Two newbie questions

[Courtney_Armbruster@adobeforums.com]

Hi, I'm just learning InDesign CS after using PageMaker for more than 10 years (I need to be fluent in both for work purposes). I have two questions that I can't seem to track down.

1. I drew a rectangle around my page as a border (used the rectangle tool, set stroke to 1 pt.), but it seems to keep converting to a text frame. When I try to draw a text frame within it, the cursor snaps to the previously drawn rectangle and I can't do anything to stop it. I'm reduced to drawing a text frame on the pasteboard and moving it into the rectangle. I can't find anything in the help section about converting frames from shapes to text, etc. Is there a way to keep a box a box, and not have text affect it?

2. In PageMaker, you could select items by drawing a box around them with the arrow tool. It only selected items that were wholly encompossed by the arrow tool. In ID, any object that falls even partially within the box is selected. I'm trying to select a few small objects on a page, and it's very difficult to do so one by one, but I can't just draw around them because it selects all other objects that they overlap! Is there a method to draw a selection box and just select what is within it?

Thank you!

Courtney

[Simon Warner]

[email]Courtney_Armbruster@adobeforums.com[/email] wrote:

>
> 1. I drew a rectangle around my page as a border (used the rectangle tool, set stroke to 1 pt.), but it seems to keep converting to a text frame. When I try to draw a text frame within it, the cursor snaps to the previously drawn rectangle and I can't do anything to stop it. I'm reduced to drawing a text frame on the pasteboard and moving it into the rectangle. I can't find anything in the help section about converting frames from shapes to text, etc. Is there a way to keep a box a box, and not have text affect it?

Put your page border on the master page, and on its own layer. Lock the
layer. Right click on the frame. You get the option with an empty frame
to define what it contains.

>
> 2. In PageMaker, you could select items by drawing a box around them with the arrow tool. It only selected items that were wholly encompossed by the arrow tool. In ID, any object that falls even partially within the box is selected. I'm trying to select a few small objects on a page, and it's very difficult to do so one by one, but I can't just draw around them because it selects all other objects that they overlap! Is there a method to draw a selection box and just select what is within it?

That's how it works. With all your items selected, you can deselect
unwanted items by clicking on them. Layers are useful here too.

[Courtney_Armbruster@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Simon,

I understand putting a page border on the master pages, but what about when you have many rectangles of different sizes and locations on a page depending on each page's layout? Do you make a master page for each individual newsletter page? Isn't it then a pain if you want to adjust the rectangles frequently? We have rectangular borders around each article, with multiple text boxes within each rectangle. The shapes change depending on the article length. It seems awkward to switch between a master spread and each page for all adjustments.

Sorry, I'm still in a PageMaker state of mind... There should be a function to "lock" rectangles as rectangles, making them ineligible to become text boxes unless they are unlocked. What's the point of even having separate tools if they are essentially interchangeable?

Courtney

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

For question 2

If and when you select more than one object at a time, you can hold the shift key and click on the objects you would like to deselect.

[BeckyWC@adobeforums.com]

Courtney, after drawing rectangle right click or select object then select content you will see that you have three choices text, graphic, and unassigned. Choose graphic, you should then be able to create a text box within the rectangle (border).

Becky

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

What she said works perfectly too. Actually, even better, thanks! :)

[Courtney_Armbruster@adobeforums.com]

Thanks everyone,

I see that if you click on the frame and assign it as graphics, you can drag a text frame within it, but if you accidentally just click the text tool on the box without dragging, it still converts it to a text frame! It seems that assinging it a type of content is not effective for keeping it a rectangle! I need to remember to just always drag and not carelessly click the area first.

So far as the selecting objects issue. I fully understand how to select and deselect objects with the mouse and shift key, I was just hoping there was a simpler way to select just some things. For example it would be nice if you held down the alt or shift key when you dragged the mouse around an object and that constrained it to only selecting objects that are wholly within the selection. Is that a viable suggestion for the feature request???

I am determined to love ID and I will!

[Bob_Levine]

> Is that a viable suggestion for the feature request???

It is, but I doubt you'll get too many to agree with you. It did take a
bit of getting used to, but that's the way it works and I don't think
I'd want to go back to the old way.

I still use Corel Draw and I find having to get that marquee around the
whole object is now a bit of a pain.

Give it some time. You'll get used to it and will eventually come to
realize that it's better this way.

Bob

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

In all honesty, I used to hate the way PageMaker did that. To me it was more troublesome than anything else.

Most of the time I would find that I would need to zoom out first so I could get the marquee all the way around the object I needed to select and then zoom back and find that I accidentally deselected. I would try to select without zooming back out and then I would end up in outerspace because the cursor would cause the page to scroll so fast.

I'm sure you'll get used to this way and you'll agree it's actually better.

[Uwe_Rottkamp@adobeforums.com]

Courtney,

I also was long with PageMaker in my mind, and for some cases I take PM as a
faster tool than ID.

But as Bob says, give it a time to get used to those ID-behaviours. The most
charming behaviour imho is, while text-tool selected, pressing the Cntrl-key
changes the tool to pointer-tool and makes the frames itself moveable, on
releasing the key you are on text tool again to edit the text. In the
meantime it is really painfull to my working on PM without that feature...

