Boxes and Lines in Complex Layout

One of the more challenging tasks in multi-story layout is the handling of the horizontal rules, ornamental lines and commentary headings in InDesign. In the above spread on a Haggadah that I’m working on, the commentary at the foot of the spread has an ornamental line above that must remain a fixed amount over the commentary even though the commentary box height will vary from page to page.

Readers using current versions of InDesign have paragraph borders and shading available. Those features were more limited when I recorded this tutorial in 2017; the anchored ornamental-rule technique below remains a useful alternative for this particular layout.

I have solved this problem partially by anchoring the rule to the top of the box. Although it can be fiddly, it’s worth the effort.

In the video below I demonstrate how to achieve this in InDesign as well as quickly showing another favourite typesetting trick of mine of how to create a background rule for a title. Incidentally, this exact same trick can be used to create a live border around a single-line paragraph. I will let you work it out.

If you have any questions about the above video, please feel free to ask in the comments below.

If you have a manuscript that needs typesetting with multiple stories (or a book with very simple layout) then please drop us a line.