4 Replies Latest reply: Feb 12, 2013 8:01 AM by Peter Spier RSS

    What would prevent two text frames / stories from joining / linking?

    alanomaly Community Member
    alanomaly Feb 12, 2013 3:38 AM

      I've got a document where, originally, each section (sections in the general sense, no InDesign Section Numbering or anything like that) of the document was its own story, but in order to get continuous footnote numbering that doesn't restart in each story, I'm having to link the stories all together into one story with a Frame Break character (shift-enter) at the end of each part.

       

      It's going okay, except I've hit a wall where two of the original stories refuse to join together. By this I mean, when clicking on the out ports or in ports then hovering over the first/last frame of the other story, the cursor doesn't turn into the 'link' icon, and if I click, instead of linking the stories, it creates a new frame on top of the existing one.

       

      • I'm definitely working with the final frame of the one story and the first frame of the next: the 'out' port of the first story and 'in' port of the second are empty white boxes and the 'go to next frame' and 'go to previous frame' keyboard shortcuts (ctrl-alt-pageup/down) stop in the expected places.
      • After seeing http://forums.adobe.com/message/2763392?tstart=0 ("Text frames don't link") I checked for page breaks (there are none) and I checked for elements too big to cross from one frame to another (there are none, and adding paragraphs of regular dummy text made no difference).
      • Both the first and second stories have no problem linking into new empty text frames. They just won't link into each other, and when one hs linked into the new empty text frame, the other becomes unable to link into it.
      • They won't link in either direction. The second story won't link to the front or back of the first, and vica versa.
      • If I isolate the first text frame of the second story - unlinking all its frames by clicking its out port then clicking on itself, it still refuses to link to the earlier story, even though it's now just one frame in isolation. The now-empty frames that were part of that story can now link to either story, but the stories still can't link to each other.

       

      What could cause the problem I'm seeing of two stories / frames refusing to join together? I've exhausted every possibility I can find.

       

      There's also a strange thing which might be a clue I don't know how to interpret: I've got a numbered list on the headings and subheadings (numbering across the whole document based on paragraph style), and whenever I click on the 'in' port for the second story, without even linking it to anything, just causing the cursor to change, the number of the first heading in that story jumps up from 6 to 10. If I press 'Escape' to cancel the frame linking, it goes back down to 6. Also, if I click on the 'In' port of the first story, it's first header number jumps from 1 to 6, again without actually having been linked to anything, just on the idea it might be linked to something. I'm just mentioning this in case it's a clue about what's gone wrong with these stories.

        • 1. Re: What would prevent two text frames / stories from joining / linking?
          alanomaly Community Member
          alanomaly Feb 12, 2013 4:01 AM (in response to alanomaly)

          I've found something that works... But I don't understand why.

           

          If I move the first frame of the second story onto the same page as the last frame of the first story, I'm suddenly able to link the frames. Linking the frames loses some of the paragraph styles for some reason, but, if I set these paragraph styles again, then move the frame back where it was on the next page, it stays linked and seems to still work.

           

          The two pages had different master pages, but there were no significant differences in master page settings I was aware of, and they were essentially almost identical, inheriting from the same master page, with a minor difference in running headers. Also, the running headers in the master page of the page containing the last frame of the first story had been overridden, but again I can't see any reason that would make a difference. EDIT: The same thing happened again further on in the document between two pages with the same master page type and no overrides so that doesn't seem to be related.

           

          Testing on a blank document, I have no problem linking stories across pages, so I still don't know what could have caused it to not work in this case - but temporarily moving frames on to the same page then moving them back seems to work.

           

          If anyone can explain why InDesign (CS6) wouldn't link from one page to another even though it could maintain exactly that link across the pages, I'd appreciate that.

          • 2. Re: What would prevent two text frames / stories from joining / linking?
            Peter Spier CommunityMVP
            Peter Spier Feb 12, 2013 5:50 AM (in response to alanomaly)

            Is there something in front of the frame that is blocking it?

            • 3. Re: What would prevent two text frames / stories from joining / linking?
              alanomaly Community Member
              alanomaly Feb 12, 2013 7:02 AM (in response to Peter Spier)

              If by in front you mean above in the z-index stacking order - some element on top of the frames - that's something I checked for. There was nothing, and, to be doubly sure, I also created a new empty text frame off the page on the pasteboard and linked into that. After it had been successfully linked into from one side, it couldn't be linked into from the other (same result in both directions).

               

              If by in front you mean before in the document flow (y axis?), like an element between the first story and the next story that stopped them linking, then maybe, I wasn't aware that this sort of blocking was possible. What sort of object could block linking like this? There were a few vector shapes above (Y) and behind (Z) the first heading text frame of the second story at the top of its page - is it possible that these can somehow get in the way? I had similar shapes elsewhere in the document without any trouble, but maybe there was a tiny difference in this case that made all the difference.

              • 4. Re: What would prevent two text frames / stories from joining / linking?
                Peter Spier CommunityMVP
                Peter Spier Feb 12, 2013 8:01 AM (in response to alanomaly)

                No, I meant inthe z-axis, and it seemed pretty unlikely if you could actually click the ports.

                 

                Have you tried exporting to .idml? See Remove minor corruption by exporting