Forums: Design:

I've been searching for the solution to this problem online, but it's hard to explain, so I'm gonna post it here and see if anyone can help me out.

Okay, I have a three column layout with a photo centered on the page. The columns on the right and left side adjust around the text wrap differently than the text in the middle column. There are work arounds, sure, but is there a real solution to this?



I don't have "Skip by leading" checked in my Preferences, nor is "Align to baseline" checked, and here is my wrap-around palette:

You need to turn on baseline. What happens is that if its not aligned to that, the text affected by the wrap is just moved 0.625 inches down from x-height.

With a baseline turned on it'll give you a much nicer text.


Ill post a baseline grid tutorial later, when im not so tied up in work.

edit - n-gen is cleverer than me


*hides in shame*

It took me a bit, but I think I understand what you're saying. So the columns on the right and left adjust around the text wrap based on the leading, but since the middle column doesn't have a line of text above it to accommodate for the lead, it adjusts around the text wrap based on the x-height? And when I try to bring the Caption text box down to align all three baselines, the text wrap hits the leading of the left and right column pushing them down again... right?

So, Align to Baseline causes other problems (e.g. the top line aligns to the baseline rather than the top of the text box)... do I just need to customize my baseline?

Originally posted by: birdless
So, Align to Baseline causes other problems (e.g. the top line aligns to the baseline rather than the top of the text box)... do I just need to customize my baseline?

Yup. You can set the height from the top of page, or margin where the baseline grid starts to accomodate your specific frames.

So I've been exploring my options, and you can forgo Align to Baseline and adjust the baseline for that text box (Object>Text Frame Options) relative to leading rather than x-height (default). By doing that, though, the top line of text will not align to the top of the text box... well, it will, but it takes leading into account, so it doesn't look like it does, but it will cause your middle column of text to adjust to the leading rather than the x-height.

But now you see why I try not to have photos break partially into a column.

Stick the the Grid man - it'll make life easy.

Good tip on the text frame option for relative to leading. Thanks.

sorry I missed this till now...

I think I found a fix for this while doing my prepress routine on a newsletter maybe ten days ago...


I believe the problem fixes itself if you select "Bounding Box" in the Contour Options dropdown... I don't know why that option is greyed-out in your dialog, I believe it may become an available option if you go to the "wrap around object shape" or third text wrap optionfrom the left




I'll save my test file... lemme know if you need a screen grab

so, rogue_d, a question when you see this...

does this solution or settings change create other issues that I am not seeing?

Originally posted by: Walt
so, rogue_d, a question when you see this...

does this solution or settings change create other issues that I am not seeing?

I was playing a little with it, it seems that it still flipped out if your image and caption box were not grouped, or if there was a small gap between them that could essentially hide a text line/leading space.

But overall, it seems that worked pretty cleanly. I'm still futzing a bit. I have a newsletter I'm doing a new layout on, and If I stumble across anything I'll share.

yeah, I was amazed at how much my brain fought switching gears to "layout thinking" when I worked on our newsletter recently... I got it with a basic layout, but the document needed to be completely rebuilt... this was just one of the many little things that popped up.

I'll get it again next month, I'm sure... at least, now I have my paragraph styles all set up

Originally posted by: Walt
sorry I missed this till now...

I think I found a fix for this while doing my prepress routine on a newsletter maybe ten days ago...


I believe the problem fixes itself if you select "Bounding Box" in the Contour Options dropdown... I don't know why that option is greyed-out in your dialog, I believe it may become an available option if you go to the "wrap around object shape" or third text wrap optionfrom the left




I'll save my test file... lemme know if you need a screen grab

In this particular instance, I have my text wrap on a text box, and the "contour options" seems to grey-out automatically when applying a wrap to a text box. Weird.

Since the "align to baseline" and "relative to leading" options worked, though, I didn't mess with this third option too much.

Thanks for the help, all!!!

Originally posted by: n-gen.dk
You need to turn on baseline. What happens is that if its not aligned to that, the text affected by the wrap is just moved 0.625 inches down from x-height.

With a baseline turned on it'll give you a much nicer text.


Ill post a baseline grid tutorial later, when im not so tied up in work.

Ran into a separate issue where snapping to baseline may come in handy, but it royally screwed up everything when I tried to use it... Hope you can post that tutorial soon!

Originally posted by: birdless

Ran into a separate issue where snapping to baseline may come in handy, but it royally screwed up everything when I tried to use it... Hope you can post that tutorial soon!

Yeah, unfortunately - it's much easier if you start the layout with the baseline grid enacted.

If you throw it in later, it does mess with your existing text boxes.

yeah, I just got through doing this month's newsletter... of course, the template I worked out last month wasn't adhered to... to make things even worse, rather than columns, guides and text boxes—wherein what I thought was a solution, worked.

this time the AD set up individual text boxes that were divided into multiple colums—and that seemed to bork all the alignment techniques that I had worked out...
it was driving me crazy... luckily it was all pretty-much pushed all the way to the deadline befor I got it for prepress and QA... I made it better than it was.

hah - yeah Walt.

I actually like the individual boxes divided, but they have their own quirks.

Like anything, there's at least 7 ways to skin this cat, and we all have our favorites.

I'll write it this weekend.

But you can't just turn on baseline. You need to plan it before you start on the document.

No arguement, just a few further examples...
several ways to skin the proverbial cat, and each has its effect on the other variables

as we discussed earlier on, the Text Wrap options affect what birdless pointed out as as "mismatched baslines" in his illustration

however, there's more...
in the Text Frame Options dialog you'll find the two variables I show below for First Baseline Offset, Leading and Fixed along with several others I didn't show... and each of those choices has an affect on other variables. For instance, notice in the last two slides, under the byline the text in the first line of the paragraph pops up above the top of the Text Box when you switch the First Baseline Offset from "Leading" to "Fixed"

what turns out to be pleasing to some, and may solve the problem can be found in another option altogether... notice the arrow at the top right of the last two slides which point out the Vertical Justification options... not perfect, and I had to go back in and adjust the Text Wrap to push the justified flow over to balance the last column.


n-gen.dk may be pointing in the right direction for most circumstances... it's gotta be much easier finding a setup that works and sticking to it, than having to adjust and fight a whole bunch of different variables which are interrelated.

six variables that each have an affect on another turns out to be like the odds of picking a winning six-number Lotto ticket... in the end, what worked on this three column Text box I showed here, didn't work on all the articles I had to adjust.

Originally posted by: n-gen.dk
I'll write it this weekend.

But you can't just turn on baseline. You need to plan it before you start on the document.

The problem is the document is a template created before I got here, so it's too established at this point to try jiggering with the leading/baseline (at least as far as the Power that Is is concerned).