Break link between text frames without having to redo any of them?

[Philosoraptor - Jeff H]

Hey, quick question, I promise, in sharp contrast to my usual pattern. BTW I fully expect the answer to be "no" so the only way you can surprise me is pleasantly.

Say I have 20 text frames all linked together such that text that overflows one will flow into the next. (The exact numbers aren't important, just think "not a small easy-to-work-with number, but not hundreds either".) And around the midway point, I'd like to break those links - basically remove one of those flow arrows without affecting the content. Is there a way to do that? (And if so, what is it?)

The obvious ways to do this cause all the text from after the break to revert back to the frame right before the break, almost certainly overflowing it among other things. I'd much rather be able to do this and have the text from after that point stay put in the frames I've already got it in.

[steday]

Hello

This question has been asked many times in the forum. There is no special tool to do that. So, no good surprise !!

The only way is to cut-paste the text before (or after) the break in another set of linked frames. Many people are facing this problem and would like a faster and better solution. It's the same problem in InDesign.

 

 

[lacerto]

15 hours ago, steday said:

It's the same problem in InDesign.

Not really. What is not inherent, can typically be "fixed" by creating a script. These two Javascripts were created by Marc Autret already for CS4 and provided free for the community and still operate without issues with CC2025:

UPDATE: The feature seems to be provided nowadays also as part of the package, so in that sense an internal feature:

I also noticed that there have been for years also two sample scripts provided by Adobe, BreakFrame, which extracts a selected frame out of a text thread (or copies multi-frame selection as independent stories), and SplitStory, which splits a single story to multiple stories according to text frames the story is threaded into. (The startup scripts I have been using allow limited unthreading based on frame selection.) Anyway: all free utilities available for doing these kinds of tasks.

UPDATE2: There seem to be free scripts for ID also for doing the opposite, stitching together separate frames as one continuing story, specifically useful in context of data merge. The forum continues to be useful in two directions.

[steday]

On 3/15/2025 at 9:14 AM, lacerto said:

Not really.

Good to know, thank you.