Linked text boxes

Hi All,

Had a request to flow text around a graphic of a mountain out-cropping. First time trying this so please bear with me. To simulate this (for testing), I created the main text box for the top of the form, 4 other text boxes each stepped back to surround the graphic image and a final text box to finish off the page. I then linked them together. The test data file only contains 4 records, and the only field used is the VARTEXT field to see how the linked text flow is working for short, medium, long and really long fields. For whatever reason, page 2 doesn't format correctly. If you add another ' really ' to record 4 and refresh, then this record doesn't format correctly either. At this point, I just don't get it. If anyone out there has some insight it would be most appreciated. Find attached the template and data file.

Best regards,

Gregg

Using FP 7.2 desktop

Win 7

LinkedTextFlow.pdf

data.txt

Would using FusionPro layers work in your situation?

The following instructions were taken from page 247 (or PDF page 259) of the FusionPro User Guide, I just changed the wording a little.

1. 
   
2. In Acrobat, draw a text frame on the page.
   
3. Draw a graphic frame on the page, with part of the frame overlapping the text frame.
   
4. Using the Selection tool, double-click the graphic frame to display the Graphic Frame Properties dialog box.
   
5. Select the Text Wrap check box. This tells FusionPro that the text will wrap around the contents of this frame.
   (I always have a hard time finding the Text Wrap check box. It is right between the Rotation and the Corner Radius settings on the Graphic Frame Properties dialog box.)
   

If you need the text to follow the slope of the mountain, you could first create a graphic frame with the mountain and Text Wrap turned off. Then create smaller empty graphic frames directly over the mountain, following the shape of the mountain, that have Text Wrap turned on.

With this method, you would not need to use linked text boxes, just one big text box that wraps its contents around the graphic boxes.

Gregg, I'm not exactly sure why this would be the case, but I think tags are the culprit here. You can try doing something like this in OnRecordStart to see if you get better results:

var frame = FindTextFrame('main text frame');
frame.content = frame.content.replace(/<\/para>/g,'<br>');

Also, don't forget that you can turn on copy-fitting for those linked frames and the same magnification factor will be applied to all of them.

Thanks Step!

By changing the paragraph tags to breaks, all the linked textboxes flow perfect now!

Gregg