Anchored Objects - Unusable functionality design - NEED FIX ASAP

[radhamadhava11]

Dear Adobe,

I'm working on a book project, and need to insert pictures which flow with the text. You have Anchored Objects to facilitate this. But the functionality of Anchored Objects is horribly designed and poorly implemented and makes laying out books nearly impossible. This is unacceptable.

I inserted many pictures in relation to the text. I add text wrap and corner rounding styles. I have to adjust some text or add a picture in the text preceding it, and the text flows around the subsequent images, making them now positioned in the wrong area of text.

To address this problem I research online and find out about Anchored Objects. I can't right-click on my already placed pictures and create anchored objects out of them. NO that would be GOOD design! Why would you do THAT?

I have to now create new Anchored Objects. So I select my picture and go to Object/Anchored Objects, and all options are greyed out. Why? I have to have nothing selected. So I deselect all objects, return to the menu, and have to Insert an object. But nothing happens. Why? Because I need to first set an input point in the text, by putting the text cursor somewhere in the body. Ideally it would be at the beginning of the paragraph in which I want to picture to be attached to. Makes sense right? WRONG! Adobe's great idea is that it has to be inserted into the line ABOVE the paragraph in order for text wrap to move the first line of the following paragraph in which the picture is to be wrapping text around itself.

Ok I do this, but hang on, the area of the picture is sometimes BLANK! Why's this? Somehow the Anchored Object is behind the text box, ok no problem, move it above it. DOESN'T WORK! Why? No Idea. Ok select the text box, send it behind, works! Great!

Another problem, the preceding text needs adjusting to clean up an orphan line, but the Anchored Objects stay on the page they were added to, they don't flow across pages!!! WTH!?! What is the use of an anchored picture next to text if it can't flow across pages with the text?!?!

This is so impossibly frustrating I feel compelled to make my own app and put Adobe out of business. Fix this or else! It seems like Adobe never listens to their customers. They're happy to be the monopoly and just let bad situations like this linger for decades.

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

Please post feature requests here: https://indesign.uservoice.com. The community forums are here to help users understand how to use the software. We can't fix anything.

Two thoughts:

1. Consider implementing Keep settings as part of your paragraph styles—that will avoid the need for manual page breaks.
2. Anchor your frames to an otherwise empty ¶ with the typesize set to 0.1 pt, 0 leading, 0 vertical spacing. The shortcut to anchor is to drag from the blue box to the anchor position. See demo, below. 

~Barb

[Lukas Engqvist]

As Barb suggests is the way you would normally work in indesign to solve the kind of problem you have. (I would use an object style for my anchored images, then I could make them align with the outer edge of my columns), I would add a Keep Option so that the paragraph containing image must "Keep with Next" so that an anchored image cannot extend below the text area. it is possible to set how many lines you need to include withe the image.

Any powerful feature requires some learning, but the time you invest you will have back multiplied. 

[Colin Flashman]

@Barb that's a novel fix for this long-standing InDesign bug, but this is really something that the InDesign Devs should have resolved by now. I've shown it live to an InDesign Dev while at Adobe MAX and he told me to log it as a bug, but I said it's already there - in fact (at the time of writing) over 280 people have requested it and have BEEN requesting it since 2018: 

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/34501540-an...

If the dev team are reading this, please fix this - it's embarrassing that this issue only occurs in this application and not in software offered by competitors.

[Frans v.d. Geest]

Anchored object have many many options besides the in-line option you seem to use, like achoring relative to spine (so it 'flips' position when it lands on the opposite page), absolute to margin etc. I've done many, many complex books with all these options. Maybe you should dive a little deeper in the test of the options?

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/anchored-objects.html

[Derek Cross]

On a side issue, are you using Paragraph (and Character) Styles?

You seem to be using carriage returns for line spacing; a subtler space (e.g. half a line paragraph space) would look better. But note, it's good practice for paragraphs to either have an indent or line spacing, not both!

Also, are you using a base-line grid – it's a very helpful facility for this kind of layout.

[Willi Adelberger]

Left of the righ corner is a square. Drag it to the place, where you want the object to be anchored.

Or copy/cut the image into clipboard, change to the text tool, insert the curser where. you want it to be anchored and paste it there in the text mode.

I would strngly recommend to book a basic InDesign class. There is not a poor implementation of a fuctionality.

[AlanGilbertson]

The frustration is understandable, but the remedy is not complicated. Step back, put in some study time and learn how to use Anchored Objects correctly. It is much easier than you've been making it.

Keep in mind that you are working with a mature tool built for industrial-grade production. At your level of experience, if you can't make something work it is far more likely that you have a gap in your knowledge than that the feature is broken and nobody else has noticed. Make your default thought, "There's something here I don't understand." Ask for help, dig into some tutorials, or both.

[Derek Cross]

Excellent advice!

[fionac67968569]

I totally agree with the original issue reported. When you are doing complex design structure I am finding that anchored objects just aren't working. It is doing exactly what the designer is describing. Unless it is a simple structure, in which case you wuld have no probelm I'm guessing. I'm trying everything and so far nothing is working as described in mutiple description searching. The alt text is just not showing up in the Acrobat file and I have purposefully used continuous linked text boxes in order to get better accessibility. If I had left them all seperate I would just bung them in the articles panel and job done. It's very frustaing. I wish I could crack it. And using no manual breaks in text is not often a decent option. This is not glorified word we are dealing with.

[Frans v.d. Geest]

I  create Accessible PDF's with anchored items all the time and all my Alt Text shows just fine. You should learn the options, if you simply know how, then they are amazing flexible in use. 

[fionac67968569]

I think actually I have the alt text in there, but it doesn't show when you hover over them. Well, two do and they are photos, so am assuming it's something to do with the type of file problem that comes up on forums, or has this been fixed too?

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[Eugene Tyson]

I use anchored objects all the time.  Granted,  tricky to get used to. 

But if you find done tutorials it is worth putting the effort into learning. 

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for sharing all these detailed observations and experiences. I'm checking this further with the product team to get more clarity.

In the meantime, could you please provide a sample InDesign document where you're facing this issue, along with a short screen recording showing your entire workflow up to the point where the problem occurs? This will help us better understand the behavior and assist you more effectively.

Looking forward to your updates!

Abhishek 

[Colin Flashman]

Done. Video is at this link:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ki3bk99wj9imduj97kxro/anchoredObject.mp4?rlkey=9ilk9e5snwraflqukwl5yo...

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Colin Flashman,

Thank you so much for sharing the recording. I really appreciate you taking the time to document the workflow so clearly.

I'm checking this internally with the product team, and I'll share an update as soon as I hear back from them.

Thanks again for your patience and for helping us understand this better!

Abhishek