Showcase images with nested frames
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Table of Contents
Excerpted from “Visual Quickstart Guide: InDesign CS for Macintosh and Windows” by Sandee Cohen.
Adobe® InDesign® allows you much more flexibility than other programs in assembling various images. For instance, you can use nested elements to place an image inside a circular frame and then put that circular frame inside a rectangular frame. The top rectangular frame crops the circular frame while the circular frame crops the placed image. We’ll show you how.
Create a nested frame
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Use the Selection tool to select the element to be nested inside the frame. A nested element can be a graphic or text frame.
Before nesting, the circular frame with the placed image is a separate object.
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Cut or copy the element to the clipboard.
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Select the frame that is to hold the nested element.
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Choose Edit > Paste Into. This pastes the element inside the frame.
After nesting, the circular frame is the content inside the rectangular frame.
Frames can hold multiple levels of nested frames. So you can have a frame within a frame within a frame, and so on.
Position elements in the frame
Once you have created nested elements, you can use the Direct Selection tool to select and move the items within the nest.
For instance, in the previous example, you might want to move the placed image and the circular frame without moving the rectangular frame that holds those elements.
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Use the Direct Selection tool to select the nested element. If the item contains a placed image the image is selected and the hand cursor displayed.
The first click with the Direct Selection tool selects the placed image inside a nest.
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Hold the Opt/Alt + Shift keys. This changes the Direct Selection tool to the Group Selection tool.
Note: The plus (+) sign next to the white arrow indicates the Group Selection tool is active.
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Click with the Group Selection tool to select both the placed image and the frame.
The next click with the Group Selection tool selects both the frame and the placed image.
If you have many levels of nested elements, click with the Group Selection tool as many times as is necessary to select up through the nest levels.
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Switch to the Selection tool when you have selected all the nested elements you want to move.
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Drag the centerpoint of the selected nested elements. This allows you to move the selected nested elements together.
Use the Selection tool to drag the center-point of the selected frame to move the selected items of the nested elements.
