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How to make sure I can change margin sizes later for my chapters

Participant ,
Dec 02, 2020 Dec 02, 2020

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I have read for days and days on how to set up documents so my text can be automatically adjusted to margin changes.

 

I read up on Master Text Frames, which are now Primary Text frames. But there are a lot of discussions and complaints and people don't seem to agree on whether to use Primary Text Frames or not.

 

Simply I want to make absolutely sure that I set up my first document right because I will base the rest of my book on this document/template. What is the best way to make sure I can later change the margins and not have to go through my book manually and adjust every text box/page?

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Community Expert , Dec 02, 2020 Dec 02, 2020

Primary Frames are useful when you want to share the primary threaded text flow between multiple Master Pages—you can have any number of master text frames, but only one Primary Frame per Master Page.

 

So here I have two masters. Master-A’s Primary Text frame is filled with yellow, and Master B’s Primary Text frame is filled with blue. There are also non-primary text frames on both masters. I’ve overridden and edited the non-primary text frame on page 4.

 

Screen Shot.png

 

If I apply the B Master to page 4,

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Participant ,
Dec 02, 2020 Dec 02, 2020

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Whether or not using a primary text frame is best I don't know.
But it seems to be working when I follow the answer by Barb here:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/resizing-primary-text-frame/td-p/9792204?page=1

Note: it seems to only work when I first click into the active Master and then from there go into the layout changes. That was unintuitive for me, but important for having it work.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 02, 2020 Dec 02, 2020

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Primary Frames are useful when you want to share the primary threaded text flow between multiple Master Pages—you can have any number of master text frames, but only one Primary Frame per Master Page.

 

So here I have two masters. Master-A’s Primary Text frame is filled with yellow, and Master B’s Primary Text frame is filled with blue. There are also non-primary text frames on both masters. I’ve overridden and edited the non-primary text frame on page 4.

 

Screen Shot.png

 

If I apply the B Master to page 4, you can see the Primary Text frame with the text flow is updated, but the edited non-primary frame from Master-A is left on the page, and the B-Master’s non-primary text frame is added.

 

Screen Shot 1.png

 

All master page items that have been overridden remain linked to the Master, and the linked page item’s properties can still be changed from the Master, but only if the property hasn’t been changed in the override.

 

Here I have changed the position of both master text frames on page 4, and changed the color of the non-primary text frame on page 6:

 

Screen Shot 5.png

 

All of the pages where I haven’t repositioned the master frames, respond to the new margins and frame positions, including the frame on page 6, which had a color change but not a position change:

 

 

Screen Shot 6.png

 

 

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Community Expert ,
Dec 02, 2020 Dec 02, 2020

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The short answer is yes, use primary frames on the master pages.

 

Note: master page are not primary frames—primary frames are added to the master pages and designated as primary frames. Master pages are then assigned to the body pages which allows you to access the primary frames from the body pages.

 

I'm not seeing a good explanation on how to do this on Adobe's Helpx pages, so here is a post that explains how they work from another one of our regular forum contributors.

https://creativepro.com/indesign-basics-primary-text-frames/

 

~Barb 

 

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