May 14 2008 • 1:38 AM

Changing the Size of the Pasteboard

JB wrote:

Is there a way to adjust the size of the pasteboard (horizontally)?

Before I answer that, I have to throw out one keyboard shortcut tip: Did you know that Command-Option-Shift-0 (zero) or Ctrl-Alt-Shift-0 fits the entire pasteboard in the document window? Isn’t that cool? Okay, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s tackle the problem.

First of all, you know you can change the height of the pasteboard (in case that little tiny amount above and below the page isn’t enough) in the Guides & Pasteboard pane of the Preferences dialog box. Just change the Minimum Vertical Offset.

But that’s not what you want; you want to expand the width. There is a clunky way to do this:

  1. Choose File > Document Setup
  2. Change the document width to be larger (like twice as big)
  3. Click OK
  4. Place an object on the far left and far right of the pasteboard (using that shortcut we learned above helps!)
  5. Now change Document Setup back to the original page width.
  6. When you click OK, you’ll notice that the pasteboard width stays expanded. Now you can delete those dummy objects and the larger pasteboard will remain.

There’s a more elegant, way, but it requires buying a plug-in: The Page Control plug-in from dtptools.com lets you adjust the pasteboard size to whatever you want.

Note that for many people, the issue is how to make the pasteboard size smaller, not larger! For example, every now and again, I still hear about people who get really huge pasteboard sizes. Often this is because there is an object hiding way out there somewhere (I don’t know how the object got out there… something went terribly wrong somewhere). Fit the pasteboard in the doc window, then press Command-A/Ctrl-A. If you see an object selected way out there, then delete it or move it. If you don’t, then move to the next spread and try again.

If there are no objects way out there, you can try to reduce the pasteboard size in one of a couple of ways.

  • Try changing the page orientation (landscape to portrait, or vice versa) in File > Document Setup. Click OK and then set it back again.
  • If that doesn’t work, save the file as INX (File > Export, then choose InDesign Interchange format). Then open that INX file. That often gets rid of weirdness like that.

One of those usually works for me. Anyone else have ways that have worked for them?

30 Responses discussing this post. Add yours below.

  1. low Jackson
    May 14th, 2008 • 7:26 am • Link

    hey david, thanks for the shortcut tip – cool indeed!

  2. Eugene Tyson
    May 14th, 2008 • 9:15 am • Link

    Throughly answered, I believe.

    On a side note: Did you ever notice that your paste board gets bigger when you add size to your slug. If I make the slug 100mm (it only goes to 154.1 mm) on the outside margins of my facing pages document, the pasteboard increases in height! I don’t think it gets wider, but it’s a quick way to increase the height of your pasteboard without going to the preferences. Removing the slug also reduces the height of the pasteboard.

    Cool or weird?

  3. JB
    May 14th, 2008 • 1:14 pm • Link

    thank you so much! this will save me a lot of frustration and whining.

  4. May 14th, 2008 • 5:53 pm • Link

    There’s an additional way to change the width of the pasteboard. It’s not as flexible as David’s tip, but it is a bit faster. Create a Master Page with 3 (or more) pages. You don’t actually have to apply this Master Page to any pages in your document.

  5. David Blatner
    May 14th, 2008 • 6:12 pm • Link

    Wow, thank you Michael! I can’t believe I didn’t think of that one. Excellent.

  6. May 14th, 2008 • 6:56 pm • Link

    Great tips from both of you, David and Michael — so thanks!!!

  7. aawargi
    May 18th, 2008 • 12:19 pm • Link

    this ” secret ” it really cool …thanks a lot David.

  8. Shannon
    June 6th, 2008 • 4:26 pm • Link

    I am having a similar problem using InDesign CS on a Mac G-4.

    I have been working in the same InDesign file all week and all of a sudden the pasteboard became very long vertically. I would like to view all the pages in thumbnail size, but the pasteboard is preventing me from doing so. I have tried all the solutions already mentioned and none of these are working for me.
    My InDesign CS version is not allowing me to change the verticle in preferences under guidelines and pasteboards.

    Anyone else encountered this problem?

    Thanking you in advance for a solution.

  9. SA
    June 13th, 2008 • 2:37 am • Link

    I’ve been working with 10 files in InDesign (all part of the same book) on my PC. I was able to change the starting page number of each file without problem, except for a file in the middle. When I changed the starting page number in that one file, the vertical pasteboard became HUGE. When I use the undo command, the old starting page number returns, and the pasteboard also returns to normal. I had no other files open at the time. I also tried quitting InDesign and reopening but same thing. I haven’t tried renumbering using the book feature yet since I’m not at that point with updates.

  10. August 18th, 2008 • 7:47 pm • Link

    Oh my goodness, I’ve tried and tried for ages to enlarge the pasteboard, not reduce it, as I have a lot of bits lying on the side I need for reference etc. The tips I got from here are absolutely awesome!!!! Thanks so much – you absolutely made my day! Yeeha!

