Textbox anchored inside another textbox, can it reflow?

[Captain Sacha]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to figure out the best way to achieve something. I'm working on a 500+ pages book. The idea is to have titles outside of the original text frame. That in itself is quite easy to achieve, we'll all agree, with a separate smaller text frame that is positioned outside for the title and link the text frames together with threading.

Now comes the interesting part which makes it more complicated. I want to achieve two more things:
1. I need it to be reflow-proof, as some inserts or additions will probably come in at a later stage
2. I need it to be able to export well as an epub later on as well as be printed in offset printing.

In order to make it reflow-proof, I was thinking I could ad the (autosizing) text frame with the titles as inline anchored objects with specific spacing before and after the anchored object. The problem is that it is an object then and I can't seem to link the main text frame with the inline anchored text frame and then out of it again… which leeds to the second part of what I want to achieve… will the text set this way keep the right structure when I export as epub later on?

As an added difficulty, pages have a narrower spine, so left pages need to align the titles left outside the main text frame and right for the right side pages (right page illustrated below).

Do you guys have any idea how to achieve this?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Anchored TFs can't be linked to other TFs. 

Anchored object's alignment is controlled by applied ObjectStyle. 

But the TF needs to be Anchored - not InLine. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

If you want title to be "sticking out" - you just have to play with insets - in the ParaStyle definition. 

Set Inset for everything else than the title. 

Think of it as an extra / different margins. 

[Captain Sacha]

But this wouldn't work with different left and right page layout, would it?
Also, insets etc are already quite complex in this book, many styles for multi level lists etc… 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

How different? Can you post some screenshots? 

Depends on your styles structure - if they are BasedOn. 

[Captain Sacha]

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

[Robert at ID-Tasker · Accepted solution]

[Captain Sacha]

What about justification?

[Captain Sacha]

I mean Left Justify is not an option then? Ragged lines is not an option for the main body text here.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I mean Left Justify is not an option then?

By @Captain Sacha

Left on both pages?

[Captain Sacha]

With left justify I mean no ragged lines… for lists it's OK, but for the main body text I need the text to be justified, like in my very first screenshot in my main question.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I've left it "left aligned" - there is no problem for making it "left justified": 

[Captain Sacha]

THIS!

This is indeed it, I just had to wrap my mind around it differently.
I hadn't considered to just change inset on left and right side simultaneously to achieve the effect for the body text, and then readjust the position of the main text frame itself. Then use the away from spine only for the titles.
I feel this could be the solution indeed. I will now play some more with these settings.

Thanks a bunch!

[Mike Witherell]

As Robert said, that could be done with paragraph styles. Instead of choosing to align left or right, try aligning toward or away from spine. That way, the text changes based on whether it flows on a recto or verso folio.

On deeper thought, tho, you might need two similar styles; one each for a left and a right page, if the Indents are manipulated to get the overhang left and overhang right. Each of the two styles could be set to Left Justified.

[Captain Sacha]

Yeah, but that would mess everything up as soon as text reflows, wouldn't it?
Also, with 30 styles, doubling them would be a huge mess.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Yeah, but that would mess everything up as soon as text reflows, wouldn't it?

By @Captain Sacha

What do you mean?

Also, with 30 styles, doubling them would be a huge mess.

By @Captain Sacha

Why would you have to duplicate them?

30 styles isn't a lot 😉

[Captain Sacha]

OK, please discard my response to this, now that I figured out what you meant in your earlier comments.

[Mike Witherell]

Changing my mind again, if you set the big outdented justified titles in a separate textframe, you could anchor those textframes into the flow. Anchored textframes can be sensitive "relative to" left and right hand pages and adjust accordingly. Just make sure you anchor them into a separate hard return paragraph styled empty line. It should reading-order ok and export to epub in correct reading order, too.

About the only other way I can think of to get a flowable complicated layout like you describe is by means of tables (but that makes me shudder a little bit).

[Captain Sacha]

That was my initial thought I tried to explain in my first message. I was not sure if it would export correctly. 

[jmlevy · Accepted solution]

Puisque to document est en français, je réponds en français.

Est-ce que cette solution te conviendrait ?

Edit : je viens de voir que @Robert at ID-Tasker avait déjà proposé cette solution.

[Captain Sacha]

C'est effectivement la bonne réponse. Je l'avais mal compris au premier tour.
L'affaire est réglée !