PagePlus

Fitting text to frames

Fitting story text precisely into a sequence of frames is part of the art of laying out publications.

If there’s too much story text to fit in a frame sequence, PagePlus stores it in an invisible overflow area and the Link button on the last frame of the sequence displays ; an  AutoFlow button appears next to the Link button. You might edit the story down or make more room for it by adding an extra frame or two to the sequence. Clicking the AutoFlow button adds additional frames and pages as needed (see below).

Once frames are in position it’s still possible to control how text is distributed throughout the frame(s) via tools on the Frame context toolbar (or the Format menu’s Size Text flyout, or via right-click menu).

	The Text Sizing flyout offers three tools for controlling how frame text scales through the text frame. These are “once-off” operations (compared to the “continuous” Autofit options shown below).
	Fit Text Click to scale the story’s text size so it fits exactly into the available frame(s); further text added to the frame will cause text overflow. You can use this early on, to gauge how the story fits, or near the end, to apply the finishing touch. Fit Text first applies small point size changes, then small leading changes, then adjustments to the paragraph space below value, until the text fits.
	Enlarge Text Click to increase the story’s text size one increment (approx. 2%).
	Shrink Text Click to reduce the story’s text size one increment.

Each frame’s story text can adopt its own individual autofit setting as follows:

	The AutoFit Options flyout offers three autofit options which continuously act upon a selected frame’s story text.
	No Autofit This is the normal mode of operation where, if selected, text won’t automatically scale throughout the selected text frame, possibly leaving partly empty frames at the end of the frame sequence.
	Shrink Text on Overflow If selected, extra text added to a selected frame will shrink all frame text to avoid text overflow.
	Autofit If selected, the frame will always scale text automatically by adjusting text size (compare to Fit Text which fits text once, with any additional text causing text overflow).

AutoFlow

When importing text, it’s a good idea to take advantage of the AutoFlow feature, which will automatically create text frames and pages until all the text has been imported. This way, enough frames are created to display the whole story. Then you can gauge just how much adjustment will be needed to fit the story to the available “real estate” in your publication.

If you add more text to a story while editing, or have reduced the size of frame, you may find that an overflow condition crops up. In this case you can decide whether to use AutoFit or click the frame’s AutoFlow button.

To AutoFlow story text on the page:

• Click the  AutoFlow button just to the left of the frame’s  Link button.

If no other empty frames are detected, you’ll be prompted to autoflow text into a new frame(s) the same size as the original or to new frame(s) sized to the page. If an empty frame ex
ists anywhere in your publication, PagePlus will flow text into that instead, before commencing with autoflow.

Fitting text to frames