InDesign v Quark: Linking

Quark

Quark has two tools for linking: the Link tool and the Unlink tool. You can automatically flow text into a new Project that has automatic text boxes created in it. To manually link, you need to select the Link tool and then click on an text box that has an overset symbol on it, then click on an empty text box to flow that text into it.

To break a text link, select the Unlink tool and click on a text box that is linked. An arrow will appear that indicates the link between the text boxes. Click the tip of the arrow to break the link.

InDesign

InDesign offers three ways to link text: manual, automatic, and semi-automatic. There is no link or unlink tools in InDesign for linking text frames. Every text frame has an In and Out port. When text is overset, the Out port will have a red plus sign in it. Click on the red plus sign and now you will have a loaded cursor. To manually link, click on an empty text frame. To semi-automatically link, hold down Option (Alt) and click on multiple text frames to continue the thread throughout a document. To automatically link, hold down the shift key. Click on a column and new text frames will be created to accomodate the entire story.

Another thing about InDesign is that you don't need to create a text frame to begin flowing text through a document. Once you Place a story and the cursor is loaded, you can then click on a column to flow that text.

Significance

Again, Quark is expecting you to plan ahead and have all of your text boxes in place before you flow text. The advantage in InDesign is that you don't need to have text frames in place to link or use special tools to do it.