Adobe InDesign CS/CS2 Breakthroughs [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Text on a Path

Set a Start Point for the Text

Sometimes, InDesign ignores the position of my cursor when I click a path with the Text on a Path tool, and starts the text in an entirely different place. Argh!

Text on a path is basically a one-line paragraph in a text "frame" that is the length of the path. So, when You click an insertion point with the Type on a Path tool, InDesign uses the current paragraph alignment to figure out where to start the text, just as it would with a normal text frame.

For example, if the current horizontal alignment for text is set to be left-aligned, InDesign will start the text at the left edge of the "frame" the leftmost end of the path. You can change the paragraph alignment to centered or right and the text will shift accordingly.

Clicking on closed path is slightly different. The point where you click defines the left edge of the "frame," and the width of the frame extends around the entire perimeter of the shape, ending right before your insertion point. As soon as you click an insertion point you can change the paragraph alignment to suit your purposes, and the cursor and any text will reposition themselves within the bounds of the path text's frame.

Change the Starting Point of Text

There has to be an easier way to change the starting position of the text other than what I've been doing, which is using the space bar, editing the path itself, or starting over with a new path.

Use the Selection tool to click the text on a path. You'll see two I-beams appear, each with a text-threading port (a little box), one at the left edge of the path text's frame, the other on the right edge. Hover your cursor over either of these and drag to redefine the left and/or right boundaries of the frame, forcing the text to shift accordingly.

Don't forget that text on a path is the same as a single-line paragraph; so you could use a tab or a first-line indent to adjust the starting point as well.

TIP

Yes, they're thread-able! Those text-threading ports you see when you click on text on a path with the Selection tool aren't just for decoration; they're working In and Out ports. Thread one instance of text on a path to another, include them with normal text frames in a long threaded story, go crazy, man!

Center Text on Top of a Circular Path Quickly

Regardless of where I click on a circle with the Type on a Path tool, I can never get the text I enter to center perfectly on top.

Select the circle with the Selection tool so you can see its bounding box handles, and then switch to the Type on a Path tool (press Shift-T). Click an insertion point directly on the bottom handle at the 6:00 mark of the circle. Change the paragraph alignment to centered (Figure 3-21). Enter your text. Voilà.

What if you want to put the text along the bottom of the circle instead of the top?

1.

Start by putting the text along the top.

2.

Choose Type > Type on a Path > Options.

3.

Click the Flip checkbox.

4.

Choose Ascender from the Align popup menu and Top from the To Path popup menu.

5.

Click OK.

Now you can say voilà again.

TIP

Here's one more way to flip text on a path: When you select the path with the Selection tool you'll see a little perpendicular line sticking out in the middle of the path. If you drag that line to the other side of the path, the text follows and flips over, too.

TIP

You can also put the text inside a circle or under the path. Enter your text on a path normally, then change the position of the text in the Type on a Path Options dialog box. Try aligning the Ascender to the Top of the Path if you want the text to move downwards; or align the Baseline to the Bottom of the Path if you want the text to move upwards.

Text Wrap

Wrap Text Around a Table

I need to get text to wrap around a table, but when I select the table, the Text Wrap icons are grayed out.

The trick to making text wrap around a table is to place the table in a separate text frame:

1.

Create the table in its own text frame, or cut an already-existing table to the clipboard and then paste it while nothing is selected on the page to put it into its own frame.

2.

Select the table's text frame and choose Object > Fitting > Fit Frame to Content. (Or press Command-Option-C/Ctrl-Alt-C.) The frame snaps to the table's outer boundaries.

3.

With the table's frame still selected, turn on the kind of wrap you want in the Text Wrap palette and set the offsets as you like.

4.

Since InDesign CS does not support text wrap around inline objects, you'll need to place the frame containing the table on top of or underneath the main text frame (the one with the text) and the text will wrap around the table/frame. In this case, the table will not change position if the text reflows.

However, InDesign CS2 can wrap text around an inline frame (as long as the wrapping text comes after the position where the frame is embedded). To anchor your table to a position in the text flow, cut the table's text frame to the clipboard, place the text cursor where you want to embed the table, and then choose Edit > Paste. Now you can select this inline frame and choose Object > Anchored Object > Options to adjust the position of the table.

TIP

To wrap text around the transparent area of a placed Photoshop image, place the image (saved in PSD format) in the layout, partially overlapping a text frame. Select the image with the Selection Tool and turn on the Wrap Around Object Shape option in the Text Wrap palette. If you don't see a Contour Options popup menu at the bottom of the Text Wrap palette, choose Show Options from the palette menu. Now, in the palette's Contour Options menu, select Alpha Channel. The text will use the image's transparency to define a wrap boundary. Use the Top Offset field to adjust how close the text comes to the 100% opaque pixels in the image.

