Angled Type Box

[DSweet]

Gotta a bit of a situation...client wants text to float down the sides of a megaphone on it's end...PLUS...the megaphone is angled at 28%.

Either one is simple enough on their own. I can angle a text box 28% by using the properties of the text frame editor. I can also place a couple of empty text boxes above my filled text box and set them to text-wrap to force the type farther and farther into the center. Putting smaller text boxes overlapping slightly and put each box closer to the center can give the appearance of the text in the original box to angle down the megaphone in the desired manner. HOWEVER when I try to ANGLE the text box AND put some kind of text box around it to force is to condense to the center the text-wrap format fails and the text overlaps actually overlap those boxes that were set to force text-wrap.

Trial 1) When the original text box is not angled, everything worked. Once an angle is placed on the box, then text-wrap formatting appears to fail.

Trial 2) I've also tried this with multiple boxes that get narrower and narrower as the go closer to the middle. Then linked them together to flow the variable paragraph down the megaphone insides. Once again when the boxes are not angled everything works. As soon as an angle is placed on the boxes then the formatting fails.

Trial3) I then tried to put the variable paragraph in a "reuseable template page". I got that page to work like it is supposed to and didn't need to angle it. I put the surrounding text boxes set to text-wrap and everything looks correct on that "template page". I then made my rule to put the contents of the template page into a text box on the main template sheet where the megaphone is. Same thing...when the box is not angled everything works fine, when it is angled the text-wrap formatting fails.

I'm uploading jpg files to show the problem I'm having. These show only the results I have from Trial 3, but the outcome is the same for trials 1 and 2. Formatting fails when angled.

"templateBox" shows the contents of the reusable template page during preview. "angledTextBoxes_2" shows the output page with the two frames when angled and when not angled. I've colored the text-wrap boxes to show them more clearly.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
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[esmith]

Even tougher scenario than similar ones I've tried to work with in past. As someone who likes to stick with #KISS, I have to ask, what are the variables in the text? I'm guessing first name and phone number along with school name, sales person's name and email? Would it be possible to break those elements into separate text frames (not linked) rather than trying to flow the entire bock of text?

Otherwise, depending on amount of records, I might be tempted to generate PDF output of the upright megaphone with variables first, and then import those pages as graphics into a separate template for the rest of the content.

[Dan Korn]

This sounds like a job for FP Expression.

[ScottHillock]

Use your non-rotated version and compose to PDF. Then import the PDF into a rotated graphic frame.

It's a two step process for composing the job, but at least it gets done.