How to Quickly Create Multiple Frames with InDesign

Recently I received a gardening catalogue via the good old snail mail system. Come to think of it, because I forgot to check the letterbox, a snail did get in there, so it really did almost become snail mail!

Anyway, I was looking at the catalogue to see if there were any plants I didn’t already have in my garden; there were only a few! But one thing that stood out to me was that the design layout on many of the pages showed a box with a picture of a flower or shrub on the left, with a text box containing a description on the right. There were about 5 images and 5 corresponding text boxes on each page.

Where am I going with this? Well, it got me thinking about how to quickly set up multiple frames in an InDesign file.

If you’ve ever worked on a document that needs repetitive layouts like this, with images and text side by side, repeated multiple times on a page, then you know it can be a bit tedious to set up frame after frame manually. Fortunately, Adobe InDesign has a really cool little technique that make this process much faster.

In this article, I’ll show you how to quickly create multiple frames with InDesign so you can save time and focus on the fun part of designing your content!

Choosing the Right Tool

InDesign has two main frame tools:

• Rectangle Frame Tool: Perfect for images and graphics.
• Rectangle Tool: Great for creating text boxes.

Start by selecting the tool that matches your needs. If you’re setting up frames for both images and text, you’ll want to use a combination of these.

How to Create a Grid of Frames

1. From the Tools panel, click on the Rectangle Frame Tool
2. Click and drag on your page to create a single large rectangle, but don’t release the mouse yet!
3. With the mouse button held down:
   Press the Up Arrow key to add horizontal rows.
   Press the Right Arrow key to add vertical columns.

As you do this, you’ll see your frame divided into a grid of equally sized smaller frames.

By the way, if you get all excited and accidently add too many rows or columns, you can reverse it by pressing the Down Arrow or Left Arrow keys!

Once you’re happy with the number of rows and columns, release the mouse button, and InDesign will create a grid of frames based on your input.

Example – Creating Multiple Frames with InDesign

Let’s assume you need to create a grid of 5 rows and 3 columns for a catalogue layout:

• Drag out a single rectangle across your page.
• Press the Up Arrow four times to create five rows.
• Press the Right Arrow two times to create three columns.
• Release the mouse, and you’ll have a clean grid of 15 frames, all evenly spaced and ready for your content.

Conclusion

Using the Rectangle Frame Tool with arrow keys is one of those hidden gems in InDesign that can speed up your workflow and keep your designs consistent. It’s a great feature that you can use with all kinds of design layouts, from product catalogues to magazine style layouts. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll never go back!