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InDesign

Niels Grundtvig Nielsen

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changing layout with master pages

Sep 19, 2012 4:25 AM

Tags: #master_page

A-master defines a text frame about one-third the width of the page, aligned to the right. B-master defines a text frame about two-thirds the width of the page, also aligned to the right. With Preferences set to Smart Text Reflow and Add pages to end of story, I pasted in about fifty pages of content. All the new pages use A-master.

Now I see that the glossary, three pages at the end of the document, would be better using B-master. I drag the B-master thumbnail over the thumbnail of the first page to be changed … and get half the result I was expecting. I see a dotted blue line that matches the text frame from B-master, but the text stays undisturbed in a solid blue outline that matches the A-master text frame. Also, if I drag the B-master thumbnail into the page list I get a new page using the B-master, but can't enter any text.

I hope I'm just making a basic mistake, but haven't so far managed to find out what it is. The concepts of master pages, body pages and text frames don't frighten me at all, after some 20 years of FrameMaker, but I'm having difficulty remapping what I already know on to InDesign. Thanks in advance for help and tips!

Niels Grundtvig Nielsen

You know what you're talking about – I can help you say it

1023 Views 4 Replies Latest reply: peter at knowhowpro, Sep 20, 2012 10:13 AM

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1. Steve Werner,

Sep 19, 2012 7:24 AM in reply to Niels Grundtvig Nielsen

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This is solved in InDesign CS6 with Primary Text Frames. You must have an earlier version of InDesign.

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2. Niels Grundtvig Nielsen,

Sep 19, 2012 11:12 PM in reply to Steve Werner

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Well, actually … I do have CS6, but hadn't yet got as far as investigating primary text frames. Now you've pointed me in the right direction, I'll take a good look and hope this helps; thanks.

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3. Steve Werner,

Sep 20, 2012 6:27 AM in reply to Niels Grundtvig Nielsen

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You can have one Primary Text Frame on a master page. When you make a change in the Primary Text Frame it will be reapplied on document pages. Same if you apply a new master to the document page.

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4. peter at knowhowpro,

Sep 20, 2012 10:13 AM in reply to Niels Grundtvig Nielsen

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Niels, you'll find the Primary Text Frame gives InDesign a much simpler way to emulate the word-processing model common to Word, FrameMaker, etc. A new document with the Primary Text Frames feature enabled, opens with a text insertion point/cursor in the first / main text frame on the first page. Adding content by beyond the frame boundary by typing or pasting creates a new page with linked text frame, so you can continue working with no fuss. (This is different from the automatic text flowing that happens when using File > Place to import content into a document. File > Place has its own culture of behaviors that will take a while to get accustomed to. Search Google for terms like "InDesign placing flowing importing text" without quotes for more info."

HTH

Regards,

Peter
_______________________
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

Niels Grundtvig Nielsen wrote:

Well, actually … I do have CS6, but hadn't yet got as far as investigating primary text frames. Now you've pointed me in the right direction, I'll take a good look and hope this helps; thanks.

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