Threaded text frames

A text that flows from one frame to the next

Two small squares appear on a selected text frame:

For stories with a frame selected, dashed threads are also shown from the out port of one frame to the in port of the next.

1. A click on the out port picks up the threading tool: a dashed thread follows the pointer.
2. As you pass over a frame, the target frame is shown dashed and the cursor tells you whether you can thread it.
3. A click on the frame threads it. A click elsewhere, or Esc, cancels. Then the Selection tool comes back.

⌥ + click on a threaded port removes that thread: on the out port, to the next frame; on the in port, from the previous one. With the key held down, the cursor shows an X.

• The first frame holds the text and the font; the others show the continuation, with the style of the first.
• When you thread a frame that had its own text, that text is appended to the story as a paragraph.
• If the starting frame already had a next frame, the new one is inserted before it.
• A frame without a height takes all the remaining text.
• Frames can be on different pages, rotated, inside groups.
• Each threading and each unthreading is one undo step.

Opening a following frame opens the whole story: the cursor goes into the clicked frame, you type and select across all the frames, and while you type their edges are shown. The Text panel on a following frame sets the font of the story (size, spacing, leading, alignment, B and I), while columns, column gap and Scale on resize remain those of the selected frame.

• A copy of a single frame does not carry the thread with it: it becomes a standalone text.
• An empty frame without a height cannot be picked with a click, so it cannot be a target.
• Deleting a frame in the middle stops the story before it.