🚀 go-pugleaf

I might not be understanding the problem, but around the edges ... if you use the reference-page mechanism for adding a line before, you can (re)define one of the lines so it becomes just a space: I've deleted the actual line in TableFootnote, for example.

Then you can apply a style with this "not-line" to the text in the box, and you have consistent clearance between text and box-border.

HTH

Hi Grundtvig,
I do not think You got me right. Perhaps I was too vague.
See the example of the problem at <http://www.marekhajduczenia.info/Images/Frame%20-%20Text%20alignment%20problem.jpg>. As You can see, there is an external box, an internal text box and a text which is supposed to be centered vertically and horizontally. Currently, it is centered only horizontally. I have no idea how to center it vertically (if there is such a possibility).
Doing that with spaces is crude and ineffective. So is moving the text box every time when a new line of text is added (I have to add changes to the blocks of text quite frequently).
Now is the problem much more clear right now ?
Any comments are welcome.
Marek

Reference page space would work great for vertically centering if your
text box was always the same size and there was always one line of text.

But if the text box varies in depth and there may be a different number
of lines of text, the only way I know to automatically vertically center 
is to put the text inside a one-cell table. Spacing in a one-cell table 
is very controllable: cell margins via the table style and the paragraph 
style, and vertical centering via the paragraph style. You can even 
build the rule into the table style. Converting a single short paragraph 
of text into boxed text as an anchored table is as easy as highlighting 
the paragraph and choosing Table > Convert to Table and choosing a table 
style. FM even remembers which table style you chose, so you don't have 
to specify the table style after the first time.

Why is it you can't use a table? I've done books with hundreds of short 
boxed items, some anchored in text (each one as a table) and some locked 
to the page (each one as a table in a text box in a graphic frame).

-- 
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

Marek:

For what it's worth, I'd second Ken's idea (post #3).

FrameMaker text frames aren't all that "smart" and so you'd probably spend a fair amount of time getting one instance to work right, only to have it break for a second instance.

FrameMaker tables are a bit smarter, and so you'd probably have better luck creating a heading-less single-cell table, then using the table dialog box to control how text appears in that cell, as well as specify borders, etc.

This is how I've done it in the past, most recently for a "self positioning" title on a book's cover page...

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley

Thank You Ken and Riley,
I will see whether the proposed solution does not blow the file size into cosmos. I have very long files with plenty of figures (I know Frame is not the best tool for that) so every step I take cannot result in a file size bloat.
Your time and comments are deeply appreciated.
Thank You
Marek

Marek,

If you are saying that your "long files with plenty of figures" are in
fact very big files, then you may be setting yourself up for potential
problems down the road. 

If you've imported your graphics by copy (or pasted), then this will
certainly bloat your FM file needlessly. It's best to import by
reference. FM has been known to spontaneously lose graphics imported
by copy giving you a gray box where the graphic should be. This can
happen for a multitude of reasons, including low disk space, network
access, operating system updates breaking OLE, etc.

Thank You Arnis for the comment - I use Frame tools to draw the figures. In the past, I would paste figures but after the first series ended with 300 MB files, which were useless ... Now I either link external files or redraw if I have to (poor quality of the original).
Regards
Marek

I have long files too. The last book I did was over a thousand pages. 
I've had chapters that were more than 500 pages long. I never understood 
the notion that Frame is not the best tool for long files. It's great 
for long documents, even when you put everything in one long .fm file. 
And I've never worried about file bloat (except, of course, to avoid 
using embedded graphics).

-- 
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com