What Are Those Brackets in the Pages Panel?
Jessica wrote:
I have multiple chapters to a book I am creating linked in the “Catalog” panel. If I open certain chapters, there are brackets/parenthesis around some of the page numbers in the Pages panel. Any explanation for this?
The Pages panel is chock full o’ mysteries, not the least of which is how it displays page numbers and such. I don’t recall ever seeing parentheses around the page numbers, but I have seen square brackets. These brackets indicate that a spread is an “island” that will not shuffle if the other pages before it get moved. An island spread also allows you to add pages to it to make 3- or more-page spreads (see this post for more on that).
Here’s an example:
The second spread (pages 2 and 3) are an island spread. How did they get that way? I selected them and chose Allow Selected Spread to Shuffle from the Pages panel menu. You can turn off this feature the same way.
Note that when I say “I selected them,” I mean that I clicked once on them. This is another one of the mysteries of the Pages panel. Click once on the number under a spread to select the whole spread, click twice on the numbers to select the spread, target the spread, and view the spread. (Same difference when clicking on a page icon, except that it selects vs. targets the page instead of the spread.)
In this case, I am viewing pages 4 and 5. I know that because those page numbers are highlighted (in black). However, pages 2/3 are selected because I clicked once on them and so the icons are highlighted. If I use Edit > Paste right now, the object will be pasted on to page 4 or 5, because that’s what’s targeted. If I choose something from the Pages panel menu (like Allow Selected Spread to Shuffle) or from the Layout menu (such as Margins & Columns), it will affect pages 2 and 3 because that’s what is selected.
Now, Jessica, here’s the part of your question that I don’t understand: The Catalog panel? InDesign doesn’t have a Catalog panel. Perhaps you mean a Book panel. Or perhaps you are using a plug-in that makes a Catalog panel. Not sure. But either way, I hope this explains those wacky brackets!
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Don’t forget the dark mysterious arrowhead (on p.1 above) — you might assume it means “this page is targeted”, but no — it’s a “start of section” marker (I think — but I’ve been wrong about it more often than right).
>it?s a ?start of section? marker (I think ? but I?ve been wrong about it more often than right).
No, you are right! :-)
“a spread is an ?island? that will not shuffle if the other pages before it get moved”
Oh !
this is the first time i understand the “don’t allow pages to shuffle” item in the options. I mean, i understood how it worked : checked, i could set spreads with 3+ pages. But i never got it why “Dont allow something” meant i could do something else ! i always thought it was some kind of subtlety i didn’t get. Now that’s obvious !
Thanks a lot :)
Another mystery of the pages panel is that you can’t do any of the following unless the pages panel is visible:
? insert pages
? delete pages
? override all master page items
The top two are ghosted out in the Layout > Pages menu, and the keyboard shortcut for the third one simply doesn’t work.
I did report this as a bug ages ago but it wasn’t fixed so presumably this is intentional for some reason.
I hope David doesn’t mind…I knew the answer to this one (and the arrow thingy, too) because I am plowing through Real World InDesign CS4. The book is full of info of the “oh, I remember that now,” “that’s sooooo cool,” “I didn’t know that,” and “that is a great new feature!” variety. Any ID user can benefit from this book. And it is great for those of us who are sedentary and need some exercise…it is a massive tome!
I hope David doesn’t mind a further suggestion: I have Real World InDesignCS3, and it too is/was a marvellous book… How about a special “recessionary upgrade price” for those of us who already have RWIDCS3?
Jeremy, I had version 3 also. Amazon is selling the new version for $39.59 (and 13 used and new from $33.86). It really is worth it!
Yes, I’m teetering on the brink of ordering it… But my bank balance is still reeling from the effects of paying the “special European price” for CS4. I was vaguely thinking of something along the lines of those $15 PDFs you can download from O’Reilly. What I have in mind would be a PDF of nothing but the “supplementary material” that was added for CS4. You never know, David, Ole and Peachpit might increase their profit that way!
Regarding the Pages Panel:
If you have auto-collapse panels turned on in the Preferences>Interface then you can’t access the Pages>Insert Pages from the Menu Bar, as the panel collapses so do the options in the menu.
Weird.
@Lee: Hmm. I can insert and delete pages just fine when the Pages panel is closed. And the KBSC for override all works, too. I’m in CS4, though. Perhaps they did get around to fixing it?
