Publisher - Turning off flowing text frame at end of novel

[Twolane]

I want to turn off the text frame at the end of my novel so I can do an About the author page, and others, that aren't linked to the novel text. When I click on the bottom right triangle to turn off text frames, I get the red x barbell. When I click on that same page, all the text that was on pages after the last pile up at the bottom, and I can't get them to appear anywhere.

Help says once you click on the bottom right triangle, click on the same page to end the frame and unlink pages that follow. Well, it ends the text frame flow all right, but I can't get the pages following to display anywhere else, no matter what I do.

Is this a cut and paste thing, as in cut the text you want separated, and then paste it in after you end the text frame flow?

Edited to add that I did the cut and turned off frame flow, and then deleted frames in order to get the proper effect when I pasted. I don't know if that's how it's done properly, but it worked for me and I'm happy.

[EmT]

Hi @Twolane

Just for clarity, have you written the 'About the author' section within a linked text frame then unlinked that frame?

If that is the case, you will need to cut and paste the section into the unlinked frame. 

The alternative method of doing this would be to first unlink the text frame and then write the section within the frame. 

 

 

[walt.farrell]

Or, for another alternative, you could insert a Frame Break character between the last chapter text and the "About" text. It can be found in the menu Text > Insert > Spaces and Breaks, if I remember correctly.

[Twolane]

Thanks, Walt.

I Place my text from a Word ebook-formatted product, thus all of the text goes into the first page of my template. I then go through a copy-past exercise and an Add Page exercise to put the title page, copyright page, front matter in place. Of course, these pages are all linked through page flow because of the Place. 

The back matter is the same. It too is all linked through page flow. The cutting and pasting I did last night solved that, of course.\

I'll do a test Place using my Word docx into my template and try the Frame Break to see how it shakes out.

All right, I experimented with a New from template and a Place. Following a Shift-Autoflow to flow the text, I tried a Frame Break in an appropriate location, at the beginning of the document and near the end. Frame Break inserts a blank page, but the blank page is still linked through page flow at the top left and bottom right. Page flow doesn't turn off.

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, Twolane said:

Frame Break inserts a blank page, but the blank page is still linked through page flow at the top left and bottom right. Page flow doesn't turn off.

No, it wouldn't turn off the flow. But it would separate the text so the "About" starts on a new page, which should be what you want, I think. 

If it doesn't suffice, I would need more information (screenshots, perhaps) to illustrate the problem.

[Twolane]

I don't have a problem using my cut-paste method to turn off the frame flow where I need it off - which is primarily at the front for the various pages before the main text body starts. I then insert my master pages and cut-paste the text for title page, copyright page, dedication page, etc. It's what I've been doing for ages. I thought there might be a more friendly approach to doing same is all.

[MikeTO]

Just go to the last page of your novel, the one that has the final paragraph, and add a new page or page spread. It will have a text frame that is not linked to the rest of your book.

Personally, I'd use a different master for that page but if you just want an unlinked page that's easy to do.

[Twolane]

44 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Just go to the last page of your novel, the one that has the final paragraph, and add a new page or page spread. It will have a text frame that is not linked to the rest of your book.

Personally, I'd use a different master for that page but if you just want an unlinked page that's easy to do.

That's what I do. Then I cut and paste the relevant text and delete the empty pages. Strange that there's no way to actually halt frame flow, though.

[walt.farrell]

22 minutes ago, Twolane said:

Strange that there's no way to actually halt frame flow, though.

You can delete the link between two frames, and all the remaining text goes into the frame before the break, as I think you've seen.

Or you can add a frame break, which preserves the text in their current frames. The frames are still linked, but the flow of that text is broken at the frame break. Text before the break stops, and text after the break starts in the next frame.

Or you can add an empty page.

If none of those is what you want, perhaps I still don't understand what you wanted to accomplish.

[mliving]

Is there a way for me to unlink all text frames at once?

I have a project that is complete and I'd like to unlink all the text frame because I've moved various pages and frames around the document during the proofing stage and I'd like to have a final copy of the document as independent text frames if possible.

Thanks

[MikeTO]

2 hours ago, mliving said:

Is there a way for me to unlink all text frames at once?

I have a project that is complete and I'd like to unlink all the text frame because I've moved various pages and frames around the document during the proofing stage and I'd like to have a final copy of the document as independent text frames if possible.

Thanks

No, and there's no way to split a story (the text in a series of linked frames). I recommend archiving your project as it stands now as an afpub file and also as a PDF. The text in the PDF will be independent of course.

Even if you could do it, unlinking all the frames could change the document's appearance. For example, if the text was justified left then the last line of a page that had a paragraph broken over two pages would not be aligned right with the line above it. If you opened the document any hyphenated words at the end of a page would be flagged as spelling errors at the end of that page and the start of the next page.