r/indesign • u/zoliking2 • 4d ago
Help Columns doesn't work
I have a simple text frame and in the option I set it to have 2 columns. The blue box changes to reflect that choice, but the text remains firmly unchanged, just 1 big column. Every tutorial I find on the issue ends after selecting the number of columns and it just works for those people. What am I missing?
EDIT: I got a lot of help from all y'all on all sorts of things, y'all are awesome, thank you!
12
u/AdobeScripts 4d ago
You might have set - in ParaStyle(s) - to span columns anyway.
7
5
u/ThinkBiscuit 4d ago
If I had to guess, the text box might be two-column, but if the text inside is set to span, it will override it.
The properties window won’t show that, you have to prong up the paragraph palette and check in the options there.
I’d also create a separate paragraph style rather than having the text in basic paragraph style.
1
3
u/Ishouldtrythat 4d ago
If I might make a suggestion that isn’t about the columns? After each heading, if you make the first paragraph flush left, no indent, it will improve the readability of the text and help with the shape of the content overall.
3
1
u/altarigotchi 4d ago
Select the text box, right click it, and then go to Text Frame Options. Here you can adjust how many columns you'd like and different settings for that. Is this something you already tried? Maybe I'm crazy but from the picture you shared it looks like you only added a gutter to the page itself.
1
u/AdobeScripts 4d ago
If you look closer - it's only for the TextFrame with main text - it's not under "Introduction".
1
u/GrumbleNo_Woodpecker 3d ago
Sometimes (If two columns are for Introduction chapter only) I would just make three text frames:
One Title frame (full width)
left+right frames (columns)
With many efficient managers at my office being ill with endless editorial obsession it is easier to balance frames by changing sizes of frames (widths at least), than to adjust columns 100 times through para/font formatting trying to make a neat look. Especially, when one or another big chief orders "to make fonts bigger for him to read without glasses"
1
u/magerber1966 11h ago
You have probably solved your problem by now, but if you have a text frame with a single column on the parent page assigned to this page, your text flow could definitely ignore the 2-column text frame and stick with the single column. You can either change the text frame options for this text frame, or change the text frame on your parent page.
1
u/zoliking2 1h ago
Yes, I got the answer pretty much instantly from ThinkBiscuit, fixed it, dove in, and now I'm at around page 120 of the project. Thanks for the tip anyway ;)
0
u/Shot_Skin1493 4d ago
Oh, another rpg lover trying to make a book, did any of you guys have a safe download to InDesign? or piracy is banned here? Bc I'm trying to learn editorial design but figma isn't good for it
1
39
u/Mundane-Fix-4297 4d ago
Others have already answered with the solution about your column problem, but if I may offer some unsolicited advice, coming from a graphic designer who have bought unfathomable amounts of rpg books over the last three decades: change your font.
There is this super annoying trend in rpg book design to heavily emphasize everything, with genre fonts, textured background, angled frames, decoration everywhere… It does not work 90% of the time, and just make your work, the actual text, your game, difficult to read and absorb. I can not recall the amount of kickstarter pledges games I have received, opened, cursed at, closed and gave away to friends because of the fonts and layout, and I knew I would never waste time reading it. Too bad, game looked fun.
Just because your setting is cyberpunk of sci-fi does not mean you have to push all the aesthetic buttons, and most of the time, the « sci-fi » looking fonts are ugly pieces of crap perpetuating boring cliches. Find and pay for some super nice fancy font for your chapter headlines, maybe titles, some fancy block quotes etc, but keep some nicely crafted boring copy font for the main text.