Text Won't Snap to Guides When Placing Manuscript in InDesign

[Teun349571428y6o]

Dear Community,

In the process of teaching myself InDesign, I can't seem to get any further than the placement of a manuscript (Word Doc). Each time I try -- and there have been many attempts! -- the text refuses to snap to the guides. I've tried aligning it as well as I possibly can: when I pull it down to the lower righthand corner, I do see that tiny red square with the cross inside, but when I click on it, a little box appears that says "rectangle" and asks for "options"! From then on it's pretty hopeless, and whatever I do, I create new objects (rectangles 😉 ). Which obviously isn't my intention.

Also curious is that the text itself remains highlighted, as if it's in some kind of "limbo."

Does this sound familiar? I've looked around on Internet (and here) and tried various suggestions, but nothing has worked so far.  All my settings seem to be accurate. I've even tried using different texts, thinking that perhaps the fault was with the text itself.

I hope someone out there can help!

In any case, thanks in advance and for reading all the way through to the end.

warm regards from the Netherlands,

Stacey Knecht

<Title renamed by MOD>

[Barb Binder]

Hi Stacey:

Is the Word doc intended to fill every page/column from page 1 until the end? If yes, see below. If no, please provide a little more information on the page layout (screen shots are very helpful).

• If your file was set up using primary frames, choose File > Place and click in the middle of the page. The text will flow from page 1 until the end, snapping to the frame edges, which are automatically aligned with the margins. 
• If your file was not set up with primary frames, choose Edit > Deselect All, then File > Place. Position your cursor anywhere along the top margin of page 1, hold the Shift keyy (to engage auto-flow) and click the place the entire story. The text will snap to the margin edges automatically. 

~Barb 

[Teun349571428y6o]

Hi Barb!

Thanks for responding so quickly.

Yes. It's a manuscript of about 150 pages... but the problems arise on the very first page. 

Is that what you mean?

[Barb Binder]

Yes, but let's start here: did you set up primary frames on the parent page? For long documents like yours, it's a good idea to use them because if someone decides to change the margins in the document after you finish the layout, you can change the frames on the parent page, and it will reflow the entire document.

See https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/parent-pages.html.

Once I'm clear on your workflow, I can share a video to show you how this works.

~Barb

[Teun349571428y6o]

Hi,

I thought I did... 😉

I'll check again!

Thanks, I'll be back,

Stacey

[Teun349571428y6o]

Barb, maybe you can share the video first? I think it'll be easier for me to follow that the instructions in the link... Thanks! (the strange thing is that the Udemy course I'm following doesn't mention the parent page, in this context...)

[Barb Binder]

Hi Stacey,

Of course:

~Barb

[Teun349571428y6o]

Great! Thanks! 🙂

[Teun349571428y6o]

Hi again, Barb...

Is the video supposed to have sound? It's going a little too fast for me... but I don't see any way to pause.

[Barb Binder]

Hi Stacey:

The video is an animated gif so no sound, and they are limited to 30 seconds in a reply so it has to go quickly. 

I'm only doing three things in the animation:

1. File > New > Document to create a new file. Enable Primary Text Frames and click Create to create a new InDesign document with Primary Text Frames.
2. File > Place, select a Word document and click OK to load the Word file into the cursor
3. Click anywhere over the middle of the page to place the entire Word document, snapping to the frame edges on every page, automatically. 

I'm a career InDesign trainer so have not watched the Udemi classes. I have no idea how they teach text flows, but I know that I cover placing text files in my intro class, and explain the difference between Manual flow, Semi-Automatic flow and Auto-flow as well as when to use Primary Frames, and when not to. I would think this would be part of any InDesign class, but as I said, I haven't watched any of the Udemi courses so I have no idea if or where this is covered.

I did provide a link in an earlier replay that you can review at your own pace: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/parent-pages.html. You might also want to take a look at https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/threading-text.html, which covers threaded text frames and text flows.

~Barb

[Teun349571428y6o]

Hi,
Thanks for this, and apologies if I sounded impatient in my last message. The thing is: none of these solutions work, unfortunately. It’s not that I don’t know how to do it, it’s that whatever I do, the text still won’t snap to the guides —
Regards,
Stacey

[Barb Binder]

You are welcome to share a video that shows us what is happening on your screen, Stacey.

~Barb

[Teun349571428y6o]

Sorry Barb... I've now tried both the solutions you originally sent, but neither solved the problem...

You wrote:

• If your file was set up using primary frames, choose File > Place and click in the middle of the page. The text will flow from page 1 until the end, snapping to the frame edges, which are automatically aligned with the margins. 
• If your file was not set up with primary frames, choose Edit > Deselect All, then File > Place. Position your cursor anywhere along the top margin of page 1, hold the Shift keyy (to engage auto-flow) and click the place the entire story. The text will snap to the margin edges automatically. 

But... I still have exactly the same issues as before:

- text doesn't snap to guides

- text remains highlighted

- when I click on the little red square with the cross inside, a new form is created! 

Very strange.

Any other suggestions? It's very frustrating... 

Thanks!

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Placed text doesn't snap to "guides" but to margins. What are your margins set to?

When you place the Word document, do you want to remove the formatting? I suspect the highlight is caused by a missing font. 

To eliminate the overflow symbol (the red square), hold down your shift key the FIRST time you place the text. If you missed that, you can click on the red square with the Selection tool and shift-click on the next page.

Forget about Udemy courses. Take a class from an authorized trainer* such as Barb or myself! 😁

*Technically, Adobe stopped this program in 2023 but we were in the program for many years.