@Jeremy: I totally understand the wish for an “upgrade” price for the book. I wish it were in my control to offer that, but it’s something you’ll need to take up with the publisher. There is an electronic PDF version you can buy from peachpit.com, but oddly it’s not that much less expensive. Sigh.
@Jennie: Thank you!
A little tip for the Pages panel … if you’ve got a spread selected or targeted (in other words both page icons of the spread are highlighted) and you only want ONE of the pages selected, Command/Ctrl-click on the the other one.
That deselects the page icon. Shift-clicking won’t do it, even though they’re right next to each other. Only Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) clicking can deselect one page of a selected spread.
Of course you could just double-click the icon of the page you want selected, but that also targets the page, which sometimes you don’t want to do. Command/Ctrl-clicking the page you don’t want works in both circumstances.
Say I have a magazine. The magazine has different masters.
I get to the end of the master for that section and need to add a page. I’m on a verso page, so I go to Insert Page from the fly out menu.
So I’m on Page 54 and I need another master to go in on page 55.
When the dialog box comes up it will always have
Insert Page after 55
and it will always select the next Master that’s in the pages panel to insert.
What I would prefer is that it would insert a page after the page I have targetted and use the same master page that is ther.
Does that make sense? And if it does, what can be done to fix?
Eugene-
If I’m understanding you, try this:
Double-click on the spread of pp. 52-53 to target it.
Then right-click on p.54 and choose Insert Pages…
You should get the master that’s applied to the first section and the option to insert it after p.54.
Is that what you wanted?
I don’t understand what you want, but I’ll bet a very short script could do it really quickly. Then you could set off the script using a keyboard shortcut, so once you’ve set it up it would just be a matter of pressing a single key.
I’ll give it a try tomorrow Mike, thanks for the tip. I haven’t tried that combo yet.
Mike, I’ve been to the future and just got back now!
Here I have an image of the Pages Panel
https://tinyurl.com/d3882w
I have highlight page 2 and go to insert pages. It inserts after Page 2 but wants to put a B Master.
What I’d prefer is that when I insert a page “After” page 2 that it inserts the A Master.
And if I insert a page “Before” page 3 it would put a B master.
I guess my point is, if I’m putting a page after page 2 it’s because I need to expand that section. So why doesn’t it choose the Master page that is selected?
Does anyone else find it frustrating?
How about a simple script that adds a page after the one that’s in the current document window, and makes sure that whichever master page was applied to the current page is also applied to the new page?
That would work Jeremy, but I still think that it should be a future fix. Are am I nit-picking here?
There’s a link to a very modest script where my name is written above left. If it’s genuinely going to save time, set up a keyboard shortcut to run it, so you can add a page with a single keystroke (such as F9).
Yay! Thanks Jeremy that works just the way I want it to now.
One thing though? When I apply a shortcut key to the script InDesign crashes. The scrript works though and the script is what was needed. Thanks
I’m using Shift “+” to add a new page.
Scratch that – I just dumped my Preferences and restarted and it’s working now. It’s great Jeremy, thanks for the cool script.
Thanks, Jeremy. I also wonder if this script would work for your needs. Haven’t tried it in a while.
Thanks David, just reading about the script haven’t tried it yet but :
“…adds a page at the end of the current document, places a text frame on it, and links the new text frame to the one containing your text cursor.”
I would need for it to add a page in the middle of the document, so that inserts a page with the correct master page. Normally when I insert a recto it’s because the text from the verso is too long, so it needs another page. But InDesign automatically chooses the next master page rather than the current. (This only happens when your on the last page in the section and the following page has another master page.)
Jeremy’s script is great it does just that. But I’m intrigued by the script you posted, it seems a “combined” version of these would work better than they do individually.
It would be easy enough to write a combined version of the scripts, but adding a page with a text frame that links forwards and backwards is rather similar to adding a page at the end, and it means you have to think about it.
There is a place for complicated, interactive scripts, but I was trying to make something you wouldn’t have to think about. A modest “gimme another one like this” button, if you like.
Some smarty-pants just let me know that if you hit Ctrl+shift+P, you get a new page just like my now pointless script! So, thanks a bunch!
Note that ‘Allow Document Pages to Shuffle’ setting also comes into play. With the wrong selection of that, the behavior described here will not take effect! So if in doubt, select all your pages and change that setting…