organization of a document

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sherpavert

Hi,
I'm writing a newsletter, basically A4, 2 columns, and I get lost qith the better way to structure the document.
The "base article" is text, with a title and text, quite simple !
All articles are separated by an image, the last article ends with the image.
Articles are grouped by section: each section begins with a "Title image", followed by articles of the section.
In a section, the background of all articles are with a specific color.
What could be the best strucuration of my document ?
I would like to customize a "Section frame", with the image for title, background color, and "Article frames" (text + image at the end, inheriting of the backgroup color of the containing "section frame", but it doesn't seem to be possible ?
Any help would be welcome ! Thank you very much

GarryP

One very simple way to do this, if I understand your needs correctly, would be to:
* draw a rectangular shape - this is your "section frame" - and colour it,
* then draw an image frame at the top and individual article frames underneath - as you would normally want them set-up - within the coloured shape (a text frame, by default, has no background colour and therefore it will "inherit" the colour of whatever is beneath it),
* then select everything within the coloured shape - including itself - and right-click and "Send to Scrapbook" (give it a good name),
* then do the same for the version where the image is at the bottom.

You can then open the Scrapbook palette and drag these "sections" to where you need them, customising colours etc. as necessary. Essentially you set-up some "skeleton" sections and then "put the meat on them" as you need to.

You might find that you need to make several different versions for different situations but once you've got them as you need them it's just drag and drop from then on with a little tweaking.

It's not a great solution but it gets the job done, unless I've misunderstood your requirements.

P.S. I'd also advise using guides to create your columns (menu "Page" -> "Manage Guides..."). Then you can snap to the guides which is easier than manual placement.