How to link text frames?

[pomme27]

One more newbie question pls. In my document, Master A controls the format of pages 1-2. Master B controls the format of pages 3-4.

I placed some text within a text frame on page 2. As you can see from the attached diagram, I have an overflow situation.I expected this, and now I want to link the text frame on page 2 to the text frame on page 3 to handle the overflow. When I try to drag the text overflow arrow down to the page 3 text frame, however, nothing happens. I've tried clicking on the arrow, shift-clicking, control-clicking and option-clicking, but no success. How do I link the page 2 text frame to the page 3 text frame?

FYI that I've watched the Affinity Publisher tutorial on linked text frames. When the presenter clicks on the red overflow area, a small text frame icon appears, which he then drags to the next page of his book. When I click on the red overflow, no text frame icon appears.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide..

[pomme27]

Well, I got it to work. The first problem was simple. I was trying to click on the red arrow, hold it down, then drag-and-drop to the next text frame. I realized you just have to click on the red arrow, remove your finger from the trackpad or mouse, most the cursor to the new location, then create a new text frame. So that works fine.

I did come the conclusion though, that it might be possible to link two existing text frames. Therefore, one should be careful about putting text frames within a Master. Sound right?

[walt.farrell]

24 minutes ago, pomme27 said:

Well, I got it to work. The first problem was simple. I was trying to click on the red arrow, hold it down, then drag-and-drop to the next text frame. I realized you just have to click on the red arrow, remove your finger from the trackpad or mouse, most the cursor to the new location, then create a new text frame. So that works fine.

I did come the conclusion though, that it might be possible to link two existing text frames. Therefore, one should be careful about putting text frames within a Master. Sound right?

For 2 existing text frames, you would click the linking triangle on the source frame, and then click in the target frame.

Putting text frames on Master Pages is common, and usual, I think.

What is unusual, perhaps, is having on Master Page for pages 1-2 and another for pages 3-4, if both are having text frames like that. But as I don't understand what you intend with that layout I can't comment further. I will point out that a document page can have more than 1 Master applied. So if there are elements that need to be common across all the pages (perhaps, the main text frames) and elements that need to be different, you might consider having the common elements on one Master page, applied to all the document pages. And then you can have 1, 2, or more other Masters with the elements that are different, and apply each of those to the appropriate pages.

[pomme27]

Thank you Walt. Much appreciated.

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

[Dangerous]

On 3/21/2020 at 10:49 AM, walt.farrell said:

You're welcome.

I have linked frames many times so I know how to do it but I have a problem with single lines of text in boxes that I want in a single text box. There would be a lot of cutting & pasting, deleting etc. Is there a way to merge multiple text boxes in to one other than linking them resizing the 1st and deleting the rest?

If not how do I get the blue/red link arrow on a single line text box as it just isn't working.

 

Ooops, just realised it is artistic text, can it be converted to a text box?

 

 

[Return]

Did you place a pdf file?
If so open it first in publisher and tick the group text option.
Save as afpub file and place that file to have textframes intact.
You can convert artistictext to textframes(v2 only) but it will still be solo layers.

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, Dangerous said:

Ooops, just realised it is artistic text, can it be converted to a text box?

In V2, yes. There's an action in the Layers menu to Convert to Text Frame.

[Dangerous]

9 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

In V2, yes. There's an action in the Layers menu to Convert to Text Frame.

I have searched every dropdown several time looking for that option and must have missed it every time. You are a HERO.  Here is a highly sort after blue peter badge for you lol

.

[Dangerous]

26 minutes ago, Return said:

Did you place a pdf file?
If so open it first in publisher and tick the group text option.
Save as afpub file and place that file to have textframes intact.
You can convert artistictext to textframes(v2 only) but it will still be solo layers.

Yes it was a PDF file I downloaded for the equipment manufactures site long ago, I couldn't use the group text option as there are lots of artistic text that have to be separate despite being close the get grouped in to text frames. No I din not know you could convert to text frames but thought there should be that option (I could not find it despite looking many times, lol).

Here is a Blue Peter badge for you as well.

[Dangerous]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

 

Another thing Walt, I need to indent lines 2 up to ??? with line 1 starting 3 or 4 characters 'leading'. I can indent line 1 but can't find a way to leave that and indent the rest other than using bullets which is not what I want/need.

Can you help with that ?

 

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, Dangerous said:

Another thing Walt, I need to indent lines 2 up to ??? with line 1 starting 3 or 4 characters 'leading'. I can indent line 1 but can't find a way to leave that and indent the rest other than using bullets which is not what I want/need.

Can you help with that ?

 

A screenshot showing what you want to accomplish would help in understanding what you're asking for.

My guess is that something in the Paragraph panel should help, assuming all the lines are in the same paragraph. You'll find settings for Left Indent and First Line Indent there:

[Dangerous]

12 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

A screenshot showing what you want to accomplish would help in understanding what you're asking for.

My guess is that something in the Paragraph panel should help, assuming all the lines are in the same paragraph. You'll find settings for Left Indent and First Line Indent there:

 

 

To appear like this

 

 

 

Problem with indent is it moves the start of line 1 to the right, I need it to the left as above.

 

[carl123]

14 minutes ago, Dangerous said:

Problem with indent is it moves the start of line 1 to the right, I need it to the left as above.

After you use Left Indent, you can use First Line Indent to move line 1 back to zero, as Walt advised previously

[Dangerous]

5 minutes ago, carl123 said:

After you use Left Indent, you can use First Line Indent to move line 1 back to zero, as Walt advised previously

I didn't quite figure out what Walt was meaning. I have faffed on so much I needed a break. You have made it clear and I can do it now. Thanks.