How to Create an "Object Style" for an Anchored Frame in Adobe FrameMaker

The ability to attach an “object style” to an anchored frame in FrameMaker is a huge time server and productivity booster. I applaud all Adobe engineers who came up with this long-due feature.

To insert an anchored frame into a document, simply click the anchored frame button on the toolbar to display the Anchored Frame panel on the left sidebar:

Now, let’s create an “object style” for our preferred anchored frame.

(1) Select Graphics > Object Properties from the main menu to display the Object Style Designer:

As you can see, we can design a style for a variety of different “objects.” For our limited purposes here, we’ll select “Anchored Frame” from the left navigation sidebar to display the default property, “Anchoring Position“:

(2) Select “At Top of Column” value from the Anchoring Position drop-down menu. When you make that selection, FM11 dynamically displays three new fields: Alignment, Cropped, and Floating. Let’s select Center for alignment, select Cropped and leave Floating unselected.

(3) Enter a name for this object style: “Center AnchorFrame“.

(4) Click Save and Close.

(5)  To apply this object style to an existing anchored frame, select the frame and then display its panel. The new object style will be listed in the Object Style drop-down list:

(6) Select the style you like and click Edit Frame. The object style you’ve created earlier will be applied automatically to the selected anchored frame.