Is it best not to use page breaks?

[Thomas_Calvin]

It seems to me that hard-coding page breaks in your text is a bad idea. If you publish your document in a different format, it's going to be a mess.

Wouldn't it be better to adjust page breaks by resizing the text frame and forcing the story to flow onto the next page where you want it to?

Or is there some other strategy people employ when they want to deploy to different-sized media?

[rob day]

If they really can’t get Shift Command Click  to release the Parent page items in a text thread, it should be an easy enough to script the release of all the parent page items associated with the text thread.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

You don't have to shift-click to unlock a primary text frame. Just load the text and click. The frames will be unlocked at that point. 

[Thomas_Calvin]

If they really can’t get Shift Command Click  to release the Parent page items in a text thread

I'd have to put instructions on a non-printing layer of the master pages to tell everyone, now and forever, that they have to do this asinine extra step. It's a step backward for everyone. Why is the default behavior to do nothing? That's never the correct approach, unless you're launching nuclear missiles.

For some reason, InDesign loves it. Here's another example.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I think we discussed this before, but I've split the parent page items on two layers. I lock the layer I don't want to be overridden. The other layer with parent page items can be overridden en masse. Simple select all the pages in the Pages panel and override the items. 

[rob day]

Personally, I've never been a fan of primary text frames.

Hi @Peter Spier , I dug up this old thread that explains how Primary text frames are more useful in layouts where the main text flow is running through pages with changing layouts—something like a complex magazine design. If the text flow is through simple, unchanging 1 or multi-column text, there might be little use for them.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/can-someone-help-demystify-how-primary-text-fram...

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

The reason I asked about is I used to use the system below for a publisher I consulted to. They were "old school" and did not use electronic approval. I made use of InDesign's slug area and put an approval list on the parent pages; when printing proofs, I printed to legal size paper and included the slug area.

[Willi Adelberger]

I agree, inserting manual page breaks causes often a mess and I avoid it.

But resizing frames ia not better.

I recommend to work on the break and keep options in the paragrapg styles. These rules will keep correct breakes based on the content.