if (
0 == app.documents.length
|| app.activeDocument.selection.length < 2
)
return alert('Please select two or more text frames and try again.');
app.scriptPreferences.measurementUnit = MeasurementUnits.POINTS;
var doc = settings.doc = app.activeDocument,
frames = doc.selection,
stories = [],
unique = {};
// check that we have the styles we need
var markerStyle = settings.doc.objectStyles.itemByName(settings.markerStyleName),
spacerParagraphStyle = settings.doc.paragraphStyles.itemByName(settings.spacerParagraphStyleName);
if (!markerStyle.isValid)
return alert('Marker object style "' + settings.markerStyleName + '" is invalid.');
if (!spacerParagraphStyle.isValid)
return alert('Spacer paragraph style "' + settings.spacerParagraphStyleName + '" is invalid.');
// collect the stories
for (var i = 0; i < frames.length; i++) {
if (
!frames[i].hasOwnProperty('parentStory')
|| unique[frames[i].parentStory.id]
)
continue;
stories.push(frames[i].parentStory)
unique[frames[i].parentStory.id] = true;
}
// remove all spacer paragraphs
app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
app.findGrepPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = spacerParagraphStyle;
for (var i = 0, found; i < stories.length; i++) {
found = stories[i].findGrep();
for (var j = found.length - 1; j >= 0; j--)
found[j].remove();
stories[i].recompose();
}
if (settings.reset)
return;
// collect markers from the stories
var allMarkers = [];
for (var i = 0, markers; i < stories.length; i++) {
allMarkers[i] = [];
markers = stories[i].polygons;
markerLoop:
for (var j = 0; j < markers.length; j++) {
if (markers[j].appliedObjectStyle.name !== settings.markerStyleName)
continue markerLoop;
allMarkers[i].push(markers[j]);
}
}
// get number of alignments
var alignmentCount = Infinity;
for (var i = 0; i < allMarkers.length; i++)
alignmentCount = Math.min(alignmentCount, allMarkers[i].length);
// collect "alignments", which are sets of markers, one from each story
var alignments = [];
for (var i = 0; i < alignmentCount; i++) {
alignments[i] = [];
for (var j = 0; j < stories.length; j++)
alignments[i][j] = allMarkers[j].shift();
}
// process each alignment
for (var i = 0, markers, pageIndex, height; i < alignments.length; i++) {
markers = alignments[i];
pageIndex = -Infinity;
height = -Infinity;
// calculate the alignment's page index and height
for (var j = 0, marker; j < markers.length; j++) {
marker = markers[j];
page = marker.parentPage;
if (!page)
throw new Error('Marker "' + marker.toSpecifier() + '" is not on a Page.');
pageIndex = Math.max(pageIndex, page.documentOffset);
if (pageIndex === page.documentOffset)
height = Math.max(height, marker.geometricBounds[0]);
}
// align each marker
for (var j = 0; j < markers.length; j++)
alignMarker(markers[j], pageIndex, height);
}
/**
* Align `marker` to page
* @version 2024-09-08
* @param {Polygon} marker - an anchored page item.
* @param {Number} pageIndex - the alignment page.
* @param {Number} height - the alignment Y coordinate.
* @param {Number} [tolerance] - if the alignment required is less than this, don't bother (default: 0.001 pts).
*/
function alignMarker(marker, pageIndex, height, tolerance) {
if (undefined == tolerance)
tolerance = 0.001;
// add page breaks until marker is on the right page
while (pageIndex > marker.parentPage.documentOffset) {
marker.parent.paragraphs[0].insertionPoints[0].contents = SpecialCharacters.PAGE_BREAK;
marker.parent.parentStory.paragraphs.previousItem(marker.parent.paragraphs[0]).appliedParagraphStyle = spacerParagraphStyle;
marker.parent.parentStory.recompose();
}
// the distance to the alignment height
var dy = marker.geometricBounds[0] - height;
if (Math.abs(dy) < tolerance)
// already aligned
return;
var spacerParagraph = marker.parent.parentStory.paragraphs.previousItem(marker.parent.paragraphs[0]);
if (
undefined == spacerParagraph
|| !spacerParagraph.isValid
|| spacerParagraph.parentTextFrames[0] !== marker.parent.parentTextFrames[0]
|| spacerParagraph.appliedParagraphStyle !== spacerParagraphStyle
) {
// create the spacer paragraph
marker.parent.paragraphs[0].insertionPoints[0].contents = '\r';
spacerParagraph = marker.parent.parentStory.paragraphs.previousItem(marker.parent.paragraphs[0]);
spacerParagraph.appliedParagraphStyle = spacerParagraphStyle;
}
// after adding the spacer paragraph, recalculate this
dy = marker.geometricBounds[0] - height;
if (dy > 0)
throw new Error('Marker "' + marker.toSpecifier() + '" cannot be aligned due to bad sorting!');
spacerParagraph.spaceAfter -= dy;
};
};
app.doScript(main, ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, undefined, UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, 'Align Parallel Paragraphs');
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