Expert: Roy Wilhelm - 1/1/2009

Question
QUESTION: Is there a way of setting a paragraph style so that it will allow the text to appear in the margins, i.e. outside the text box? In Word I would do this by setting a negative right indent in the paragraph style - or alternatively by putting a tab beyond the end of line. I can't do either of these in InDesign. We used to do this in Quark by drawing a separate text box in the margin just for the headings, but I am trying to avoid littering the page with objects, I want to keep everything in one text flow as far as possible.
Thanks in advance.

ANSWER: Karen,

I know of no way to do this.

What is the nature of text that will go in the margins? Headings, folios, notes?

Perhaps I can think of an alternative solution...

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: [My apologies for the late follow-up, life intervened.]

The text in the margins is headings. We have a wide outside margin and our old style was to have the whole heading in the margin, level with the first line of the text. I'd like it now to be the line above the text that follows it, but aligned outside the margins of the text box as follows:

Heading heading heading heading
         Text text text text text
         text text text text text

Or, for a recto page:

      Heading heading heading heading
Text text text text text
text text text text text

Thanks again for your consideration.

Regards,

Karen

Answer
Create one paragraph style for your headings and one for your text. In the text paragraph style, set your Left Indent, and First Line Indent to their desired position. The result should look like your example. On the recto pages, you'll need to make copies of the paragraph styles and change the alignment to align right.

I hope this helps.

(you could also set your alignment relative to the gutter (or spine). It would alleviate having to create a second paragraph style for recto pages. with the alignment relative to the spine, the text would adjust automatically depending on whether it was set verso or recto.)