Containment

To understand the behavior of documents and frames, you must first understand the concept of containment.

The three types of containment are--enclosure, embedding, and absorption:

Enclosure takes place when one document is contained inside another but still exists as a completely separate object. Typically, a document encloses other documents as a way of organizing them. (A folder encloses documents for this purpose.) Each enclosed document retains its own characteristics such as storage, pagination, and properties.
Embedding takes place when one object is incorporated into another but is still identifiable as a separate object. The unique behavior of the object, such as editing and presentation, remains available in its own context. For example, if a graphics frame is embedded in a text document, the tools for editing the graphic become available when the graphics frame is activated.
Absorption takes place when one object is completely incorporated into another such that it is no longer identifiable as a separate object. For example, absorption occurs when a text string is pasted into a paragraph.

NOTE

Enclosure is not supported in the current release; a document cannot be enclosed in another document.

No matter what type of containment relationship exists between two objects, the containing object always has the ultimate control over the objects it contains-- for example, their size, shape, and orientation.

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