Text rule above copy won't "Keep in Frame"

[posterns-design]

Designing a book and I often use an off-set, non-stroked rule above the Chapter Title to push the tilte further down on the page. I just set up a new document and initially used a Primary text box when setting up the document. When I tried this techniques, I noticed that nothing was happened. Then turned on the rule and gave it a color and stroke and noticed that when I increased the rule's offset, the rule went out of the text frame to the top of the page. Tried selecting the text frame and clear abject styles, etc. Rule still pops out of frame even though "keep in frame" is selected. Tried toggling that on and off. Then tried setting up a new document (without primary text frame) and copied and pasted my formatted copy into new document. Same problem. Was able through lots of object style clear to get one chapter frame to work, but not sure why and can't repeat it.

Any suggestions??

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

I'm working on some technical description of just this process and just worked through the changes in my test document.

First, a rule above with 'Keep in Frame' checked spaces down from the top margin of a frame whether it's a primary text frame or an isolated one. But it ONLY does so if it's on the first page of the document, or following a page break.

If the paragraph is just flowing text, with a preceding paragraph, the rule-spacing is ignored and space between such a paragraph and one before will be set only by leading and space above/below. If it breaks to a next page by flow alone, the rule-space will be lost.

The only reliable way to use the rule-above spacing is with an enforced page break.

[posterns-design]

Ah. Thank you. I had the page break, but what i didn't see was a small blank return that was sitting above the Chapter Title. Working now. Thanks

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

It's always helpful to keep hidden characters on while doing structural layout and development. 🙂

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

FWIW, I am an hour or so from publishing a long, long tutorial on designing front matter for both print and EPUB export, covering all the details of top spacing, page breaks, etc. You may find it useful. 🙂

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

And, here — Perfect Front Matter for Print, EPUB & Kindle: a comprehensive tutorial for EPUB export and dual-format source file management.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

And while I'm here, soapbox mode:

It is astoundingly stupid that ID lacks something on the order of a checkbox setting for a style to "Always Respect Top Spacing." We should not have to use these Rube Goldberg workarounds simply to get a title or chapter heading a bit down a page. It's not far from having no top spacing at all and having to use a phantom paragraph with bottom spacing instead.