Inspiring

Answered

Problem with text box not breaking across pages

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
December 16, 2022
5 replies
751 views

This is a new one. I am using a plugin to generate letters. Think of the ID document being made of rectangles. There is a text box that automatically enlarges if necessary, and pages are automatically created as needed.

But inside of this text box are more text boxes. The problem text box has a table in it. If the table is too large this text box doesn't generate a new linked text box. I don't suppose there are any formatting commands that I could apply to this text box to bend to my will.

Print

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Paul Chernoff

It turns out that the plugin I was using didn't require the text boxes anchored to text boxes. Everything could just go in the single text box. Problem solved.

Other approaches to using this plug did require the extra text boxes. But what I wanted didn't require them. Solved.

P

Paul ChernoffAuthorCorrect answer

Inspiring

It turns out that the plugin I was using didn't require the text boxes anchored to text boxes. Everything could just go in the single text box. Problem solved.

Other approaches to using this plug did require the extra text boxes. But what I wanted didn't require them. Solved.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

In playing with this example file, I wonder what is so complicated that you have to create so many anchored textframes within textframes. I wonder if it could not be simplified and still work merging data in a relational database.

Mike Witherell

James Gifford—NitroPress

Brainiac

After glancing over all your posts here —

Text frames don't automatically break over pages. If you want text to flow from one page to another, you must create and link another text frame. As much as this is automatic with primary text frames and in other ways, they are separate elements of the layout that just happen to conveniently link for flow of the content.

Not sure it applies to your current project or might to some aspect of it, but you can't break anchored text frames across pages either. That is, if you anchor a text frame for a sidebar or the like, it is constrained to one page.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Hey James,

I just was experimenting and noticed that the frame adornment icon for anchored frames is now an anchor icon. It used to be a big blue dot. I wonder when that changed?

Mike Witherell

James Gifford—NitroPress

Brainiac

The blue dot is for an unanchored object, the cute little anchor is for, well, anchored ones. 🙂

I don't recall it ever being any different, but that doesn't mean much. It's my practice to purge obsolete information as much as I can.

The not-breaking-over-pages is a PITA for things like TOCs. The logic is sound, I think, but it does force some workarounds.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

In looking at your sample file, I notice there are no paragraph styles and no table/cell styles. That limits your possibilities.

Also, I notice that there are soft returns just before embedded sub-tables. Seems to me they should be hard returns. I wonder if that would change the behavior? Just guessing.

I don't know if it is an option for you, but nowadays, you can design paragraph styles that include all sorts of rules, borders, and shading. The end result can look like a table.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

I confess that I am having a trouble imagining what you are doing. Maybe you could share a sample file?

Have you experimented with setting the Text Frame Options (Cmd/Ctrl+B) for the textframe that contains the table to Auto-Size vertically in some way?

Mike Witherell

P

Paul ChernoffAuthor

Inspiring

You are right, an example will be helpful, so I'm attaching an ID file. Look carefully at the main text flow, it has text boxes inside of it. The last text box is made of up a table which has tables inside of it. If the main table gets too long it goes to the next page. But it the table doesn't fit on a page I think it will not expand to another page. I will have to test more. This is EasyCatalog creating documents from data and they seem to have thought of everything.

2880.zip

P

Paul ChernoffAuthor

Inspiring

I forgot to mention that I have been playing with the Text Frame options. The solution probably resides in EasyCatalog and not ID but I thought it was worth asking.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded