Can I get a graphic with that text?
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Table of Contents
By Terry White for Layers Magazine
For many years, we’ve had to put up with inline graphics if we wanted our graphics and text to move around as one. Basically, to create an inline graphic, you placed your graphic onto the page and then cut it. Next, you switched to your Type tool, inserted your cursor in your text where you wanted your graphic to appear, and chose Paste from the Edit menu. What did that get you? One gigantic character (your graphic) that was not easy to position or wrap text around.
Up until now, inline graphics were treated as giant text objects as far as your page layout’s text engine was concerned. The only real benefit was that if your text moved, your graphic moved with it. Anchored objects in Adobe® InDesign® CS2 takes this to a whole new level and we can now do the kinds of graphics and text joining at the hip that we’ve always wanted without the traditional limitations. Let’s take a look…
Inline graphics
1. Create a text frame on an InDesign page
First, we’ll take a look at some enhancements on doing it the traditional way as an inline graphic. In order for this technique to work, you should create a text frame on your page and fill it with either placeholder text (you can use the super cool Fill With Placeholder Text command from the Type menu) or real text that you’ve typed. Your frame should be large enough to accommodate text on both sides of your image, and your paragraph should be long enough to go completely around the graphic.
Create a text frame and fill it with placeholder text.
2. Place a small graphic on the page
Switch to the Rectangle Frame tool (F), click once on the document, and create a frame that’s .75" square. Place (Control+D [Windows] or Command+D [Mac OS]) a photo or logo into it and use either the Fit Content Proportionally or my new favorite command, Fill Frame Proportionally, from the Object > Fitting menu. You can also utilize the various Fitting buttons on the Control palette.
Place a graphic in a new frame.
3. Cut-and-paste the graphic into the text
Select the graphic and its frame with the Selection tool (V) and choose Cut from the Edit menu or press Control+X (Windows) or Command+X (Mac OS). Then, switch to the Type tool (T) and place your cursor in your text where you want the inline graphic to appear, and choose Paste from the Edit menu or Control+V (Windows) or Command+V (Mac OS) from your keyboard.
Paste the image where you’d like the inline graphic to appear.
4. Wrap text around the inline graphic
Switch back to the Selection tool and click on the frame you just pasted inside your text. Bring up the Text Wrap palette from the Window menu and click the Wrap Around Object Shape button. Depending on your text and graphic it may not look exactly the way you want, so we’ll adjust it in the next step.
The Wrap Around Object Shape button is in Text Wrap palette.
5. Mathematically adjust the position of the graphic
Choose Options from the Object > Anchored Object menu. When the dialog appears, you’ll notice that it’s defaulting to Inline and giving you the option to adjust the Y Offset. Make sure the Preview box is enabled and either press the Down Arrow key for the Y Offset value or key in a negative number. This action will move your graphic down into the text to position it so that the text wraps around it. Click OK when you have it where you want it.
Adjust the position in the Anchored Object Options dialog box.