BTW, Another missing feature as advanced PM-user is the
right-click-zoom/rezoom. This was genious navigating and zooming
simultaneous within a click, and I would be quite happy if Adobe would
complete the editable shortcut-set with a "shortcut-set" to the mouse.

Anyway, no way back - I'm rather excited what ID4 will bring, seeing all
those pretty ideas at the feature-request-forum...


Uwe

[Ken_Grace@adobeforums.com]

"Anyway, no way back - I'm rather excited what ID4 will bring, seeing all
those pretty ideas at the feature-request-forum..."


Uwe, I think you win a goldfish as the first to pre-guess ID4 in this forum.

As far as zooming round the zoom is concerned, I find that the fit page to
window button on the ID PageMaker toolbar gives me a good home base and a
combination of Sp+Ctrl and the navigator window copes with the detail stuff.

k

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

Hmm... I use Ctrl+-, + or 0 to zoom out, in or fit the page. I never even bothered with zooming with the mouse. I guess I'm just used to it.

I like using those shortcuts because they work with everything that's made by Adobe, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat etc.

I recommend you learn and use those keyboard shortcuts. :)

[Uwe_Rottkamp@adobeforums.com]

> Uwe, I think you win a goldfish as the first to pre-guess ID4 in this

forum.

wow... what a lucky day! I better had filled a lottery-receipe instead of
pre-guessing around ID 4 8-))

> As far as zooming round the zoom is concerned, I find that the fit page to
> window button on the ID PageMaker toolbar gives me a good home base and a
> combination of Sp+Ctrl and the navigator window copes with the detail

stuff.

I didn't have the chance to give the ID-PM-tools a try yet, 'cause the
german edition has been released just a few weeks ago, and Adobe wasn't able
to send me the package till now - should be shipped in the next 2 week,
Adobe told me.

Uwe

[Courtney_Armbruster@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for all the advice,

I am learning to love ID! I'm a huge advocate of keyboard shortcuts, so I am desperately memorizing ID's as I go. Thankfully many of them are the same as Photoshop and PageMaker, but many are also different and I keep hitting the wrong shortcuts and causing strange things to happen on my screen that only sometimes can be remedied by "undo."

I agree that it can be beneficial for the selection area to include everything touched by the box, but I still think an option to only select wholly included objects by holding down a keyboard key while selecting could also be beneficial when working with lots of small objects!

The problem is that I have to use ID and PageMaker both into the future. My company has all of our marketing documents in PM and they are not going to switch anything for a long long time... plus I'm the only person in my department who has ID, so I can only use it for stand-alone marketing pieces such as newsletters and brochures. So I can love ID, but I can't start to hate PM!

Courtney

[Bob_Levine]

Courtney,

IF you have the PM edition of ID CS it comes with a Pagemaker shortcut
set already programed in. If not, you can simply change the shortcut
keys to anything you want.

Bob

[Kevin Gibson]

Courtney wrote:
1. I drew a rectangle around my page as a border (used the rectangle
tool, set stroke to 1 pt.), but it seems to keep converting to a text
frame. When I try to draw a text frame within it, the cursor snaps to
the previously drawn rectangle and I can't do anything to stop it. I'm
reduced to drawing a text frame on the pasteboard and moving it into
the rectangle. I can't find anything in the help section about
converting frames from shapes to text, etc. Is there a way to keep a
box a box, and not have text affect it?
Hi Courtney,

+++++++++++++++++++++ Ok I think this is what you want.
++++++++++++++++++++

First off: In ID, a frame is a frame is a frame. In other words, if
you have the "Text" tool selected and you click inside an exsiting
anything (your border frame), ID thinks you want to put text in it...
Fair enough... In other words, if you drew a squiqqley box with the
pencil tool and then clicked in it with the text tool, ID will let you
enter text inside it. As I said, a frame is a frame is a frame. An
object is a frame...

To create what you want, I think you need to...

1. Place your border on the "Master Page" and put it on "Layer 1" and
lock the layer. Rename the layer to "Border". Set the stroke
properties as you wish, i.e. stroke of 1 pts, red, dashed... Don't
forget to lock the layer.

2. Create a new layer called "copy" or "text" or whatever...

3. Make sure you have the "copy" or "text" layer selected and draw a
text frame using the text tool on the master page or body page.
Placing it on the "Master" will reduce your work if you have several
articles... By default is should already be on top of the previous
frame. If not you can use the "Object>Bring to Front" option.

4. Switch to the body page, and import your content into the "copy" or
"text" frame by placing your cursor over the "body" or "copy" frame.
ID will automatically know that you want to place the copy into that
frame and not your "border" frame.

On the other hand... You could, create the "border" on the document
page and set the stroke or "border" properties as you wish. Lets say a
"double line black stoke of 2 pts". Once you have created that, click
inside the frame with the text tool and ID will automatically convert
your frame to a text frame. Now you will set the indent of your para
styles to be positive "n" depending on how much indent you want...

K

[richaarrd@adobeforums.com]

I'm almost afraid to comment on the as I am a total amateur... but...

I find that if I draw a rectangle and then select it... and then go to Object>Content and set it to "unassigned"... I can now draw a text frame inside that rectangle with the text tool and the text cursor appears in the smaller frame... does this work for you?... does it have anything to do with your issue?

FWIW

[sbitcorp]

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