Columns

[Milly]

I am using Flare to create a pdf. I want there to be two columns on the page (in my template). The right column is much bigger and is for the bulk of my text. The left column is smaller. I don't want the bulk of the text to auto populate this. I want to be able to add notes here, as and when appropriate.


What i'm finding is that I can create a template that looks how I want, but when applied is auto populated in both columns with my text. Or the right hand column is populated with text, but I am them not allowed to add text to the left column.

Any help will be much appreciated.

[Nita Beck]

You're not going to be able to achieve what you're after by having a two-column body frame on a page in a page layout. Think of a two-column body frame as columns in a newspaper. The text will flow down the left column until that column is full and then will continue from the top of the right column until that column is full (in which case it will break to a new page).

What you're after is sometimes called "margin notes" or "scholar's notes." You'd achieve that with a combination of a single-column body frame and some "fancy" CSS that will have most content falling within the same area but some of the content "floating" (I hesitate to use that term because I'm not talking about the CSS float attribute, then again, maybe I am... it's been awhile) to its left or to its right, depending on your design.

It's been years now, but I once did achieve margin notes in a Flare project; took a lot of effort. I think I eventually simplified my designs and used bordered boxes that simply follow the content they were referencing, instead of stuff hanging left or right.

Someone here on the forums offered a possible solution awhile back: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=30440

HTH, despite this being the barest of replies...