InDesign

Flow text manually or automatically

Your pointer becomes a loaded text icon  after you place text or click an in port or out port. The loaded text icon lets you flow text onto your pages. By holding down a modifier key, you can determine how the text is flowed. The loaded text icon changes appearance, depending on where it is placed.

When you position the loaded text icon over a text frame, parentheses enclose the icon . When you position the loaded text icon next to a guide or grid snapping point, the black pointer becomes white .

You can flow text using four methods:

Method

What it does

Manual text flow 

Adds text one frame at a time. You must reload the text icon to continue flowing text.

Semi-autoflow  by holding down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) when you click.

Works like manual text flow, except that the pointer becomes a loaded text icon each time the end of a frame is reached, until all text is flowed into your document.

Autoflow  by Shift-clicking.

Adds pages and frames until all text is flowed into your document.

Fixed-page autoflow  by holding down Shift+Alt (Windows) or Shift+Option (Mac OS) when you click.

Flows all text into the document without adding frames or pages. Any remaining text is overset.

Flow text manually

  1. Use the Place command to select a file, or click the out port  of a selected text frame.
  2. Do one of the following:

    • Position the loaded text icon anywhere within an existing frame or path, and then click. The text flows into the frame and any other frames linked to it. Note that text always starts filling the frame at the top of the leftmost column, even when you click in a different column.

    • Position the loaded text icon in a column to create a text frame the width of that column. The top of the frame appears where you click.

    • Drag the loaded text icon to create a text frame the width and height of the area you define.

  3. If there is more text to be placed, click the out port and repeat steps 1 and 2 until all text has been placed.
Note: When you place text in a frame that is threaded to other frames, text autoflows through the threaded frames, regardless of the text flow method you choose.

Flow text semi-automatically

 With a loaded text icon, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) a page or frame.

The text flows one column at a time, as in manual flow, but the loaded text icon automatically reloads after each column is placed.

Flow text automatically

 With the loaded text icon displayed, hold down Shift as you do one of the following:

  • Click the loaded text icon in a column to create a frame the width of that column. InDesign creates new text frames and new document pages until all text is added to the document.

  • Click inside a text frame that is based on a master text frame. The text autoflows into the document page frame and generates new pages as needed, using the master frame’s attributes. (See About masters, stacking order, and layers.)

Flow text automatically without adding pages

 With a loaded text icon, hold down Shift+Alt (Windows) or Shift+Option (Mac OS).