Break text flow, but keep subsequent text in text frame

[markeeeee]

I have a very long report, with several chapters. All of the text is in one long text flow. Obviously if I make a change on page 1 (like adding a photo) this will reflow the text all the way to page 200. I don't want to have to check every single subsequent page for reflow issues.

Is there a way, at the end of a chapter/section, to break the text thread, AND keep the subsequent text on the subsequent pages? So if I make a change at the start of the report it is not reflowing the content at the end.

[Randy Hagan · Accepted solution]

I can offer a qualified option that may work for you some — but not all — of the time.

By using InDesign's Break Character functions, Type>Insert Break Character menu command, you can define a spot where you can say at the end of a chapter/section anything following will start on a brand new page.

This can incorporate small changes, say adding a line or two to your chapter text, without forcing rethreading through your entire document using the page break function. There are caveats, though:

• There has to be room left on the last page to incorporate the extra space needed. So if you add three lines in the section, but if there are only two lines of space left, you're going to lose.
• You have to have a return break at the end of the chapter. If you used four extra returns to move the next chapter's text to the next page and use the page break, the break character will put those four extra lines at the top of the next one.
• You may have to adjust your text frame at the end of the section to make everything copacetic.

Please understand that these are crude patches to get you by, which will not work universally. What will work universally is to break up your long InDesign document into separate InDesign files for each chapter/section, then stitch them together using InDesign's Book functions so that each section can be fixed without affecting the rest, then using InDesign's Book panel to repaginate as necessary to incorporate your running changes. You can learn more about book functions through this link. Be sure to read the additional links at the end of this help page and the half-hour you spend reading and learning how InDesign's book functions work will pay you handsome dividends from here on out.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[Frans v.d. Geest · Accepted solution]

The best solution is to use the free scripts, simple to use:

Actually, you already have a script inside InDesign’s Scripts panel called SplitStory it splits all the frames. That is, each frame is unlinked from all the others and all the text stays where it is.

You may also look at this one:

https://www.id-extras.com/break-text-thread/

https://yourscriptdoctor.com/breaking-text-frames/

[markeeeee]

I only want to break one text thread. So the built in script won't work for me. I'll check out the other scripts. Thank you

[TᴀW]

With all the script (including mine at id-extras), if you have a table that continues over several pages, or a long footnote, at the point where you want to break the thread, the layout will change (because the script will not split a single table into 2 tables nor a footnote into 2 footnotes).

Ariel

[Frans v.d. Geest]

Does the Split Story (not Break story) script work better for you maybe?

https://corullon.com.br/scripts/product/split-story-from-selection/

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

markeeeee said: "I only want to break one text thread. So the built in script won't work for me."

Hi markeeeee,

Ariel's script BreakTextThread.jsx can be found in the Scripts panel under folder Community.

Window > Utilities > Scripts

This script is able to break a story of several text frames at one single point between two threaded text frames.

Also see:

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/scripting.html

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[MARTYNB]

Thanks Uwe. This was just what I was looking for.  Had a large report inserted in its entirety from a Word doc.  After clean up and formatting I wanted to break the links between the sections so the whole doc wasn't auto-flowing. BreakTextThread.jsx worked a treat.

[Jo_InTheCity]

Wonderful - just what a serial linker like me needs when re-building or overwriting documents 🙂

Thanks - you save me much time.

[Johannes37369823d21b]

Unfortunately, BreakTextThread.jsx shuffled my document quite a bit - worked neither with breaking a single thread nor with all of them, the outcome was actually the same as far as I checked. I'll try other scripts now.