  11. Blain Brown
    January 12th, 2009 • 11:14 pm • Link

    Genius. It works.

    A fix I would not have guessed in a hundred years. Thanks.

  12. Joann
    March 3rd, 2009 • 9:07 am • Link

    Thanks! After searching for hours (well, OK, minutes) this is the fix that actually helped!

  13. Nathan
    March 26th, 2009 • 8:53 am • Link

    Brilliantly simple.
    Cheers David/Michael.

  14. April 13th, 2009 • 10:59 am • Link

    I don’t recommend changing the orientation to or from landscape and back because items off page will keep their distance to the edge of the page rather than going back onto the page when you switch back. So headers and page numbers on a 8.5×11″ sheet will be off the sheet afterwards.

  15. Donna
    April 25th, 2009 • 2:15 pm • Link

    When printing the booklet, the front and back of the pages do not match up. They are off by about 3/4 of an inch. I have tried everything to correct this, but haven’t had any success.

  16. David Blatner
    April 26th, 2009 • 5:40 am • Link

    @Donna, I’m not sure what this has to do with the blog post above; you might find more answers on one of the blog posts involving the print booklet feature, like this one. However, in general, when people have problems like that, it’s usually the fault of the printer driver.

  17. Donna
    April 26th, 2009 • 2:06 pm • Link

    David – Thank you. You were right on. I truly appreciate your time in answering.

  18. Cherry
    July 16th, 2009 • 1:34 pm • Link

    Thanks for the pasteboard tip, this is very helpful!

  19. Bill
    September 28th, 2009 • 8:00 pm • Link

    I had exactly the same problem but Ctrl-A didn’t select anything outside the proper page area. It turned out to be a Horizontal Guide that was increasing the size of the pasteboard. In the end I had to save with a temporary name, delete all the pages, flip the document orientation around and back (which fixed the pasteboard), then cut and paste all the objects from the original document onto new pages. Luckily it was only six pages.

  20. ufdesigner
    September 30th, 2009 • 7:45 am • Link

    I inherited someone else’s file and had the same problem, but none of the suggestions worked. I did notice there were bleeds, and one number was missing (inside bleeds). I deleted the bleeds and the pasteboard got smaller vertically — hooray! I then added bleeds to all sides and it worked, the pasteboard stayed the same, with the smaller vertical size. Hope this helps.

  21. October 8th, 2009 • 10:33 am • Link

    If the document is already set up, you can add blank pages to the end of the doc (instead of new Master Pages) and set them as a spread. For example, a 3-page spread makes a wider pasteboard than 2-page spread. When you delete the extra pages the pasteboard will remain wide.

  22. October 20th, 2009 • 5:45 pm • Link

    Thanks for the great tips!
    I had to resort to the INX export option to get rid of the massive pasteboard size a previous designer had introduced.

  23. Billy Jack
    October 28th, 2009 • 10:33 pm • Link

    Just another thanks… great, simple and useful tip.

  24. neil
    November 15th, 2009 • 1:14 am • Link

    Thank you Michael, for the master page trick. That one works great and is also the quickest method.
    I also had a look at the Page Control plugin, but it reminded me of PasteBoardXT from the QuarkXpress days. That damn thing was viral, as you couldn’t open documents without installing the extension. I think Page Control has similar issues.

  25. November 15th, 2009 • 9:22 am • Link

    Page Control literally lets you change the size of each page in a document (so you can have an A4 page next to a business card page). Of course, it’s going to require some kind of “Reader” to open and retain those pages size! There is a free freader at the dtptools.com. But the plug-in is not like PasteboardXT; like most plug-ins, you can ignore the warnings and open the file. But if you keep getting the warning, then do an INX export and open the INX to strip out all weirdness.

  26. December 3rd, 2009 • 3:24 pm • Link

    instead of changing the page orientation i changed it from facing pages & back and it worked! no more over sized pasteboard

  27. Jayne
    January 13th, 2010 • 4:06 pm • Link

    How do I reduce the pasteboard in InDesign CS 4? It all of sudden got very large between spreads. I never had this problem in CS

  28. Jayne
    January 13th, 2010 • 5:08 pm • Link

    I’ve tried these fixes mentioned above but the only one that “works” is the export. However, then I get a new problem. I have shadows around my lines on a flow chart and other effects.

  29. Lora
    February 25th, 2010 • 7:44 am • Link

    I can’t tell you how glad I am to have people like you to post this stuff. It has saved me a lot of time and frustration. Thank You!!

  30. Kevin
    March 1st, 2010 • 9:47 pm • Link

    Struggled with this problem since changing over to CS4. The problem occurred for me when opening up older CS3 documents. Like a previous reply I only found horizontal guides at various distances below the actual image areas. And found the best solution was the INX one. As some master page items were out of place after reverting back to portrait from landscape. THANKS A MILLION !

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