May, 2008
In this tutorial you will learn how to flow text from one text box to another with in the same document.
1. First we will create a new document. After opening InDesign go to File -> New -> Document or Cmd N (Ctrl N).
2. In the New Document Dialogue box we will set it to be [1] landscape 8.5 x 11 with a [2] .125 inch border.
3. Here you can see what your starting document should look like.
4. Next select the Type Tool from the tools pallet (T).
5. Now we will create a Text Box from the top left corner, dragging down and to the right.
6. We need a second Text Box to have text flow into, so we will need to duplicate the first one. With the Select Tool (V) click with the mouse holding the option key (alt on pc) and drag to the right. Leave a little room between the
7. Click in the first text box with either your selection tool or type tool. Go to the menu Type -> Fill with Placeholder Text. This will give us an idea of how the text flows.
8. As you can see only the first text box fills with text. Nothing flows over into the second box. Let's take a step back by clicking Cmd Z (Ctrl Z) to erase the placed text.
9. Click on the Selection Tool on the Tool Pallet.
10. With the Selection Tool find the tiny box at the bottom of the first text box. Click on that.
11. Then click in the second text box we made.
12. With the Type Tool selected and the first box selected use the Fill with Placeholder Text option to see what happens. As you can see the text automatically flows into the next box. You have "linked" the two text boxes together.
13. Now we will change the size of the second text box to see what happens. With the selection tool grab the bottom of that text box and pull up, shrinking the text box. When you do this you will see a red square with an x in it appear. This means there is more text than the box can show.
14. You can fix the issue of the text not fitting by adding another text box and linking it. First using the type tool draw a box where you want the rest of the text to flow. Then click on the red square with the x in it on the other text box.
15. Once you click on that red square with the x you will see your cursor change and show text. This means it is ready to be dropped or "linked" into the other text box. Click anywhere in the new text box you created.
16. When the new text box is clicked you will see your text jump into the box and the red square with the x will disappear from the bottom of the previous text box. As you can see the text is flowing from text box 1 to text box 2 to text box 3.
Having the ability to flow text like this makes it a lot easy to place text or type text into multiple columns, multiple areas on a page and even multiple pages.
Copyright (c) 2008, Jacob Van Ness, All Rights Reserved