About frames

In the Layout view of a document in progress, you see one or more boxes on the page. These nonprinting boxes might contain text, graphics, or nothing. The boxes represent frames—spaces in the layout reserved for specific elements. Each frame is defined to contain either text or a graphic. Non-managed stories in an InDesign document or in an assignment file are dimmed so that they can be identified easily.

Text frames

Control which stories appear where, and how much page area they cover. For linked stories, frames are defined by the InDesign user. If multiple frames are set aside for a story, the frame configuration determines how the story text flows through the layout.

Graphics frames

Can function as borders and background, and can crop or mask graphics. You can work with graphics inside frames in InCopy, and you can see the graphics frames from InDesign layouts when you work with linked documents. You can also work with the frames of inline graphics (embedded in text), but you cannot work with other graphics frames. (See Create an inline graphic.)

Empty frames

Are placeholders. You can distinguish empty text frames from empty graphics frames by their appearance. An empty box represents an empty text frame; a box with an X across it indicates an empty graphics frame. You can add text to an empty text frame only if the frame is associated with the story exported to InCopy from InDesign. You can also import or paste graphics into an empty graphics frame in InCopy.

Empty text frame (left) and empty graphics frame (right)