Txer Frames change

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marco500

Hello,

how can I change multiple text frames at once.
So text size, orientation, etc.

Marco

owencook

I am not sure what you want to do, but for text, you can use "Paragraph" or "Character" styles which will be applied to all text fromes.

There is no way of changing in bulk, the shape, orientation, color etc of text frames.

Nermander

If it not possible to select multiple frames (shift-click or ctrl-click?) and then use the properties palette to change them?

But I agree that using styles is a better solution.

GarryP

I agree with using Styles as per the previous replies; they can take a bit of time to get used to but are well worth the little effort required.

One styles tip which has worked for me, if you're using styles a lot, is to set the "Default Paragraph Style" to a font/size/colour you rarely use in your work. That way you have a visual reminder that you haven't set the styles properly in frames which are in this unusual font/size/colour. Essentially you can see at a glance that something is wrong.

This is especially useful if your default is visually close to what you really want to use. For instance, if your default is "Arial/12pt/Fixed Line Spacing" and your style is the same but using "Align to Baseline Grid" instead, you might not notice when a frame changes back to the default style until, of course, it's been expensively printed! I've mostly noticed this using "Get Text..." to replace text already in a frame. "Get Text..." doesn't just replace the text but also reverts the text back to the default style (although this might be overridden by a setting I haven't found yet).

GarryP

Also, I've found a way of changing the colours of the frames themselves (not the text inside) en masse if anyone's interested.

Normally you can't change multiple frames - text or image - when you shift-click; the properties palette "greys out" and all you can change is the line settings. But you can change the background and line colour by using what might be a bug but I'd like to think of it as a feature.

Here's how:
1. Select the first frame.
2. Go to the "Properties" palette and select the "Colors" tab; you must do this before selecting other frames.
3. Shift-click the other frames you want to change.
4. You can now use the "Colors" tab of the "Properties" palette to change the colours of all the frames at the same time.

Alternatively, if you want to make similar changes and you've got a whole load of text frames to change at the same time you could try this:

Assuming that you leave text frames with their default names (Text1, Text2, etc.).

1. Select the first text frame.
2. Go to the "Properties" palette and select the "Colors" tab.
3. Select menu "Windows -> Outline" to open the "Outline" palette.
4. Type "text" in the filter; only items with "text" in their name will be shown.
5. Select the other text frames in the Outline palette; i.e. click on the document name and shift-click the last entry to get them all.
6. You can now use the "Colors" tab of the "Properties" palette to change the colours of all the frames at the same time.

Note: This "trick" doesn't work if you use "Edit -> Advanced Select...".

I hope this is of some help to someone out there.

Garry.