Flow text in automated productions
In InDesign, you can thread the text between connected frames. Threading text allows you to link two or more text frames making text to flow from one separate frame to another. Threading text can be particularly convenient in flow productions. For flow productions, the amount of text and therefore the number of pages that you need depends on the amount of data that is processed. For example, if you want to generate a pricelist with prices that are requested by the customer on a website. Other examples of flow productions are catalogs, annual reports, and manuals. To enable flow productions, you must first set up IDC to:
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Thread text frames.
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Automatically add pages to the InDesign document as more data is processed.
To set up a PXM project as a flow production, you need to indicate the flow in the project structure. Optionally, you can use a different master layout for every page that is added. You can also use a renderer (an xml structure) to determine the behavior of the flow element.
This topic describes how to:
Indicate the flow in the project structure
To flow text in your InDesign project, you need to indicate the flow in the project structure:
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Load your project, and go to the page where the flow text needs to start.
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Add the text frame with the flow text and save the project.
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In the Project panel, right-click the page and in the Change Page dialog, select Flow.
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In the Project panel, right-click the text frame and enter the flow name.
If you want to work with different text flows in the same document, use different flow names.
Indicating the flow in this way, specifies that the text flow uses the same layout for every page that is added.
The IDC flow functionality set in the project structure overrules other threading on InDesign pages.
To place the flowed text on different master pages and use a different flow pattern, you need to make adjustments to the master document.
Indicate the flow on the master page
To make the text flow into different master pages, you need to create an additional master page. For example, if you have two master spreads, A and B, you can use the master A spread for the page where the text flow starts, and you can use the master B spread to create the flow pattern.
To indicate the flow on the master page:
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Open the master page, create the text frame(s) for the text to flow in from the initial flow page.
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In the layer panel, in the text frame, enter the flow name and save the master document.
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In the Project panel, right-click the page that you want to start the flow, and enter the relevant details in the Flow Master Prefix and the Flow Master Base fields..
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To reload the document, reopen it.
Now the text frame on the initial page is flowed accordingly to the layout set on the master page for as many pages as the amount of the text requires. In this example, the text in both columns flows onto subsequent pages.
