Connected Text Frames in InDesign Page Master

Question

New to InDesign and working on book that is mostly text. Trying to design master page with two empty text frames with different character and paragraph properties that are somehow connected/related so that when master is applied to a page and content is put in

1. the upper 'quotes' frame resizes to fit text keeping its upper margin anchored in place - i.e. only bottom edge of frame moves
2. the lower "body" frame keeps its lower margin and expands/shrinks vertically based on changes in the "quotes" frame. NOTE: text in this frame needs to be able to flow to subsequent pages.

Answer 1

On both frames, you will use the Text Frame Options dialog (Object > Text Frame Options... and its Auto-Size tab.

For the quotes frame, set Auto-Sizing to Height Only and choose the top center anchor in the proxy. This will cause the frame to auto-size only in a downward direction.

For the body frame, do the same but choose the bottom anchor in the proxy, which will make the frame auto-size only upward.

In both cases, set an appropriate minimum height.

To make the text flow to subsequent pages, you have two options: either enter a page break manually (Ctl/Cmd-Numeric_Pad_Enter), or simply leave that frame at a fixed size that is the maximum you need (since text automatically fills the frame top-down).

If neither solution works for you, say if you have a colored background in your body frame that must fit the text, get Typefi's awesome (and free) Autofit plug-in, which allows you to set a maximum size for the growing frame.