Where Did My Caption Go?

Whenever we place a photograph in an article, we turn on Text Wrap so the article text flows around. That's InDesign 101. But then when we put a caption immediately beneath the photo, or any text overlapping the image, the text disappears. It's like it gets pushed right out of the box by the photo's text wrap, even though the text is on top of the image.

QuarkXPress will only wrap text around an object when the text wrap object is above the text, but InDesign has no such limitation the text can be above or below the image. So how do you get some text to wrap around the object and some text not to? One option is to select the text frame that has the text you don't want to wrap, choose Object > Text Frame Options, and turn on the Ignore Text Wrap checkbox at the bottom of the Text Frame Options dialog box.

If you'd rather InDesign act like XPress and ignore objects higher in the stacking order, as other programs do, you can set that in the Composition panel of the Preferences dialog box.

Make a Custom Wrap Border

The four Text Wrap Offset fields (Top, Bottom, Left and Right) don't give me enough control. I wish I could tweak the text wrap in finer increments.

Many people don't realize that you can see and finesse the text wrap outline in InDesign. The trick is to select the object with the Direct Select tool rather than the Selection tool. As long as you can see the text wrap boundary when the wrapped object is selected, you can adjust it. Just drag on any of the corners or subpaths in the wrap boundary with either Selection tool to customize it (Figure 3-22). You can even switch to the Pen tool to add or remove points in the text wrap outline, too, just as though you were editing any other path!

Tables

Easy Selections

No matter where I click on a table with either Selection tool, InDesign refuses to recognize my "clicks" and doesn't select anything. But Selection tool-clicking works fine with everything else in InDesign, so I know the tool is working.

The Selection tool doesn't let you select a single paragraph in a text frame, does it? Tables act the same way: You have to use the Type tool to select them or edit them. Once you understand that simple requirement, InDesign makes it very easy to select exactly what you want in a table.

Here's one example: Click an insertion point inside a cell, and from there you can select the cell itself, the cell's row, the cell's column or the entire table via:

The Table > Select submenu (which offers: Select Cell, Select Row, Select Column, and Select Table; Figure 3-23)

The contextual menu (right-click, or Control-click with a one-button mouse), which also has a Select submenu;

The keyboard shortcuts for Select Cell, Select Row, Select Column, and Select Table; which are listed next to the menu items.

If you hover with the Type tool over the top or left-edge table border, you'll see the icon turn into an arrow. Click to select an entire row or column, or click and drag to select multiple rows and columns. Hover over the top left corner of a table and the arrow points down and to the right, if you click when you see that arrow, the entire table is selected.

Scale a Table and its Contents

I know how to resize a table I just hover over the lower right corner with the Type tool to see the double-headed arrow, then drag but that maneuver doesn't also resize the contents of the table, which is what I really want. I can scale inline frames, why not an inline table?

Ah, one of the great mysteries of life.

While you can't scale an inline table, you can scale the text frame that contains it, which will also scale the table and its contents. To prevent scaling everything else in the text frame, you should isolate it in its own frame first. Select the table, cut it, paste it into an empty text frame, and choose Fit Frame to Content (from Object > Fitting) so the new frame hugs the border of the table.

Then select that frame with the Selection tool, switch to the Scale tool, and drag to scale it just as you would for any other object. The contents of the table will scale along for the ride.

You can copy or cut the scaled frame and paste it back into the original text frame (with the Type tool) as an inline frame if you want the table to be part of the text flow again.

TIP

Can't see the table borders? If you've turned off all strokes in a table (by setting all of them to 0 pt. width), and now find it impossible to figure out where the edges of the table are for selecting and resizing, check your View menu. Do you see the menu command "Show Frame Edges"? Choose it. There you go.

Freely Rotate Cell Contents

Like Ford Motors in its early days (the Model T was available in any color, as long as it was black), InDesign lets me rotate text in a cell at any angle, as long as it's 90, 180, or 270 degrees. But need my column labels to be rotated at 30 or 45 degrees; 90 degrees is too hard to read.

The tedious but do-able workaround is to put a cell's contents into its own frame, then cut and paste the frame as an inline frame into a cell. Now you can select the inline frame with the Selection tool and use any Transform command, including Rotate, freely.

Add a Tab Inside a Cell

Whenever I click the Tab key inside a cell, InDesign moves my cursor to the next cell. I have set up custom tab stops for the text in this cell, all I want is for InDesign to honor them.

That's a feature-not-a-bug for cell navigation. Use Option/Alt-tab to insert a tab within a cell. It will move the cursor to the next default or custom tab stop it encounters, just as it works outside of a table.

