flowing text to alternate pages

[DJungk]

Hi,
I'm preparing an unusual book. (using textmaker 2021 for linux) It is bilingual, so the spanish text has to flow on the left, from p2, p4, p6 etc while the English story flows down the right hand pages p3, p5, p7 etc.

I thought of putting them in separate docs leaving one side blank. I tried putting a large empty text frame on the right hand master page to block the text from flowing there, but the text flows over it.

I tried blocking text on one side by increasing the size of the header and footer, but it still puts one line of text on the right side.

If I could put only one language in a file and number the pages 2, 4, 6 etc, I could then make a pdf of each half and alternate them in a pdf editor, but I can't find a way to put in a calculation using page numbers.

Has anyone done anything like this?

Thank you for your time,

Don Jungk

[martin-k]

Linked text frames: https://help.softmaker.com/textmaker202 ... rames.html

[DJungk]

Hi Thank you for the answer.

I see how linked text frames would work. Manually drawing a text frame on every page of a 300+ page book seems like a bit of a chore. I tried putting the text frame on a master page, but when I do, "link" no longer shows up in the contextual menu. Or is there a way that this would work?

Also, the author may make changes to the size or margins at the last minute. (they do that).

Thank you for your time.

Don

[raitis.veksejs]

The only thing I can think of is the use of a two-column table throughout the document. This way, the link between the two languages will be maintained and no manual work will be needed compared to the linked frames.