Columns in middle of chapter

[Daniel Emory]

--- "Lisa M. Balbes, Ph.D." <lisa at balbes.com> wrote:
> My client wants one section of a particular chapter
> to be in columns, instead of the full page width
text of the rest of the chapter.  This 
> section will extend over several pages, and will
> probably have things added and deleted as we
continue editing the document.  They want the 
> columns to flow like a newspaper - filling both
> columns on one page before moving on to the next.
============================================
There is a viable way to do this in FrameMaker. 

First, your Left and Right master pages must both be
converted from a single-column page layout to a
2-column layout.

Second, to make it work, you must have two sets of
paragraph formats which at differ in a single setting
within the Pagination pane of the Paragraph Designer,
namely:

1. the paragraph formats for the ordinary
single-column content are all set to "Across All
Columns":, 

2. The paragraph formats for the 2-column content are
set to " In Column".

Take note also that you'll need to define 1- and
2-column paragraph formats for graphic and table
anchors if the 2-column text contains graphics or
tables. 

With this setup: 

Each time you switch from a 1-column paragraph style
to a 2- column paragraph style, lines of 2-column text
are produced. Then, switching back to a 1-column
paragraph style will cause the lines of 2-column text
above it to be balanced out within the two columns,
and the text below will resume the 1-column layout 

You can switch back and forth between 1- and 2-column
text multiple times within a single page, thus you can
begin and end the 2-column text anywhere within the
same page, or you can start the 2-column text anywhere
on a beginning page, and end the 2-column text
anywhere on a succeeding page.

This solution works best when:

A. Single-column text appears at the top of a page,
and either fills the page or is followed by 2-column
text which fills the rest of the page, or

B. The 2-column text appears at the top of a page, and
either fills the page, or is followed by 1-column text
which fills the rest of the page.

If, as you state, there are likely to be subsequent
edits which cause both the 1-column text and the
2-column text to shrink or grow in size, you may find
it necessary to manually force page breaks more often
that usual in order to keep the 2-column text
coherent. This, however, should not be much of a
problem if all the 2-column text is in one solid,
multi-page block that is preceded and/or followed by
solid blocks of single-column text. 



Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
<danemory7224 at sbcglobal.net>