Working with Page Numbers

Pages are numbered automatically starting at 1 based on the order in which they appear in the Pages pane. But you can change the page numbering from Arabic numerals to Roman numerals or letters , as well as change the start page to be something other than 1. To do so, select the first page in the document in the Pages pane and choose Layout ‚ Page Numbering & Sections or use the Numbering & Section Options Pages pane's palette menu. You'll get the dialog box shown in Figure 5-4. To change the initial page number, click the Start Page Numbering At radio button and enter a new starting page number in its field. To change the page numbering style from the default of Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, . . .), use the Style pop-up menu and choose from I, II, III, IV, . . . , i, ii, iii, iv, . . . , A, B, C, D, . . . , and a, b, c, d, . . . .

Figure 5-4: The Numbering and Section Options dialog box lets you change the starting page number and the types of numerals used.

Entering page references in text

You'll often want page references in text ‚ the current page number in a folio, for example, or the target page number for a " continued on" reference. You could type in a page number manually on each page of a multipage document, but that can get old fast. As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, if you're working on a multipage document, you should be using master pages. And if you're using master pages, you should handle page numbers on document pages by placing page-number characters on their master pages.

If you want to add the current page number to a page, you can choose Type ‚ Insert Special Character ‚ Auto Page Number or press Option+ z +N or Ctrl+Alt+N whenever the Type tool is active and the text cursor is flashing. If you move the page or the text frame, the page-number character is automatically updated to reflect the new page number.

Targeting versus selecting spreads

Depending on the task you're working on, you may want to use the Pages pane to target a spread or to select a spread. The choice you make determines the actions you can perform.

A target spread is the spread to which copied objects will be placed when you choose Paste, or to which library objects will be placed when you choose Place Items from a library pane's palette menu. The target spread is the one that's in the center of the document window and is indicated by the page number displayed in the page-number field at the lower-left corner of the document window. Only one spread can be the target spread at any one time. At reduced magnifications, it's possible to display several spreads in the document window. In this case, the number in the page-number field indicates the target spread.

When you select one or more spreads, you can then perform several page-level modifications, such as adjusting margin and column guides, applying a master page, or deleting the pages, in a single operation.

There are several ways to target a spread. You can

Modify an object on the spread or its pasteboard .
Click on a spread or its pasteboard.
In the Pages pane, double-click the page numbers below the spread's page icons. (This also moves you to the document pages in the spread.)

You also have several options for selecting a page or spread:

Click once on a page icon to select one page of a spread; click on the page numbers to select both pages. If you click twice, the page or spread is selected and targeted .
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.

In the Pages pane, the page numbers of the target spread are displayed reversed , white numbers in a black rectangle, while the page icons are highlighted in a light blue color .

To create "continued on" and "continued from" lines, you choose Type ‚ Insert Special Character ‚ Next Page Number, or use Option+Shift+ z +] or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+], to have the next page's number inserted in your text, or choose Type ‚ Insert Special Character ‚ Previous Page Number, or press Option+Shift+ z +[ or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+[, to have the previous page's number inserted. That next or previous page will be the next or previous page in the story.

Tip ‚

One flaw in InDesign's continued-line approach is that the text boxes must be linked, so you're likely to place your continued lines in the middle of your text. If the text reflows, so do the continued lines. Here's a way to avoid that: Create separate text boxes for your continued-on and continued-from text boxes. Now link those two boxes, not the story text. This way, the story text can reflow as needed without affecting your continued lines.

Dividing a document into sections

Some long documents are divided into parts that are numbered separately from the other parts. For example, the page numbers of the front matter of books often use Roman numerals, while standard Arabic numerals are used for the body of the book. If the book has appendices, a separate numbering scheme could be applied to these pages. In InDesign, such independently numbered parts are referred to as sections.

A multipage document can contain as many sections as you want (a section has to contain at least one page). If each section of a document will use a different page layout, you'll probably want to create a different master page for each section. Here's how to create a section:

If it's not displayed, open the Pages pane by choosing Window ‚ Pages or pressing F12.
Click on the icon of the page you want to start a section.
Choose Numbering & Section Options from the pane's palette menu.

The New Section dialog box, shown in Figure 5-5, is displayed. (You can also create a section starting at the current page in your document by choosing Layout ‚ Numbering & Section Options.) By default, the Start Section box is checked. Leave it checked.

Figure 5-5: The New Section dialog box.
In the Section Prefix field, enter up to five characters that will identify the section in the page-number box at the lower-left corner of the document window.

For example, if you enter Sec2, the first page of the section will be displayed as "Sec2:1" in the page-number box.
From the Style menu, choose the Roman numeral, Arabic numeral, or alphabetic style you want to use for page numbers.
For Page Numbering, choose Automatic Page Numbering if you want the first page of the section to be one number higher than the last page of the previous section. (The new section will use the specified style; the previous section may use this style or another style.) Choose Start Page Numbering At and enter a number in the accompanying field to specify a different starting number for the section.

For example, if a book begins with a section of front matter, you could begin the body section of a book on page 1 by choosing Start At and entering 1 in the field. If you choose Continue from Previous Section, the first page of the body section would begin one number higher than the Roman numeral on the last page of the front matter.

In the Section Marker field, enter a text string that you can later automatically apply to pages in the section.

You might want to enter something straightforward like "Section 2" or, if the section is a chapter, the name of the chapter.

Tip ‚

You can insert the section marker name in folios, chapter headings, and story text by choosing Type ‚ Insert Special Character ‚ Section Marker, or Option+Shift+_ z +N or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N. This is a great way to get a chapter name (if you use it as the section marker) in your folio or to have cross-references in text to a section whose name might later change.

Click OK to close the dialog box.

When you create a section, it's indicated in the Pages pane by a small, black triangle over the icon of the first page in the section, as shown in Figure 5-6. (If you move the pointer over the black triangle, the name of the section is displayed.) The page-numbering scheme you've specified is reflected in the page numbers below the page icons. When you begin a section, it continues until the end of the document or until you begin a new section.

Figure 5-6: The small triangle above a page icon represents a section start.

Tip ‚

By default, the Pages pane displays section numbers beneath the icons of document pages. If you want to display absolute page numbers ‚ the first page is page 1 and all other pages are numbered sequentially ‚ you can do so by choosing InDesign ‚ Preferences ‚ General on the Mac or Edit ‚ Preferences ‚ General in Windows, or by pressing z +K or Ctrl+K, and choosing Absolute Numbering from the View pop-up menu.

Removing a section

If you decide that you want to remove a section, navigate to the page that begins the section, choose Numbering & Section Options from the Pages pane's palette menu, and then uncheck the Section Start box.