Laying Out Classifieds

[Janelle_Evans@adobeforums.com]

Help! I just got a new job laying out classified ads and I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING! Any advice on text formatting and styles would be appreciated. I just want to make nice looking pages which are easy on the eyes. Specifically, how do I get all of the ads to end in the column they started in without going into the next, how do I make all of the columns the same length, and how do I add the advertisements. Any "tricks of the trade" would be greatly appreciated. Are there any tutorials I can take?

The pages are 8 1/2 x 11 with a 4-column layout. The ads very in length from 5 - 20 lines with approx. 4 words to the line. Since this is a new publication (our first edition is scheduled to be published on June 07, 2004)I can change any of these specs to whatever you recommend (and whatever is easiest to learn quickly). I am using In Design 2.0 on Windows XP. Thank you.

[Ken_Grace@adobeforums.com]

One thing you can do to control how the ads fit vertically is to create a
set of paragraph styles with differing leading, so can apply them to the
spaces between the ads to reduce or increase the space.

You can automate the spacing process by setting the text frame properties
for each column to vertical justification, and allowing, say, 5mm paragraph
spacing limit. If you do this, you will have to use forced line breaks
rather than hard returns in the ads themselves. Insert a column break at the
start of the ad that you want at the top of the next column.

Make certain you have align to grid turned off.


Good luck


k

[Alan_Gold@adobeforums.com]

Not trying it at the moment, but I think you could set your "keep options" (paragraph palette) to keep all lines in paragraph together and set your text frame to vertical justify, and then it should always give you a column full of text, without breaking an ad, if that's what you're looking for.

However, if you have a particularly long ad that would thereby jump to the next column, your spacing could look strange, and you might need to manually shuffle some ads to even it out . . .

AG

[Janelle_Evans@adobeforums.com]

"you might need to manually shuffle some ads to even it out "

But then how do I keep them in alphabetical ordeer?

[Alan_Gold@adobeforums.com]

Oops -- I didn't see alphabetical order -- Of course if they need to be sorted in a particular order, then you can't shuffle them to make the spacing look more even.