InDesign Smart Text Reflow Fails to Deliver Desired Results

As a designer, I've often found myself struggling with InDesign's smart text reflow feature. My goal is to have text automatically flow from one page to another seamlessly, but unfortunately, it doesn't quite work as expected. When trying to achieve this, I still need to manually thread all the text frames in my document, which can be a tedious and time-consuming process.

When I have smart reflow turned off, nothing happens at all. But when I turn it on, the document creates multiple new pages based on whatever master page is currently set as one. This results in a messy layout with unnecessary blank pages.

My expectation was that since all my masters use primary text frames, pasting content into them would automatically flow into existing primary text frames on other pages. However, this isn't the case. Even though I've set up my masters to be facing pages, often they're applied to single pages in the document. For instance, a left page with an 'Object Above' setting could be next to a right page with 'Object Outside' settings.

To illustrate the problem further, let's consider a scenario where I have multiple pages based on different masters. This pattern is repeated throughout all my masters in the document. The text frame on the left page is marked as a primary text frame and threaded to the one on the right. In this setup, I would expect the content to flow seamlessly from one page to another.

Unfortunately, this isn't the case with InDesign's smart text reflow feature. Despite setting up my document to use facing pages with primary text frames, it still doesn't deliver the desired results. The masters I've created are mirrored layouts, with a text frame on the bottom and an empty graphic frame on top of both left and right pages.

For example, one master is named 'Object Above' and has these settings for the left and right pages. When I paste content into this master, it doesn't automatically flow into existing primary text frames on other pages as expected. Instead, I'm forced to manually thread all the text frames in my document, which can be a frustrating and time-consuming process.

In conclusion, InDesign's smart text reflow feature falls short of delivering the desired results. It's essential for designers like myself to find alternative solutions or workarounds to achieve seamless text flow in our documents.

Indesign smart text reflow