[Solved] How to automatically & dynamically distribute/space objects apart?

[Anonymous Puddle]

As per this help article, I understand how to manually distribute and space objects each time, but is there a way to do this automatically/dynamically so I don't have to manually click these buttons every time my objects get adjusted?

I've attached a video showing what I mean. My use case is with text in a template that will change each time. I have three pieces of text all on the same horizontal axis. I want them to be evenly spaced apart and take up the whole width of the red rectangle. I would like it so that whenever I change the text, it will automatically re-distribute the three pieces of text (as shown manually in the video). I've sort of accomplished this by combining all three pieces of text in one text box using the Frame Text Tool, then setting the text justification to Justified All. Unfortunately, this spaces out all of the text and I would like it spaced apart only between the three groups where the spacing within each group is not affected, but the spacing between each group is adjusted (basically where I put the two dots "•") so that the three groups span the width of the rectangle whilst maintaining the original spacing of each group. I hope this makes sense...

In the video, the top row of text is accomplished using the Artistic Text Tool where the Left text is left aligned, the middle text is center aligned, and the right text is right aligned. The bottom row of text is accomplished using the Frame Text Tool and the text justification is set to Justified All.

Could this instead be accomplished using Constraints?

If anyone knows another way to achieve what I'm going for, I would love any suggestions!

[GarryP]

I don’t think you will be able to do what you want with Constraints because that functionality is for alignment of layers rather than distribution.

By using Constraints you would be able to keep the left-hand side of the left-hand text to be aligned to the left of the box, and the right-hand side of the right-hand text to be aligned to the right of the box, and the centre of the centre text to be aligned to the centre of the box, but you won’t (as far as I know) be able to distribute the text so as to keep the centre text nicely between the left-hand text and right-hand text.

I don’t know of a way to do what you want automatically. (That’s not to say that it can’t be done some other way, just that I don’t know how/if it can be done.)

You might be able to do it, up to a point, by using Justify All with one of the special spaces between some of the words, but I’ve not been able to do it with some quick testing.

You can do it, sort of, with Justify All by adding an en-dash (or something else) between some of the text and then making the en-dashes transparent – see attached video – but that’s a bit of a ‘cop-out’.

 

[Old Bruce]

16 hours ago, Anonymous Puddle said:

If anyone knows another way to achieve what I'm going for, I would love any suggestions

 

9 hours ago, GarryP said:

I don’t think you will be able to do what you want with Constraints because that functionality is for alignment of layers rather than distribution.

Here is a proof of concept using (3) Frame Text text frames with the approprate paragraph alignment. Not sure if this is what you want.

constraints.afdesign

Note the oversized Frame Text text frame, all three are like that.

[Anonymous Puddle]

44 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Here is a proof of concept using (3) Frame Text text frames with the approprate paragraph alignment. Not sure if this is what you want.

The problem still persists: If I type anything in the left or right text boxes, the center does not automatically adjust its position to have an even spacing between the left and right text boxes.

Also, I'm not sure if it did not download properly but here is how the constraints are configured for all layers, including the constraints group itself:

[Anonymous Puddle]

@GarryP This is an interesting workaround! To add onto that train of thought, I had played around with the Paragraph and Character tab settings with the singular Frame Text box. I am not familiar enough with these settings to understand what needs to be done but I wonder if it can be achieved here? I initially thought tab stops would do the trick but I don't think so. I wonder if the settings in [Paragraph > Spacing] or [Character > Position and Transform] would accomplish this?

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, Anonymous Puddle said:

The problem still persists: If I type anything in the left or right text boxes, the center does not automatically adjust its position to have an even spacing between the left and right text boxes.

Ah, I misunderstood your actual need. Sorry about that.

In this case I would go with @GarryP's advice with the suggestion of using Publisher, if you have it, because of the plethora of spaces easily used with shortcuts. Instead of copy and pasting a transparent hyphen. Cool trick that it is.

24 minutes ago, Anonymous Puddle said:

Also, I'm not sure if it did not download properly but here is how the constraints are configured for all layers, including the constraints group itself:

That is just weird. Same thing shows up here. Still works though. I set it up like this for the Left

The Centre has the two left and right chosen and the Right has only the right chosen.

[Anonymous Puddle]

Eureka!

@GarryP @Old Bruce Thanks to both your suggestions, I've found out how to accomplish this, not just in Publisher, but across all 3 apps! Using the suggestion of the unique spaces options, the 'En Space' is perfect! It looks like the standard amount of space as a 'normal' space (when pressing spacebar) and it does not conform to the Justified setting, thus allowing me to do precisely what I was after!

I would like to ask a favor, please. Since I plan to use this as a publicly available template, I would like to ask if you would please download my attached test file (below) and play around with the RGB, Hex, and CMYK number values (as I did toward the end in my Designer demonstration video below) and see if it is automatically adjusting spacing correctly for you as well.

Frame Text Auto Distribute Test.afdesign

Here is a video showing how to accomplish this in Publisher:

 

 

Here is a video showing how to accomplish this in Designer/Photo:

 

[Old Bruce]

Your file seems to do what you want it to do. I messed about with different fonts and sizes and it seemed to work fine. With the exception of the Wingdings font. [sly smiley face emoticon]

[Anonymous Puddle]

Here is the link to the template that I have been working on: