Splitting an image vertically in InDesign?

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
April 9, 2017
4 replies
5777 views

I am building books with text and music (created in Finale). Is there a way to import music into InDesign as graphics files, and split an image verfically so that the music flows from page to page? As I adjust text, the split point may change in the future, so I would rather not constantly rebuild the music images themselves if I can avoid it.

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Correct answer MW Design

Assuming they are flowing with the text, you can just copy/paste back into the text flow in the new spot. If they do not flow with the text, alt-drag to make a copy.

Obi-wan Kenobi

Legend

Rock'n Roll!

(^/)

M

Migintosh

Legend

Jeff, I used to work in music publishing, and I think I know what you are talking about. If you have a page of music that you want to break across two pages, you don't want to have to go back to Finale to change the break point and re-export as images. Is that correct? If so, using the image frame in InDesign to crop out portions of your page, and using a duplicate of the image with different cropping on the next page will probably be faster. Placing the images in-line with the text will help, but you will probably have to make manual adjustments if (for example) if you have a page of three staves on one page and four on the next, and you need staff 3 to move after the page break.

Also, make sure that the page width you use in Finale is slightly smaller than the width of the text frame in InDesign. If you don't, it won't fit properly without being reduced in size, which you can also do if that's not objectionable to you. What might be a problem is if you have elements that don't make for a clean break point (like an articulation above a high note that's hard to crop in, because it also crops in elements from the upper staff). For those, you may need to adjust the staff spacing in Finale.

J

jeffm12846623Author

Participant

Migintosh - thanks! Yes, you're describing pretty exactly what I need to do. I have a mix of music crossing the full width of the page, and some "cues" that need to be indented next to the name of the person singing the cue. Here is an example:

http://mci.archpitt.org//sheetmusic/2017/04-03-17_GF5_Sunday_evening_Vespers.pdf

For anyone who runs across this topic, here is what I have found to work to far:

I prepare the music in Finale, then export selection as PDF. I can place the full-width ones in InDesign, then adjust the width to exactly fit between the margins; when I do this, Indesign helpfully removes white space on either side, something I wouldn't find any good way to do manually.

For short bits of music next to the name of the singer, I export to PDF in Finale, then place in Indesign and reduce to 90%. Unfortunately, alignment is a pain, so I may go to exporting a selection containing both name and music, and importing the entire thing into Indesign.

Indesign certainly makes a prettier book than Finale, once I get things set up.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi Jeff,

thank you for posting a link to your PDF sample of the document.

Just opened that with Acrobat DC and inspected it.

Some questions about the PDF creation process:

1. Is there a particular reason why you did not use InDesign's export to PDF feature, but used Acrobat Distiller to create the PDF?

2. Do you know, that there is a mix of different color models used in your PDF?
I can see DeviceGray and ICCbased RGB. It seems that Finale is exporting two different color models with one PDF:

DeviceGray for this:

ICCbased RGB for that:

If one is doing a separation to K without color conversion parts of the music will be in 94% Black, parts of the music will be in 100% Black. Since several objects in the music are stacked in different ways I created the following view where all portions of the music sheet showing effectively ICCbased RGB are marked in red. DeviceGray will not overprint ICCbased RGB:

Regards,

Uwe

MW Design

Inspiring

If I am understanding the issue properly, you are going to need to just layout the publication with the images, then do a final run-through or two or three to adjust image frames to display only what is needed, duplicate and adjust that version to pick up the remainder of the image in its own frame.

Mike