Two INDEPENDENT columns

Dan

The requirement is usually that the left margin directions flow with the script in the right margin. This will not happen in Pages.

InDesign, and I think Word as well, allows anchoring of text or image boxes inline with text but outside the margins.

There are specialty apps for scripts.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7661/final-draft (US$299)

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/21972/montage (US$105)

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23703/storyist (US$59)

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12806/copywrite (US$25)

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19246/celtx (Free)

Peter

Open a blank page layout document. Then drag out a text box from the top of the page to the bottom the width you want that column to be. Then drag out a second text box for the second column. Page layout acts differently than a word processor. You'll have to manually add new pages, they won't automatically flow as you add text. Once you've created your template page with the two columns, select Advanced from the Format menu and select *Capture Page*. Now when you need a new page you can select *New Page* from the Insert menu. The manual & help describes more about text boxes and how to make text flow between them so be sure to check them out.

Pages can read and write Word documents as a concession to the real world monopoly of Microsoft but that doesn't mean Pages is a Word work-a-like program. Think along the lines of a US or UK citizen talking to an Indian tech support worker trying to troubleshoot our computer. Yes, sometimes the conversation flows and all is well, other times we come to a complete and confusing halt.

The method I described will work perfectly and, by the way, as Peter said, one of the columns must flow from page to page - the blue widget near the bottom of a text block is the key to making this happen. But it a Pages solution only. Pages and Word get along with word processing documents that are at most lightly formatted. The solution for your task is a Page Layout document which Word handles differently from Pages. This being the case, I suggest you give serious thought to using Word rather than Pages.

I think your document will export more reliably to Word if you use columns rather than linked text boxes. What you need to add to the two-column layout is a *column break* before the material that is intended for the second column. That way you can add material of different length independently to each column.

Dan,

Once you start using multiple text boxes and try exporting to Word you are almost certainly not going to get the text in the same order.

If you must work in Pages there are several ways you can fudge this but it will involve manually adjusting each layout.

1. Create a 2 column layout. Try to work in page chunks with both leading (line spacing) and space between paragraphs all being equal. Then simply use returns to align directions in the left column with the script in the right.

2. Create 2 column text blocks for each combination of directions and script. The directions being in the left column and the script in the right. Stretch the pair of columns down as deep as you need for the maximum amount of text (probably the script). Insert a column break at the end of the directions to jump to the right hand column for the script.

Then create a new 2 column text box for the next combination of directions and script. Link the text boxes if necessary to make this all one piece of flowing text. A word of warning whilst this will make one string of text, the directions will interleave the script.

3. Make a text box as an inline "drop cap" at the beginning of each script where there needs to be an instruction. See if you can adequately baseline shift this down to align, which may be hard if there are a lot of directions. The script then is formatted as a hanging indent with the hang as deep as needed to accomodate the large "drop cap" text box.

4. Run all the directions as floating text boxes and manually line them up with the script. Keep adjusting as things move around. Gets tedious the longer the document becomes.

If I think hard enough I might be able to come up with something else.

Peter

Why not use a table with two columns ?

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE vendredi 15 mai 2009 10:40:23)

Might work but still there's the collaboration issue and multi-page tables between Word and Pages still have issues. Single-page tables would just be a pain and impractical.

What if the table is a huge Numbers one ?

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE vendredi 15 mai 2009 12:18:05)

Now that's thinking outside the box 🙂 I don't know.

Yvan,

You have relatively poor layout control in tables, not a path I would go.

But it is another option, similar to the 2 column text box for each section I referred to above.

Peter