Turn Off Auto Pagination for InDesign Books
I love using a Book palette (File > New > Book) to keep track of multiple InDesign documents — even if those documents are not really chapters in a book. For example, let’s say you’re making five ads for the same client, but each one is a different size. Simply make five InDesign documents and add them all to a book palette. (Don’t forget you can drag and drop InDesign documents from the desktop into the palette while InDesign is the frontmost application.)
Unfortunately, when you add documents to the book palette, InDesign assumes they are chapters in a book and immediately starts to update each file’s page numbering. The good news is that you can stop InDesign from wasting its time and energy: Before you start adding documents, select Book Page Numbering Options from the book palette’s flyout menu. Then turn off the Automatic Repagination checkbox. Ahhh… much better!
Suppose at some point I want to merge my “chapters” or related documents into one long .indd document. Does the Book palette provide a way to do this? All I see is an Export to PDF option.
Hi Matthew, good question. But as far as I know the answer is “no.” Nor, for that matter, does the palette let you split a document into chapters. It has lots of features that have little to do with books, actually, as David mentions. But book features do appear inside it of course, and when docs are included in a book, the Book options become enabled in the TOC and Index dialog boxes elsewhere in ID.
When automatic page numbering is turned on, is there a way to have it skip a “blank” page?
I don’t think there’s any way for the page number to skip a blank page (such as 1, 2, then skip a page, 3, 4). You can, of course, simply not put an automatic page number on that blank page, but then you’d get 1, 2, 4, 5.
Just as a persnickity FYI, you can leave the back of a page blank, but always count it. I a document is mixed front and back/front only printing, the backs always get counted…you just never put numbers on them. If you are printing one as front only, just number straight on through.
This is one of those odd little rules that I have been known to rave and stomp to enforce. Yes, I do have my quirks (but never quarks if I can help it!).
Question: I use page numbers which are formatted in my documents this way [Page 1 of 15] (15 depends on how many actual pages are in the document), how do I have ID2 automatically update the total number of pages once the document is complete (total number of pages is now 18)?
Unfortunately, InDesign CS2 has no way to make “1 of 15″ type page numbers. But if you’re using a single document, this is pretty easy to update, no? Just put the total number of pages on a master page and then whenever the total number changes, you can change it there (just one place).
Of course, trying to do this across a whole book would be much more tiresome. Are you working with a book palette full of docs?
Thanks for the response! Yes, working with many documents in a book is one of the problems. I also create many single doucments with many sets of master pages. I was hoping there would be a script that someone knew about that could count the total number of pages in a document, once finished.
There was a discussion that resurfaced on this on the Adobe U2U forum a few days back. It includes a script for a single document. See: http://adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@@.3bc1f61f
I was thinking about how this might be extended to a book, but I wonder about such things as front and back matter. And that caused me to wonder if I’d ever seen such numbering in a book. I don’t think I have (although, if you make a PDF of a book, Acrobat Reader will show you precisely this kind of page numbering).
Extending the script to work with the absolute number of pages in a book wouldn’t be that hard, but if you start getting fussy about front matter (as Brenda did in that topic), the complexity of the script would increase. Some kind of interface would be needed to tell the script what to do about front and back matter.
Is there a way to number paragraphs on the left side for college literature selections? The numbers need to be anchored to the specific paragraph, because constant editorial changes can cause that text to frequently shift in the document.
Pat, InDesign CS2 has an auto paragraph numbering feature. Will that work?
I am new to InDesign. I have cut and added pages in the book feature. Now, when I select “repaginate”, some spreads have duplicate page numbers. At the same time, some page numbers are not listed.
I am working on a long document and I have labeled the first part of it using roman numerals. I added some pages, but when i went back to change the page numbering under section and page numbering options - I can’t select that option and I cannot select it under the page pallete. Any ideas?
I am not sure if his is possible. How would I go about have headings similar to my Word files.
example.
1. Scope
Paragraph of text
1.1 Introduction
Paragraph of text
1.1.1 Introduction
etc
2. PREPARATION
2.1 etc..etc..
Mark: My guess is that you have Section starts in your document. The Book feature’s autopagination relies on you not adding your own Section & Numbering starts. You can see a section start in the Pages palette by looking for a black triangle above a page. (You can’t get rid of the first page’s triangle, but you can set it to auto-paginate instead of “start at page…”)
Andre: The only thing I can think of is that you need to select the page in the Pages palette before choosing Numbering and Secction Options. It should be available.
Cathy: Autonumbering like this is possible in CS3. You would have to set up three different paragraph styles, each with its own numbering level.
Could somebody please give me the numbering code for outline numbering
1.
1.1
1.1.1
2.
2.1
2.1.1
2.1.2 etc..
In the “paragraph style option” menu under “bullets and numbering” under “numbering”… what is the code in each heading (1, 2, 3, etc) that you should put in there?
I believe Heading 1 is ^#.^t… but what are the others?? HELP
How can I convert CS3 .indb to a CS2 .indb? or can I?
Mok, I don’t think there’s any way to downsave a indb Book file. At least not that I can think of.
What does it mean when it says:
“Document has been modified outside of book.” and puts the little hazard signs up in the book pallet? Because I open all my docs through the pallet and save and close them before I save the book pallet. Usually repaginate clears those hazards away but this time I got a message about missing fonts when I don’t appear to have any fonts missing?? And I don’t use any font manager that activates or deactivates fonts.
Does anyone know how to make the book pallette go back to where I put it when I close and reopen the programme? All the other pallettes stay put, but not this one. I’ve even tried saving and reloading a workspace to no avail.
(CS3 on 10.5, if that matters)
Benj, the book palette looks like a palette, but it’s actually a file (just like a normal document). You cannot save those, just as you can’t save which documents were open. I hope this changes in the future, as I agree it’d be helpful.
Hi, I’m having problems with my page numbers, too.
I have the document set up with page numbers on the footer, they show on master pages and on the screen. When I pdf the document to print they disappear. Do you know how I can fix this?
By the way, I’m using In Design CS2.
Is there away for me to do pagination with classifieds, and make them flow
Tiffany, I’m not sure what you’re asking for. You probably already know how to flow text in InDesign. Do you want something more? There are plug-ins available for making classified ads in InDesign, but I would have to track them down.
I am working on a long catalog document that consists of more than 80 individual pages. The individual documents were not set up as facing pages.
Now that the individual documents are compiled and I am applying page numbers, I need the page numbers to alternate from one side of the page to the other (front of page vs. back).
Because we will add new documents to the catalog periodically, the page number placement may need to change along the way.
Currently, I have used the ‘current page number’ option and the built-in Table of Contents feature.
What are my options in solving this dilema–short of creating a new catalog and having to copy/paste/and re-format the entire catalog all over again?