Insert text box between existing linked boxes?

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Ged

Im editing an old file and adding several pages in various places.  When it comes to inserting a text box on the new page I cannot seem to be able to break the existing link chain to insert the addition. I keep getting messages such as, "You are trying to link a non-empty frame to frame which is already linked!" Or, "You are trying to link a frame to itself."

Actually Im trying to do neither.  ???  I just want to insert a new one.  'need a few hints please? 
My first 'puter was a 286,
My first dtp was Aldus Pagemaker,
My first printer was a Little Squirt,
My first car was a motorbike.

utnik

hi ged

i don't know what you are doing wrong – and i'm not sure if my guessing about your goal...

if you intend to insert some pages with text frames and let the existing text flow through those frames, you have to unlink the existing text chain first, then you select the last frame before the break and link to all the new frames an finally to the first frame after the break.

utnik

jack_cat

Quote from: Ged on May 18, 2020, 06:30:51 AM
Im editing an old file and adding several pages in various places.  When it comes to inserting a text box on the new page I cannot seem to be able to break the existing link chain to insert the addition. I keep getting messages such as, "You are trying to link a non-empty frame to frame which is already linked!" Or, "You are trying to link a frame to itself."

Actually Im trying to do neither.  ???  I just want to insert a new one.  'need a few hints please?

Well, you have already inserted the new one, which could not possibly generate an error message; in order to get those error messages you have to be trying to link the new box to the old ones. You had ought to explain to us WHY you are trying to do that and what you want to achieve, which you have not done, since you SAY that you are trying to do NEITHER of the things that generates the error message, and yet you ARE TRYING TO DO those things, or you wouldn't get the error message. Therefore, if my answer misses the mark, you will have to explain your objective in linking the new frame to the old ones, and why you want to do this. Why do you want to break the link? (Instructions for this below.)

All the same, I believe I understand the difficulty, and it appears to be that you do not understand the logic of how text frames are linked together in order for the text to flow from one frame to the next. (There are lots of weird things in Scribus so please don't feel bad, and I am happy to try to explain.)

Possibly you set up your original file to be populated with already linked text frames on every page, so that all you had to do was dump the text into the first frame. In that case, you didn't link the frames together yourself, and are not familiar with the two buttons that link or unlink successive text frames so that the text does or does not flow between them. A chain of linked text frames on successive pages looks like this:

Frame One >> Linked to >> Frame Two >> Linked to >> Frame Three etc. 
Frame Two cannot now be also linked to Frame Four, nor can Frame Four be linked to Frame Two, nor can Frame Two be
linked to itself. These all generate errors.

You have found the Link Button and are trying to link your new text box into the old frame chain, but it doesn't work because all of the old frames are already linked together in a continuous chain at the point where you want to work. You have to unlink two of the old ones to get a new one into the chain in between them.

Now, perhaps you have inserted a new page, and a new text frame, but the old linked chain of text frames now goes from the page before your new page to the page after it. You have to break that chain using the Unlink button before you can link the new one into the chain. The chain only works in one direction and with only one link from any one window to the next. The text cannot flow simultaneously into more than one window. 

!!!!!!!!!!!!
Linking into the old chain may cause problems anyway, because your old text is going to flow right into the box. Did you want to put some new content in that box? Then don't link it to the old frames.

It is NOT that you "just want to insert a new one" , but something more, because clearly you are also trying to link the new frame into the already existing chain of links, and having difficulty, and getting error messages. Merely inserting a new text frame does not bring up those error messages.

There are two buttons for this just a little to the right of top center of the main screen. You select the old frame, click the Unlink Button (further to the right) up at the top middle right of the screen, and then click the next frame in the chain of linked text frames. The link will be broken, and all of the text in the boxes after the link will disappear. Don't worry, you haven't lost your text.
Then, you select the last text frame that still has text in it, and click the Link Button, and then click your new text frame. The old text will flow into it. Your new text frame will now be full of the old text, and will have a little red X at the lower right corner. Now select the new frame (if it is not already selected), click the link button, and then click the old frame on the next page that you disconnected before, and now the text will flow on into the rest of the old frames, which are still all linked together.

If this isn't the result you want, then put your new frame where you want it, don't link it, and put some text in it.
Let me know if this helps. Just inserting a text frame on a new page won't get any error message.

jack