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Semi-automatic text flow is preferable when you have a non-contiguous flow of
text. For example in a more magazine or a newspaper style of layout, where you
want to control exactly where the text goes. I am working with the file called
semi_auto.indd and this is in the Placing and Flowing Text folder in the
Exercises File folder and what I have here is a three page layout of dummy text
and if we just take a quick look at what we have going on, there are pages two
and three and I have this gray box just as a picture placeholder.
Now what I want to do is I want to place another text file in this document,
which is a supporting or a side by article and I want that text flow to begin
here where I have drawn this guide and then continue on page two and then on
page three, in the outside columns. Now because I need to be more targeted
about exactly where my text goes, Auto- Flow is not going to work for me here. I
am going to place my text file in the same way that's Command+D or Ctrl+D and I
am going to use as before the file that is called text.rtf in the Text folder,
in the Exercises File folder and I will click Open.
There is my loaded type cursor. Now let me just show you what would happen if I
Auto-Flow this. So I am going to Auto- Flow and it is going to create quite a
mess because you will see that the Auto -Flow knows no discretion, it is just
going to trample over all of the text that's already there, creating rather a
challenge for our readers. So I am going to undo that. Returns of my
first page and now for Auto-Flow we hold down the Alt key or the Option key and
it's very much like Manual text flow except that rather than us having to
click in the red plus symbol, it will load the cursor for us. So let's us save this
as a step, there we go. So Semi-Automatic flow, hold down Option or the
Alt key.