DSweet Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Hello again all. I have a project where I would like to set the properties of a text frame to be either a one column, a 2 column, or a 3 column frame depending upon the number of companies that are within the data file. I know that I can set up three boxes on top of one another and use the Suppress Text Frame option to turn on and off the proper frame, but I would like to know if I can just set the properties of a single text frame itself to switch column settings. Also I know about the '<p paragraph placement="straddleall">' tag but that just turns a 2 or more column text frame into a 1 column. I've had problems with this command "resetting itself for the next record" in the past, but it is still not really what I need. Any ideas? . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Korn Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 I would just make three different frames, with different numbers of columns, and suppress the two you don't want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSweet Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 That would be fine if that was all they wanted...columns in static positions. However, it's never THAT easy. I guess I was not really clear in my description and left this out. The columns need to have the information centered in the allowed opening. So the 3 columns would have a width of approx 2.5", the two columns would have a width of 3.75" and the single column would be the full width of 7.5" of the opening. So simply placing three text frames on the page and removing up to two would not really work. The center of each column changes depending on the number of columns and the spacing and point size of the text that is centered in these columns also changes with regards to copy-fitting in each column. Sorry for the extra little monkey-wrench that I should have included earlier. What I finally had to do was create three pages with the proper column-set text boxes and turned on and off the proper pages depending on the number of entries that would be needed. My problem is solved by this work-around. But I would still like to know if the columns of a text box can be changed by setting some attribute of the text-frame. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Korn Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 What I finally had to do was create three pages with the proper column-set text boxes and turned on and off the proper pages depending on the number of entries that would be needed. My problem is solved by this work-around. But I would still like to know if the columns of a text box can be changed by setting some attribute of the text-frame. . No, not with the frame properties API in JavaScript. You can, of course, use the DIF Control API in a FusionPro Server job to modify the layout in just about any way imaginable. But we don't expose all of this in FP Desktop. We are considering enhancing the frame properties JavaScript API, however. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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