How to prevent text reflow when placing new content?

Question

I’m working on a multi-page InDesign document and every time I place new text, it causes the existing content to reflow or shift. Is there a way to lock the layout or prevent this text reflow when adding new content? I want to maintain my current design structure. Thanks!

Mike Witherell · Accepted Answer

Text reflow happens on whole story texts. If you paste into the existing thread, it triggers a reflow. However, if you have developed and used Paragraph Styles along with intelligent Keep Options, the existing pages shouldn't change much, if at all. My advice is to thread stories for not-too-many pages at a time. Like maybe 10-12 pages each thread. That way, a reflow doesn't have to affect all the pages in a really long page count. Regardless of that thought, tho, would be Keep Options in powerful Paragraph Styles.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS · Answer

If you are referring to a paragraph line endings reflowing, you can disable that as @rob day mentioned. Note that the Adobe Paragraph Composer would not cause other paragraphs to reflow--only the one being edited. Keep in mind that turning this option off could affect the quality of the typesetting.

If you are referring to text moving to other text frames, don't put everything in linked text frames. Content that you don't want to reflow should be in stand-alone frames and not linked. InDesign includes some sample scripts--one of them is called BreakFrame. It will make each linked frame a stand-alone frame, so the text will no longer flow between them.

The Scripts panel is under the Window>Utilities>Scripts menu.

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