Not that I know, all break options are for the start of a page.

You'll have to manually replace the hard return at the end of those paragraphs with a page break of your choice.

You could give the paragraph style a ridiculous Space After value, like 20 inches.

Eugene Tyson wrote:

 

Sure why not give the last paragraph a keep option then? Then start it on a new page?

Because that’s not what the OP wants to do.

Harbs. wrote:

 

Uh... Peter, CS5 already has keep with previous...

 

Harbs

Sort, of, Harbs. It's just not adjustable, so it's not reliable for the OP's purpose.

Ideally, to always keep a paragraph as the last on a page, InDesign needs the ability to set the paragraph to keep with a large number of previous lines, say approximately the number of lines that would nearly fill the page, not including the paragraph destined for last on the page, and not limited to the preceding paragraph only. Currently keep with next number of lines only applies to the next paragraph, and it seems to have a limit of only five lines, probably to keep the composition engine from melting.

It would be simpler for users to choose the property "make last paragraph on page."<G>

Failing that, maybe a commercial Harbs script or plug-in!

HTH

Regards,

Peter

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Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

jon a wrote:

 

I know that we can set a paragraph to start on the next, left or right page, but is it possible to make a paragraph style that makes that para. the last one on the page? So I want the page break function attached to a style.

 

thanks

 

jon

As Hannibal Lecter said to Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs, "First principles."

So, what's the first principle here? Can you tell us more about why a certain paragraph needs to be the last on a page? And, does paragraph style matter, that is, is there only one style that must be last, or several styles?

HTH

Regards,

Peter

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Peter Gold

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Did you try Scott's advice: set the Space After of that last paragraph to 20 inch?

[Jongware] wrote:

 

Did you try Scott's advice: set the Space After of that last paragraph to 20 inch?

When I tried this, it seemed to work, but I decided against suggesting it because I was also playing with some other settings that affected subsequent paragraphs, and I wasn't sure if the combination was making it appear to work. Growing up in FrameMaker, I learned that space before a paragraph is ignored at top of frame/column/page, and space after a paragraph is ignored at bottom of frame/column/page.

Well, lah de dah, InDesign honors space after a paragraph. Bingo. Simplest.

However, I'm curious why it's important to mark the end of one contributor's work this way, rather than marking the start of another contributor's work by applying the start at top of frame/column/page property. Unless the first new contribution paragraph is moved to another position in the sequence, first is always first; Next Style assures that pressing Return at the end of the first paragraph when authoring, or selecting multiple paragraphs and applying the top-of-container style to the first paragraph and letting the Next Style option handle the rest of the selection.

When the last paragraph moves forward in the text flow, or a paragraph is added after it, the new contributor's first paragraph at the top of the next container is not affected; if sufficient content is added or removed upstream to reflow the later contributors' work top-of-container always works as expected.

Is there some compelling reason not to mark the author change by the first-paragraph-at-top method?

HTH

Regards,

Peter

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Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

P Spier wrote:

 

Good point -- you probably don't need that last paragraph style after all..

Hoping the OP will like it.

I don't think it's been mentioned that there's a gotcha with the Space Below approach - if the paragraph flows to the next container in the thread, the space below is honored and inserts a gap before the next paragraph that will need manual attention. The first-paragraph-starts-in-a-new-container method only needs manual attention if it's no longer the first paragraph in the container; in this situation, it needs to retagged as regular paragraph in the flow, and the true first paragraph needs to be retagged with the appropriate style.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

jon a wrote:

 

As it is one continuous essay with different authors, one author's text doesn't necessarily start with the highest level ie A. Hed, it may start lower on the totem pole. That's why I hoped to mark the last paragraph on the previous page

That makes it clear why you thought of the last-paragraph approach.

Is there resistance to creating a start-at-top paragraph style for each of the likely heading levels, as well as a non-top style? You'd base each of the top-style paragraphs on their corresponding totem level paragraphs, and only add the top-start property, so any appearance changes applied to the the base style would affect the corresponding top-style, with no extra work.

It's your call whether looking out for troublesome re-flows that affect the last-paragraph method is less effort than tagging the first new author's paragraph with level#-first-top style and tagging that author's ongoing paragraphs with level#-regular style. The next-style property can help here.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

Maybe the second part of the article below could be helpfull.

How to make your chapter title always start on a new page.