Extend the Left Edge of a Table Outside its Frame

I'm trying to create a table that extends beyond the width of its enclosing text frame on both sides, evenly. I notice that I can drag the right edge of a table outside of the text frame with no problem. But the same isn't true of the left edge of a table in fact, I can't drag the left border anywhere, I get the right-arrow cursor for selecting the row instead.

Click an insertion point next to the table (not inside the table, but to the left or right of it) and change the horizontal alignment to Centered from the Paragraph or Control palette.

That doesn't magically allow you to drag on the left border of the table, but when you increase the width of the table by dragging its right edge, the amount the table extends beyond the text frame will now be evenly split between the left and right edges (Figure 3-24).

Widen a Cell Without Widening its Column

One of the cells in my table is a little too narrow to hold the content that has to be there. If I widen the cell by dragging or Shift-dragging on its right-hand border, I change the layout of the rest of the table, which I don't want to do. I could select the cell and the one to its right and choose "Merge Cells," but I don't really want to merge them into one cell I need to keep the cell to the right as its own cell.

Select both the cell that you need to widen and the one to its right (drag across to select both of them) and choose Split Cell Vertically from the Table or contextual menu. You now have four cells where before there were two. We'll call them Cell 1, 2, 3 and 4.

1.

Select any text in Cell 1 and cut it to the clipboard. Set the cell's left and right insets to 0.

2.

Shift-drag the line between Cells 1 and 2 all the way to the left, as far as you can go. Cell 1 has now virtually disappeared, and Cell 2 is wide.

3.

Select Cells 2 and 3 by dragging across them, and choose Merge Cells (Figure 3-25).

4.

Click inside the merged cell and paste the text in your clipboard into it.

5.

Shift-drag the line between the merged cell and Cell 4 and drag to the left as far as possible without causing an overset in the merged cell. There's your wide cell.

Cell 4 should now be wide enough to hold the text that it originally held (when it was the one to the right of cell you needed to widen). If you run into minor alignment problems with the text in the merged cells, reduce the cells' left inset amounts.

NOTE

You can't click on a table with the Selection tool to delete it; you'll end up deleting the entire text frame. Instead, select the table with the Type tool and choose Delete Table from the Table or contextual menu; or click an insertion point to the right of the table (outside of it but next to it) and press the Delete key.

Paste Pictures in Cells Perfectly

When I paste an image inside a table cell, I seldom get what I want right off the bat. I'll end up with a blank cell showing an overset, or a huge cell that ruins the formatting of the rest of the table.

If you keep in mind that InDesign table cells are actually individual text frames, you'll be able to prepare the cell properly for accepting an image and avoid unpleasant surprises. When you paste an image into a table cell, it's the same as pasting an image into a text frame as an inline frame. All images in InDesign tables are, in fact, inline image frames.

That means that you can move the image up and down in the cell with the Selection tool, but you can't move it left or right, just like regular inline frames. (In InDesign CS2, they can also be anchored objects, so they can sit outside the table cell or even outside the text frame.) It also means that the image is treated like a text character in some ways it's subject to the text frame's (cell's) paragraph alignment, text insets, first line offset, vertical alignment, and so on.

Here are some general guidelines for working with images in tables. Before you paste:

If you want the image to "kiss fit" the edges, select the cell and set its text inset to 0 from Table > Cell Options or from the Table palette text inset fields.

If you don't want the cell to automatically grow to fit the image, ruining the table geometry, select the cell or row and set the Row Height to "Exactly." (You don't have to worry about Column Width, that's permanently set to an exact amount.) Of course you should set a height for the row that makes sense at the same time.

If you set the cell to an exact height, and you paste in an image that's taller than that amount, you'll end up with a blank cell with an overset icon, and no way to select the image and scale it. Blech! To prevent this, open the Cell Options dialog box and change the First Baseline Offset settings for the cell to Fixed (Figure 3-26). When you click OK, the overset frame will appear and you can click on it with the Selection tool to scale it or drag it into place.

If you set the cell to an exact height, and you changed the First Baseline Offset as described, the entire image will appear in the cell, overlapping surrounding cells and text if the image is larger than the cell. So you'll probably also want to turn on Clip Contents to Cell in the Cell Options dialog box. That way the cell boundaries act as a clipping path for the image if it's too large (Figure 3-27).

Then, after you paste the image in, you can select it with the Selection tool to drag it vertically, crop or scale it, apply transparency, and do other Object-related things to it. You can also select the image inside the inline frame with the Direct Select tool to adjust its position within the frame, or scale it without scaling its frame. Finally, you can drag over it with the Type tool and set text formatting commands like space above/below, indents (from the cell boundaries), horizontal alignment, and so on.

Update Table Data Without Losing Formatting

Between the powerful table features and the ability to place linked Excel spreadsheets, I'm in hog heaven. Well I thought I was in hog heaven, until the first