Keep it in the text chain

If you're working on a long document then whenever possible, even if it's a little extra work to do in the initial set up stage, try to keep things anchored in the text chain. If you just leave things loose in place and then some new paragraphs are inserted in the front, ALL those loose elements will have to be repositioned manually. Not only is this very inefficient time wise, but its also very frustrating for the person making the amends and having to reposition everything when they know if YOU'D just set it up right it would all have happened automatically.

There are multiple ways to do this of course, depending on what you're trying to achieve. You can anchor pictures and items like lines or graphics in the text, you can use tables creatively (even just a single cell if necessary), you can paste text boxes into the text chain and you can even anchor objects OUTSIDE the text chain in the margins within the text.

For example in the layout below the page on the left has both the photo and the sideways heading in the margin anchored within the text chain (hence the small anchor icons) and the heading with the pink background is done with a paragraph rule. As a result everything will move with the text. Whereas the page on the right has the photos and sideways headings placed manually whilst the pink heading is achieved with a pink line placed behind the text box.

Now see what happens when we insert even just a line of text in the opening paragraph…

On the left page all the elements have just moved with the text. Whereas on the right all the manually placed items will now have to be repositioned, and the same goes for every subsequent page.

So keep it in the chain wherever possible and save yourself and everyone else a lot of heartache later.