You're not conditionalizing whole pages of FrameMaker documents, you're conditionalizing all the text flow content that happens to appear on one or another page. Anchored frames, tables, and text insets, are just part of the text flow, nothing special as far as conditions.
What you're missing in InDesign is the ability to thread text frames. FrameMaker and almost all word-processing tools do this by default. In InDesign, you need to do some setup to get this to happen. However, once it's in a document, you can use that document as a template to create other documents that have the setup.
To emulate FrameMaker in a new InDesign CS6 document:
- Open Preferences from the Edit menu (Windows) or InDesign menu (Mac.)
- Type > Smart Text Reflow - enable (check the box) and Add Pages to: End of Story.
- Type > Show Hidden Characters
- View > Extras > Show Text Threads - They appear when a text frame is selected; you can select a text frame by clicking with the Select tool (black arrow) or by pressing Escape when the cursor is active in text.)
- File > New Document - Intent Print, Facing Pages checked or unchecked, Primary Text Frame - enable (check) - The primary text frame makes the document work like FrameMaker - a text frame on a master page that creates a text frame on the first page of a new document. In earlier InDesign, you'd need to override the master page's text frame by Shift+clicking on the document page. Smart Text Reflow makes new pages when you type across a page boundary.
- Click OK
- Open the Pages panel so you can watch new pages appear and disappear when cleared of content.
- Choose the Text tool and click within the page, if the cursor isn't blinking at the top left of the text area.
- Type > Fill with Placeholder Text - the page's text frame is full
- Press Enter/Return once or twice and watch the lower-right corner of the text frame, and/or the Pages panel - a red "+" will appear momentarily, indicating overset text, then it disappears as a new page appears.
- Edit > Undo - removes the overflowed text, and the empty page disappears. This is Smart Text Reflow in action! You're in the game.
From here, you need to search Google for terms like "InDesign flowing text," "InDesign threading text," "InDesign placing text," "InDesign conditional text," without quotes for details.
If you are using structured FM with a structured application, you'll need to learn a LOT about replicating this with InDesign's XML and Tagged Text features. If not, don't even think about it.
You'll need an InDesign book and/or a training course. Sandee Cohen's Visual Quickstart Guide," is one of the most-recommended books. Bob Levine often posts a link to a free week of Lynda.com training in this forum.
[EDIT] Ooops, I forgot to mention the commercial FrameMaker MIF FIlter for InDesign Plug-in from dtptools.com. It converts FrameMaker MIF (maker interchange format) files to InDesign files. MIF is FrameMaker's counterpart to IDML (InDesign Markup Lanaguage.) In FM, File > Save As > MIF creates the file, which contains everything that was in the FM file it came from. (Opening the MIF file in FM recreates the file, sans any minor corruption.) The plug-in is not perfect because there are FrameMaker constructs that have no counterparts in InDesign, so they're simulated. You can try it for free - you just can't save or print a converted file until you pay for page credits (like a phone card.)[/EDIT]
[EDIT] Ooops again! I forgot to mention that you can place (import) RTF files into InDesign, and you can save FrameMaker files as RTF. The MIF Filter tries to reproduce FM's layout and formatting as much as possible, while RTF retains only the formatting.[/EDIT]
HTH
Regards,
Peter
_______________________
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices
Julia.McG wrote: You are probably right...I simplified what we are doing. We conditionalize whole pages of content...including anchored frames...which when turned off moves the other content - thus creating the illusion of pages turning on and off. Not really knowing InDesign at all...I tried this same process...but you can only select one text frame at a time...so maybe there is a different way to lay the page out so that I can select all the content. I also couldn't figure out how to turn the conditions on and off...like I said..total newbie to Indesign...so want to know if it is possible to grab whole pages of content and make them vanish. |
Message was edited by: peter at knowhowpro
Message was edited by: peter at knowhowpro
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