Long stories with primary text frames in Layout

Primary text frames and smart text reflow are what make Layout by Zaweba comfortable for long, text heavy documents such as novels, reports and manuals. Together they mean you set up the page once, pour the text in, and the document grows or shrinks to fit it.

The primary text frame

A primary text frame sits on a parent page and carries the document's main story onto every page that uses that parent. Each page based on the parent has the frame in the same place, threaded to the next, so the story runs from page to page without you drawing and linking frames.

For a book, that's most of the setup. Design the text area on the parent with its margins and columns, make it the primary text frame, and every body page inherits it.

Smart text reflow

Smart text reflow is in the Layout menu. As the story grows, it adds pages. As it shrinks, it removes only the pages it added. The second half is important. Pages you added yourself, perhaps for a picture or a part opener, aren't removed when the text gets shorter. Only the pages reflow created for the overflow come and go.

So an author can send a revised chapter that's two pages longer, and the extra pages appear. Cut a section and the extra pages go, without taking your hand placed pages with them.

Setting up a long document

Start by getting the parent page right. Margins, columns and the primary text frame belong there. Add separate parent pages for anything that looks different, such as chapter openers.

Then place or paste the main story into the first page's frame. With smart text reflow on, pages are added until all the text fits.

Paragraph styles do the rest. A long document should be styled with styles rather than local formatting, so a change to the body text style updates every page at once, and reflow adjusts the page count to match.

Reflow mistakes in long documents

Expecting reflow to remove pages you added by hand is a common surprise. It only removes its own pages, by design.

Overriding the primary text frame on individual pages and then changing the parent can leave those pages behind. Keep overrides to the pages that need them.

Forgetting to check the end of the story is another. Live preflight in Layout by Zaweba points out overset text, so if a story ever runs out of room, the warning tells you.

Putting pictures in the main story without thinking about their size can push text around in big jumps. Anchored objects and text wrap help keep pictures and text behaving together.

Where this fits in the app

Primary text frames work with threading, paragraph styles, numbering sections and books. A novel might be one document per chapter, each with a primary text frame and reflow, joined into a book with running page numbers. A manual might be a single document with sections for each part.

The result is a workflow where text drives the layout and the pages follow, which is what long document work in Layout by Zaweba should feel like.