How to Link Text Boxes in Adobe InDesign
Save yourself hours and hours of headaches
In thedesktop publishingapplication Adobe InDesign, if you’re working with a long or complex document—or even a single-page document with multiple design elements—chances are you’ll want to link your text boxes. Since the length of the text in any document could be liable to change, it’s important to allow for those changes so you don’t have to completely redesign the document’s layout.
Imagine you’re laying out a magazine article. In this walkthrough, we’ll show you how to link text frames so text flows seamlessly from one frame to the next, even if you insert additional text somewhere in the article. These instructions should work for all versions of Adobe InDesign, including CS5.5, CS6, and InDesign CC, which is part of Adobe’sCreative Cloud.
Get Your InDesign Vocab Down
Atext frameis one of the basic building blocks of InDesign projects. (The termstext frameandtext boxcan be used interchangeably. QuarkXPress users especially will be used to calling them text boxes.) Any text you add to your document lives in a container called a text frame ortext box. You can move and resize text frames, and you can change things like the number of columns in the frame or the spacing of the margins between the text frame and the text inside the frame.
To create a text frame, use theTypetool. (It’s the tool that looks like a T.) Click and drag it across the page to create the text frame. Then use theSelectiontool (the black arrow) to resize the text frame you created by selecting and dragging the square handles on each corner of the frame.
Now, think about the layout of your document. You’ll want the text to flow from one text frame to another either in a different section of the document or on another page entirely. When you connect two or more text frames, that’s calledthreadingorlinking text frames. A set of linked or threaded text frames is called astory.
Every text frame has anin portand anout port. You’ll use those ports to link text frames. When you select a text box, you’ll see a square at each corner of the frame. You can drag those handles with theSelectiontool to resize the frame. You’ll also see slightly larger squares near the top-left and bottom-right corners. The larger square at the top-left is thein port. The one at the bottom-right is theout port.
If there’s a red plus sign in the out port of a text frame, that means the frame isn’t big enough to display all the text in the frame and you’ve got someoverset text.
How to Add a New Text Frame to a Thread
Now that you have the jargon down, take a look at the image below. Note the red plus icon telling you that the frame has overset text. Let’s flow the overset text in that frame into a new text frame at the bottom of the page.
If you change your mind after you’ve started to link two text frames, you can always cancel by pressing theEscapekey or by selecting any other tool in InDesign’s toolbox. Don’t worry, you won’t lose any text if you do this.
How to Add an Existing Frame to a Thread
What if you have an existing frame filled with text, and you want to add it to a thread? In that case, follow these steps.
The existing frame is now part of the threaded story.
How to Add a New Text Frame to the Middle of a Thread
The process for adding a new text frame to the middle of a sequence of threaded frames is very similar.
How to Unthread Text Frames
If you want to break the link between a text frame and all the other text frames in the thread that comes after it, you can use one of these methods.
With theSelectiontool, double-click in anin portorout port. Told you it was easy!
Here’s another way to unthread text frames.
How to Delete a Text Frame from a Thread
Let’s say you have three threaded text boxes, and you want to remove the middle frame.
Deleting a frame in a thread won’t delete the text that was contained in that frame because text frames are just containers. Instead, the text flows into the next frame in the thread. If there isn’t another frame in the thread, then you’ll see the overset icon.
Take Advantage of InDesign’s Features
If you’re new to InDesign, take some time to learn about its features. Learning about tools like master pages will help you design documents more quickly and with fewer mistakes. You won’t regret it.
Maggie Marystone is a freelance technology writer, human rights worker, and storyteller based in Chicago.Read Maggie’s Full Bio
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