Column for heading, column for body text?

[melaniescooby]

Hiya, I am wanting to have the headings in one column and the body text in the other, like in the image below, the text will need to flow in case there are edits later. Does anyone know how to go about doing this? I am using Indesign CC

Many thanks

Mel

Hie

[Salah_Fadlabi · Accepted solution]

Do it with anchor object, and make object style from this anchor object.

[melaniescooby]

Thanks so much, that sorted it nicely.

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Hi,

There is often another way to do it differently ... No anchored block, no script... only ID and styles! 

[Migintosh]

Well done, Obi-Wan. How did you make the blue text align with the black text vertically?

[Guest]

Why don't you show the style definition?

[Peter Spier]

I think this was done by uing a single column frame and adding a large left indent to the main body text style, then adding a similar larg right indent to the heading style, along with a negative baseline shift equal to the leading, but Obi-wan will need to confirm.

If that's correct, though, there is a problem if the heaing falls at the top of a column. It will leave a one-line gap.

[Migintosh]

I was able to work out that much, but when I apply the blue style, it doesn't move down to be beside the black text. It's not baseline shift, because in the video, single and multi-line paragraphs all line up with the black text with a single style.

[Peter Spier]

Baseline shift (and it's negative, not positive), worked for me. If you look closely at the video when the text moves you can still see the highlight above which is typical for shifted type.

[Peter Spier]

By the way, that's also how the spacing between sections gets there (which is why it's a problem at the top of the column).

Here's a screen shot showing the shift with the first paragaph highlighted:

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Hi,

It is indeed magical! 

This night, I accidentally closed the ID file without saving it!  but Peter has almost found! [Peter, to finish, try with several blue lines!]

Regarding the small bug in top, Peter is quite right! but just enlarge upwards the text block to catch up!

[Peter Spier]

Yeah, multiple lines is a problem with just baseline shift. How did you do that?

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Peter,

Always magical!

The last secret: Title para style have nested lines styles! Like this:

I've created 5 char styles for 5 lines.

[Peter Spier]

Line styles to add the shift. Very clever indeed.

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Peter, I agree with you: I myself would have used Salah's method. I use a [Javascript] that makes it (much better and much more complicated: it can add a vertical thread of the kind hug with gradient and shadow or anything else as thread, adapting it to the height of the text in the anchored block)!

The [JS] searches all the para with a para style given and make the work. Here, it's totally "magical" 

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Peter,

We're totally wrong about the little "bug" (top of the page).

It can be fixed by:

Totally normal because the "Title" para style I use has a leading of... 0 pt!

So, here, It's finally an interesting alternative!

[Peter Spier]

OK, now you've got what I consider a workable solution. You can add space before to get a break between the sections when the heading is not at the top of the column.

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Peter, I appreciate the term "workable solution"!    Totally agree with you!

[Salah_Fadlabi]

Obi-wan Kenobi, that's very very nice.

[Document Geek]

@Can you recommend a way to make this work for margins that are on the outside of each page, rather than on the left of each page?

[smoothsea]

Hi,

Anchored objects can be set to be away from the spine, so using that method will achieve this for you.

Regards,

Malcolm

[Peter Spier]

Obi-wan Kenobi wrote:

Regarding the small bug in top, Peter is quite right! but just enlarge upwards the text block to catch up!

Not to diminish the achievement here, but I'm always heistant to use a technique that can cause me to have to go through the whole document looking for problems in reflow because I've made an edit that adds or remove a line someplace. I'll admit to extending or reducing the length of a pair of frames at the bottom of a spread in order to get a better flow, but it always comes back to haunt you at some point. At least if you do it on the bottom, it's less jarring to the reader than misaligned page tops.

Using the original anchored object suggestion (and including the positioning in an object style) allows for heading of any length in any position. Yes, you need to create the anchored frames, but once done they stay where they belong when you edit.