2 Separate Columns of Text

Feature requests, and in-depth discussions of features and the way Mellel works

Moderators: Eyal Redler, redlers, Ori Redler

Post Reply
rrnowell
New to all this
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun May 02, 2010 1:15 am

2 Separate Columns of Text

Post by rrnowell »

I am new to Mellel and a total neophyte. I am trying to create a 2 column document with separate streams of text in each column. An example would be a stream of text in the lefthand column like novel. The righthand column might have a commentary on the lefthand column. This would mean that for purposes of page flow, the would need to be a way to prevent orphans. THere would also need to be a way to tie text on the left to commentary about it in the righthand columnar stream of text. Can Mellel do this? Is there a way with Mellel to create 2 separate columns of text. I do not want the text from the lefthand column to flow on to the righthand column? If Mellel can't do this will it be able to in the future? If so how long before I would see this feature? Is there program that could do this now?
jannuss
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 843
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:35 am
Location: Israel

Re: 2 Separate Columns of Text

Post by jannuss »

rrnowell wrote:Can Mellel do this? Is there a way with Mellel to create 2 separate columns of text. I do not want the text from the lefthand column to flow on to the righthand column? If Mellel can't do this will it be able to in the future? If so how long before I would see this feature? Is there program that could do this now?
Short answer: no

Long answer:
-- use Sections option to create multiple columns on the page, but the left-most column will flow into the next and so on
-- use Tables to create something similar to columns with full control over the relative widths of the columns and the layout with text in column in line with text in another, but the cells in the table will not flow from one page to the next.

Columns of the type you describe is near the top of users' wish list for Mellel 3.0
The Redlers rarely give out information on their upgrade plans, so there's no way of saying when this option will be available.

My experience with other word processors is limited, but I know there are those that offer the types of columns you need.

Janet
tungsten66
Got the styles thing figured out
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 9:05 am

Re: 2 Separate Columns of Text

Post by tungsten66 »

rrnowell wrote:Is there a way with Mellel to create 2 separate columns of text. I do not want the text from the lefthand column to flow on to the righthand column? If Mellel can't do this will it be able to in the future? If so how long before I would see this feature?
As Januss wrote, it unfortunately cannot. Since 2.9 Mellel has been able to organize separate "textflows" in sections, but as columns come lower in the hierarchy of textflow organization than sections a change would require major reprogramming operations and changes in the Mellel document format to avoid incompatibilities. 3.0 might be an occasion to implement such a change, but only if there are enough users who demand that change.
rrnowell wrote: Is there program that could do this now?
A few months ago I asked around on forums and "googled" for such programs. Apart from fully fledged publishing software (which usually has other limitations regarding e.g. wysiwyg editing) I was able to find only too applications which seem to come up to the demand - according to the descriptions on wikipedia, Adobe's homepage and the k-office homepage. One of them is K-Write, a part of a nowadays less popular Linux based office (which may require inserting xml code editing by the user) and the other is FrameMaker by Adobe, which is only available for Windows, costs more than € 1200,- and has a focus on business report publishing, which gives me some doubts about its flexibility and adjustability to the needs of translators or commentary writers.
Perhaps together, we can convince the Redler brothers that this is a market niche or niche market to thrive in.
tungsten
Declan
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 79
Joined: Sun Nov 02, 2008 11:28 am

Re: 2 Separate Columns of Text

Post by Declan »

Well, I would also love to see such a thing.

Declan
nicka
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 677
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:55 pm
Location: Oslo
Contact:

Re: 2 Separate Columns of Text

Post by nicka »

Some years ago RedleX gave some strong hints that they were planning to enhance Mellel to the point that it could be a FrameMaker replacement for some users. I wonder if they have dropped this aim. It would be a shame, because, as tungsten's post highlights, there isn't really any software for creation of long documents like manuals and technical theses on the Mac.

Having said that, have tungten and rnowell considered Pages? It can deal with linked text boxes across pages, which allows what you want, if you set up each page with two long thin text boxes, link from the left-hand one on each page to the left-hand one below, then from the right-hand one on the first page to the right-hand one on the next page etc.

If we could have text boxes with links in Mellel, it would be so close to a replacement for FrameMaker, with superior cross-references and good unicode and OpenType support.

(Edited to fix a mistake in the second paragraph.)
nicka
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 677
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:55 pm
Location: Oslo
Contact:

Re: 2 Separate Columns of Text

Post by nicka »

[Following up on my previous post.]


rnowell wrote:
This would mean that for purposes of page flow, the would need to be a way to prevent orphans.
I think Pages will do this.
There would also need to be a way to tie text on the left to commentary about it in the righthand columnar stream of text.
But not this.
jannuss
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 843
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:35 am
Location: Israel

Re: 2 Separate Columns of Text

Post by jannuss »

nicka wrote:
There would also need to be a way to tie text on the left to commentary about it in the righthand columnar stream of text.
This is also an important requirement for translations

Janet
farcas
Read the guide!
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2014 5:34 pm

Re: 2 Separate Columns of Text

Post by farcas »

I would be thrilled to see this implemented. Does anyone know the status on this? Are there plans to add this feature to future updates? Something that would allow for links between two or three columns (e.g. for translations) would be great. The starting place would be independent columns.

Perhaps some tweaking with tables...? Allowing text to overflow with losing it in a cell is a must. Hope these can be expected in the next release!

Thanks!
Post Reply