Rolling over content automatically from page to page

[LucidLethargy]

So while I'm great with many Adobe products (e.g. Photoshop, LightRoom, Premier), InDesign is still somewhat new to me.

My question is this: Is there an easy method for creating an InDesign document for a product catalog that allows content to easily roll over to the next page when new products are added?

The catalog I'm working with is essentially just a big, long list of items. As it stands right now (with the catalog file I was provided), a single new item near the top of the catalog would require me to re-arrange the content on 30+ pages. My goal is to recreate this entire catalog (or reformat it, if that's possible) so the tables and images automatically roll to the next page when they are added (just like a word document.)

I'm not sure how possible this is since my research so far has just included vague mentions to text anchors... I've not been able to make those work, and even if I could, I'm not sure if it's the best practice to use here. I'm hoping I'm ignorant of a really great solution, and that someone can point out a good way forward!

Thank you,

-Trevor

[Randy Hagan · Accepted solution]

There is a relatively easy way to do this, but you may find it limiting when designing your catalog.

You're on the right track by exploring what text anchors can do for you. The trick is to come up with a design that uses anchored objects (what used to be called inline graphics) embedded in the text, then adjusting the placement of the inline graphic/anchored object with the product description. You can read more about placing and adjusting inline graphics here:

Work with anchored objects in InDesign

So that links the product image(s) to the product description text. Tables are relatively easy, in that they are essentially text elements that you can attach to the product descriptions. So a layout that runs across a text frame like:

Product Heading

Image(s) next to Product description

Table containing product no./price/etc.

Would work, provided you design it to fill the text frame horizontally from edge to edge.

Then it's just a matter of threading text frames through your catalog to place the flow of products throughout the catalog. You can read more about that here:

Thread text among frames in Adobe InDesign

You'll likely want to set some rules for ending/starting products on the page(s). And you can find details about controlling paragraph breaks and options for keeping your product units together inside the paragraph formatting information here:

Format paragraphs in Adobe InDesign

This is enough to get you started. If you need additional information on how to make this possible, you can find it here by adding your questions to this message thread.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[LucidLethargy]

I appreciate your help with this! I am going to attempt this and see if I can achieve something close to what I'm looking for.

I must say, I'm really disappointed such a simple feature isn't easier to implement on this platform. I use Photoshop just about every day, so I can appreciate the power behind Adobe's tools, but they tend to really miss the mark when it comes to behaviors that competing tools make intuitive.

Still, I worked through things a lot harder than this on Photoshop, so I'll see what I can do here using your suggestions - thanks again!

Edit: Update, I got it to work without much trouble at all. I will say this feels kind of super hacky... but indeed, when I press enter on the text box I can bump everything down page by page.

[Randy Hagan]

I'm glad this is working for you.

It's a whole lot harder to explain than it is to do, and it is a bit of a kludgy fix. But it can be made to work, and while the design flexibility is limited, if you can live with that it's pretty easy to implement.

I would strongly recommend against using extra returns to bump product listings from one page to the next though. Especially if you're planning to add products to the thread further down the line. Because while it might work for the current version of your catalog, it means adding a new product will make you adjust everything downstream, page by page, for the next one. Same for the following product you add. And so on, ad infinitum.

A better solution for you, I think, is to incorporate the paragraph break/keep next options outlined in the formatting paragraph links above. With just a little bit of experimentation, I believe you'll come up with a solution that at least precludes you breaking individual products across two pages, or two different page spreads, as you add to the product lines/text threads.

Good luck,

Randy

[Bill Silbert]

For an experienced user this is indeed possible. I recently worked on a catalog that was over 100 pages wherein all of the tables and text above and below them were a single text thread that flowed from page to page through linked text frames that had been created on several different master pages that had been applied as left and right hand pages as well as for pages with section tabs created on them. This worked exactly as you described but it is not something that I would recommend for somebody who is not reasonably advanced in using the program. If you are interested in learning the techniques that are necessary such as anchoring, smart text reflow, primary text frames and creating master pages I would find a course such as those offered on Lynda.com in which you can learn about the ways that InDesign can be "automated" for the kind of use that you're looking for.