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I have three frames, which are labeled "A", "B" and "C" in the screenshot below. I want all of the following to be equal:

  1. Distance from left edge of page to A
  2. Distance between A and B
  3. Distance between B and C
  4. Distance between C and right edge of page

So far, I have been able to get (2)=(3) using the distribute horizontal space option in the Align panel. But I can't seem to figure out how to get (1)=(2) and (3)=(4).

enter image description here

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  • If it’s just a one-off (not something you need to do a hundred times), why not just add an object on the page edges and include those when you do the distributing? That should do what you want.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Mar 23, 2022 at 18:33
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Nice idea. But I must be doing something wrong, because when I clicked "distribute horizontal spacing" nothing happened. I have included a screenshot to my original post to try to show what happened.
    – Sam Y
    Mar 23, 2022 at 19:53
  • Do you have all five objects selected? It’s kind of hard to tell in the screenshot (actually looks like nothing is selected at all?). I can’t think why it wouldn’t work, but I didn’t test it before commenting…
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Mar 23, 2022 at 19:59
  • @JanusBahsJacquet I'm sorry, you are right. I am new to InDesign. I did not select them. It works now. If you want to write this up as an answer, I will accept it.
    – Sam Y
    Mar 23, 2022 at 20:39

2 Answers 2

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3 equal size frames. Align left to left edge, right to right edge, center to page center... then extend the left and right frames off the page as necessary.

In your second image it looks like there are 3 frames and the boxes are placed images. Or.. there are 6 frames.

Distribute spacing will use all selected objects. If you have one object encompassing another object it throws off the distribution. You need to select objects which can be distributed, or it doesn't work.

enter image description here

InDesign isn't smart enough to know one object is much larger and is intended to enclose another object.

If nothing at all happens, make certain you have objects selected. You should either get the distribution you want, or bad distribution, but something should happen when you click a button. The align buttons only work when something is selected.

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You can use the "Layout → Margins and Columns" feature and you can type in equal amounts in the margin boxes, type in 3 columns with the same amount for gutter value, and InDesign will build this grid for you, with equal margins and column gutters.

Then, you go to the page and simply align 3 text frames to this grid.

Then, some basic math:

(4 × spacing) + (3 × text frame width) = page width

enter image description here

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