InDesign for QuarkXPress Users [Electronic resources]

Layout Adjustment

In QuarkXPress, any text box that reaches to the margin guides automatically resizes when you make changes to the margin guide values. To duplicate this in InDesign, you have to turn on the Layout Adjustment feature (choose Layout Adjustment from the Layout menu and then turn on Enable Layout Adjustment; see Figure 35-2).

Notice that the Layout Adjustment dialog box offers other options, too. That's because InDesign provides more flexibility than XPress's automatic text box resizing. Layout Adjustment can resize or reposition any object that's aligned to a margin, column, or ruler guide. You can fine-tune the feature using these options:

• Enable Layout Adjustment. Lets layout adjustment happen. It's important to note that when this is on, layout adjustment won't happen as soon as you click OKonce it's on, layout adjustment happens whenever you change margin or column guides.

• Snap Zone. If an object is closer than this distance to a guide, it's considered aligned to that guide and may be moved or resized during layout adjustment.

• Allow Graphics and Groups to Resize. Enables graphics and groups to be scaled during a layout adjustment. Text frames are always scaled if needed.

• Allow Ruler Guides to Move. You might leave this on if you want ruler guides to be proportionally repositioned relative to the new margin or column settings.

• Ignore Ruler Guide Alignments. When this is on, objects won't be adjusted to stay aligned to ruler guide position changes.

• Ignore Object and Layer Locks. When this is on, locked objects are allowed to move to follow changes to guide positions.

Use layout adjustment with care. If it's what you want, it will save you tons of time when repurposing content for radically different page sizes or layouts, but if your layout isn't designed for it, you can end up with a disastrous mess. (Remember InDesign's multiple undo!) It works best when your layout was designed from the start with resizing and repositioning in mind, such as keeping all objects clearly aligned to column guides and margins and leaving space for adjustments. Note that layout adjustment applies to all pages, not just the page you're looking at.