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I am laying out an 8.5 x 11 in. textbook that will be around 300+ pages. The author has created the text in MS Word with each chapter in a separate file. I am reusing a layout I created for a previous book.
I use two different Master Pages when laying out a chapter.
The Master used for most of the chapter is laid out with facing pages that leave a wider outside space for definitions and other info that will be sometimes placed in that space, staying inside the overall page margin, using anchored objects. Therefore the Main Story frame is 29p wide and 57p tall.
The first page of the chapter uses a different Master Page layout with an additional text frame at the top right for a TOC, and a shorter and wider main story frame: 41p x 36p.
The text frames used in these Masters are set up using Object Styles. and are marked as Main Story Frames. However, when I try to create a new chapter and sync the book, the frame positions on the new Masters are shifted and the Object Styles are overridden. If I clear the overrides it corrects the position, but when I try to add pages and apply the Masters, either by adding pages manually or by placing the Word text, the text frame positions on all new pages also shifts.
This adds a lot of "clearing Object Style" overrides. Is there someting I could do differently to simplify my steps and avoid all the overrides?
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Are you using Primary Text Frames on the two Masters?
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I am not exactly sure. I have tried several searches of documentation to look up how to make sure, and all I have found is about making the frames Main Story frames. Is that the same? And if not, where do I look?
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A Master’s Primary Text Frame can be shared between masters. There can only be one per Master Page, and the are automatically overridden on the pages. So here the doc setup is for a 32 pages, facing pages, with the outside margin set larger, and Primary Text Frame checked
I can the duplicate the A Master and adjust the margins and the Primary Text Frame (the Primary Text Frame has an arrow in its icon):
The Primary Text Frames are automatically overriden on the pages, so I can flow text into the primary text frame chain. Then if I drag a B-master onto a page the primary frame will automatically update and be included in the text flow:
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This is very helpful. What I am seeing is that Primary Text can only be checked when a new document is created. After it is created, it is greyed out and cannot be changed. is that correct?
In my new book, I want to use the object, paragraph, character, & TOC styles from my previous book. The easiest way I have figured out to do this is to put a chapter from the old book in the new one and make it the default and then sync the book to carry over all the styles, then take the chapter back out. Is that ok? or will there be problems?
I still am seeing frames shift position sometimes when new pages are added. Any idea what could be doing this?
I can select the frame and clear object style overrides to correct it, but this is a bit cumbersome.
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You can Control click the text frame icon on the Master page to get a contextual menu and set it as the Primary Text frame. You can also toggle by Command clicking the icon, just keep in mind there can be only one per Master page:
Hard to know what is going on with your masters without seeing a sample—can you share a file via Dropbox or your CC account?