Working with Multipage Documents | Adobe InDesign CS3 Bible

If you intend to create a multipage document, you should check the Facing Pages box in the New Document dialog box (File ‚ New, or z +N or Ctrl+N) when you create the document. You'll also want to display the Pages pane (Window ‚ Pages or F12), shown in Figure 5-1, because it provides the controls that let you add pages (document and master), delete and move pages, apply master pages to document pages, and navigate through a document.

Figure 5-1: The Pages pane and its palette menu. This is how the pane looks when you open a new, one-page, facing-page document.

Cross-Reference ‚

For more information about using the Pages pane to work on master pages, see Chapter 7.

Note ‚

The overwhelming majority of multipage documents are facing-page publications, such as books, catalogs, and magazines. Some exceptions are flip charts , Web pages, and three-hole-punched publications printed on only one side. In this chapter, the figures show examples of a facing-page document. If you're creating a single-sided multipage document, the techniques are the same as for facing-page documents, but the icons in the Pages pane will show only single-sided page icons (the icons aren't dog-eared).

Adding pages

A document can contain as many as 9,999 pages, though you'd never want to create a document nearly that long. In general, try to break up long publications into logical pieces. For example, if you're creating a book, it's a good idea to create separate documents for the front matter, each chapter, the index, and any other parts (appendices and so on). Also, if you're producing a long document, you'll want to take advantage of master pages (covered in Chapter 7), which save you the work of building each page from scratch.

When you create a multipage document, you're free to add however many pages you want. But be careful. Even though InDesign will let you create a seven-page newsletter, in real life, facing-page publications always have an even number of pages ‚ usually a multiple of 4 and often a multiple of 16 because of the way printers arrange multiple pages on a single sheet of paper.

Here's how to add pages to a document:

If it's not displayed, open the Pages pane by choosing Window ‚ Pages or pressing F12.
From the Pages pane's palette menu, choose Insert Pages.

The Insert Pages dialog box, shown in Figure 5-2, is displayed.

Figure 5-2: The Insert Pages dialog box.
In the Pages field, enter the number of pages you want to add.
Choose an option from the Insert pop-up menu: After Page, Before Page, At Start of Document, or At End of Document.

Be careful: If you've already started working on page 1, for example, make sure you add new pages after page 1. Otherwise, it won't be page 1 anymore and you'll have to move the objects you already created.
Enter a page number in the field next to Insert or use the arrows to increase or decrease the value in one-page increments .
From the Master pop-up menu, choose the master page you want to apply to the new pages.
When you're finished, click OK to close the dialog box.

You can also add new pages or spreads ‚ spreads are added if a spread is selected in the Pages pane ‚ one at a time at the end of a document, by clicking the Create New Page icon at the bottom of the Pages pane. When you use this method, the master page applied to the last document page is applied to each new page. Pages are added after the currently selected page in the pane.

You can also drag a master-page icon (or both pages in a facing-pages spread to add a spread) from the top of the Pages pane to add a page using a master page's settings (use the [None] page for a plain page) between any pair of document page spreads or to the right of the last document spread. If a vertical bar is displayed when you release the mouse button, the spread is placed between the spreads on either side of the bar. If a vertical bar is not displayed between document page spreads when you release the mouse button, the new spread is placed at the end of the document.

New Feature ‚

In previous versions of InDesign, if you added or removed an odd number of pages from a facing-pages document, all pages after the new or deleted pages changed sides: Even pages got bumped to become odd pages, and odd pages got bumped to become even pages. This wreaked havoc with page designs. For example, a two-page opening spread for a magazine article could get split so that the original left-hand page was on the right and the original right-hand page got bumped to the next (left-hand) page. But InDesign CS fixes that ‚ pages are automatically changed from left-hand pages to right-hand pages, and vice versa, as needed when individual pages are added and removed in a facing-pages document.

Copying pages

You can copy pages from one document to another by dragging the page icon from the source document's Pages pane to the target document's Pages pane. Any master page(s) associated with the copied document pages(s) are copied as well.

New Feature ‚

The ability to drag-copy pages from one document to another is new to InDesign CS.

Deleting pages

InDesign offers a couple of choices for deleting pages from a document. You can

Select one or more page icons in the Pages pane and either drag them to the pane's Trash button or simply click the Trash button. Click on a spread's page numbers to select both pages. You can click on a page icon or spread number and then Shift+click on another page icon or spread number to select a range of pages. Hold down the z or Ctrl key and click on page icons or spread numbers to select multiple, noncontiguous pages.
Select one or more page icons in the Pages pane and then choose Delete Page(s) or Delete Spread(s) from the pane's palette menu.

Moving pages

Although you can move pages around in a document, this is something you should do with great care ‚ if at all. Generally, if you want to move the objects on one page to another page, it's safer to cut or copy (Edit ‚ Cut, or z +X or Ctrl+X, or Edit ‚ Copy, or z +C or Ctrl+C) the objects than to move the page, which might cause subsequent pages to shuffle. If you absolutely need to move a single page, it's safer to move its spread. (Of course, if you're working on a single-sided facing-page document, shuffling is not an issue.)

To move a page, click on its icon, then drag the hand pointer between two spreads or between the pages of a spread. A vertical bar indicates where the selected page will be placed. Release the mouse button when the vertical bar is where you want to move the page. To move a spread, click on the page numbers beneath the icons (rather than on the page icons).

Creating island spreads

Have you ever seen a publication ‚ a magazine, perhaps ‚ that had a foldout page? Often such pages are ads (publishers love advertisers who buy multipage ads) or special sections. Or maybe you've seen a two-sided, multifold brochure with several panels, each the same size . A multipage spread of this type is often called a gatefold or accordion page, or an island spread.

When you designate a spread as an island spread, the spread's pages don't move if you add or delete any document pages in front of it. (Normally, when you add or delete pages, all subsequent pages are bumped backward or shuffled forward.)

When you create a island spread of three pages in a facing-page publication, you should always create them in pairs because, in an actual printed publication, if you add a third page to a two-page spread, the back side of the page becomes the third page in another three-page spread. Along the same lines, if you create a four-panel, trifold brochure, both the front and the back have four panels.

One last word about island spreads: They require special care throughout the production process, and they'll cost you extra at the printer and bindery. If you're creating a modest, black-and-white newsletter for a local nonprofit organization, throwing in a three-panel gatefold probably isn't an option. On the other hand, if you can find an advertiser with deep pockets, InDesign lets you create island spreads with up to ten pages.

To create an island spread, first select the pages in the existing spread that you want to make into an island spread, then choose Keep Spreads Together from the pane's palette menu. (When you designate a spread to be kept together, the page numbers below the spread in the Pages pane are displayed in brackets.) To add pages to an island spread, drag a document page icon (a master page icon won't work) next to or between the pages of an island spread. A vertical bar indicates where the page will be placed. When the bar is where you want to place the page, release the mouse button. To clear an island spread, select it in the Pages pane and then uncheck Keep Spreads Together in the pane's palette menu. Figure 5-3 shows a pair of three-page island spreads in a facing-page publication.

Figure 5-3: In this example, pages 14, 15, and 16 are an island spread, as are pages 17, 18, and 19. The extra page in each spread is based on the A-Master master page.

Tip ‚

You may want to create a section out of the extra pages in an island spread so that you can number them separately from the surrounding pages. Sections are covered later in this chapter.