Skip to main content

Mater Pages: Numbering

Lesson 17 from: Adobe InDesign CC Intermediate: Beyond the Basics

Erica Gamet

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2200+ more >

Lesson Info

17. Mater Pages: Numbering

Next Lesson: Primary Text Frame

Lesson Info

Mater Pages: Numbering

So let's look at that Page Numbering. I'm gonna actually move this off. We don't need him anymore. The Page Numbering is great, but I actually told it where I wanted that section to start, so I've started this Section here and started this next section. I want the Page Numbering to reflect that. I wanna show that it's Section number one and Section number and I wanna show that in my Page Numbering. So I can do that if I go back to this master page here and on the Sections Numbering, I need to tell it how I want that numbering to appear. So what I need to do is go to this first Section, I'm gonna double click on the page that starts the Section, go up to the Panel Menu, choose Numbering and Section Options, and automatically the Section starts here because that's the beginning of our document. I have told it Automatic Page Numbering or I can tell it that I wanna start the Page Numbering at a specific Page Number. Maybe I want it to start with Page Number 3. We're not going to use the f...

irst two pages. In this case, I'm gonna go ahead and just tell it that I want to start the Page Numbering at 1, so I'll leave that as Automatic which will give us one. I can also choose a Section Prefix, so in this case if I wanted to be able to visually see what's different about these pages in the pages panel, I can add a prefix, and I can also choose to include that prefix in the actual page number. So in this case let's assume this is Chapter one. I'll put Ch 1: and then the Automatic Page Number will appear after that. So we'll just do Chapter 1: and this is the style that we want for our numbers. I'm gonna use the Arabic numerals here, and then also Section Marker. I'm gonna go ahead and put this in. We're not actually going to automate this yet, but at least I'll have the information in here. This is Chapter One, so I'm actually gonna spell out the Chapters. This is where I tell it that I want the Prefix to show up when I actually number the pages. So I want Chapter 1: to show up in front of my page number. So I'll say OK. Now we can look at the Page Number and it says Ch1:1. Ch1:2, and then there's nothing here and that's because we've started a new chapter, a new Section and I haven't done anything with it yet. So I just have these two page numbers here. But what I can do is, I can add two more pages after this page. So I'm gonna go ahead and drag a Master Page down. It's Master Page B is the next one I wanna use, and then the next one is D. Let's see, B, C, B, D. Well, let's double check. Then I actually want... No, I'm sorry. B, C, B and I want a C after that one. This is where having a Prefix that actually makes sense to you is really handy. So I have Chapter and page 1:3 and Chapter 1:4. By adding those in that same Section, that continually numbered it along with that Chapter number that's here and we've given it a Chapter Name so I know that when I roll over this, this is actually the start of Chapter one. In a minute, this will actually say Chapter one up in here, but we haven't done that yet at all. As we're going along, we can also decide that we want to view the page numbers in Pages Panel to reflect this Ch1:1. By default what you'll see are the Absolute Page Numbers, so this is the first page in the document, but I actually want it to show one one. So I can change that in my Preferences. Under In Design, Preferences, under General, one of the Options is Page Number Viewing, so I can choose to do the Absolute Numbering, which I have, or Section Numbering. I forget which one is actually the Default. It might be Section Numbering. So I'm going to View it by Section Numbering. When I come back, now my page numbers look like this, which can be helpful or it can be a pain, as well. For me I like it, 'cause when I look at it in the Pages Panel, I can see what pages those actually are. It reflects the actual numbering that I'm using. Again, even if we didn't have the prefix showing up here, it is nice to see it spelled out here. Where that can be a problem is if I go to print that page, or jump to that page, or anytime I need to indicate where that page is, it's expecting to see Ch1:1, right? So I need actually fix that. So when I go to jump to a page, I use a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl J, which jumps to that page, and as you can see, it expects to have me spell it out like this. But what I really wanted was to go to page three, the third page of my document. If I just type 3, it's gonna tell me that page doesn't exist. That's what it says here. But it does tell me that I can type in a plus sign, followed by the absolute page number, meaning the actual page in the document. I can tell what it is if I want if I roll over it, it will actually tell me which page it is. It's page 3. But if I know I wanna jump to this third page, I can jump to that and do a plus three, and that would be the same as when you're exporting, if I wanted to export just this page, it expects me to type it out, unless I do that plus before it. But that's because I have Section Numbering turned on. If I don't want that, and I turn it off, and go back to Absolute Numbering, then I don't need to worry about putting that plus in there. Just keep that in mind. It's handy to have to see it, but when you're printing or exporting or jumping around it is going to actually expect that entire page name that's in there. Back to our other pages here. I want to tell it this is where it changes to something else. This Section here, we already have the Section starting here, I'm gonna go up to the Panel Menu, choose Numbering and Section Options, and I'm going to tell it to Start at the Section, but I want to start the Page Numbering at one again. I want each Chapter, each Section, to have it's own numbering. I'm gonna do Ch 2:, and then same Style, and then I'm gonna call this Chapter Two, and I do wanna Include the Prefix when Numbering. So I'll say OK. So now I've got 1:4, 2:1 and 2:2. So it goes ahead and it starts that numbering over again. We can turn that off at any time in the Section Panel there, as well. Let's go back to the very Top Master that we have here. We need to automate this Chapter Title. Obviously this is not what we want. We don't want it to be called Chapter Title. I know that each Section I created, I gave the chapter a name; I have Chapter One or Chapter Two. I'm sorry, I gave the Section a name; Chapter One or Chapter Two. I can automate that here. The reason I put something in here is so I can style it, decide where it needs to sit and actually do the layout for it without trying to use the automated word that it's gonna put in there for me. It's just going to put the word Section in there, so I wanted something that spells it out a little bit and I could see what it looks like in the font that I've chosen. Back on this Master Page, the very top Master, I'm gonna go to Type, Insert Special Character, Markers, and then Section Marker. All it says is Section, but that's all it says on that page there, and it says it all the way down through the Master Pages, the ones that have that on there, because it doesn't know where the Section is. Once we get to a page where we have defined a Section... It now sees that it's Chapter One, all the way down to where the second Section starts, Chapter Two. The nice thing about that is as I add more pages to this particular document, use my keyboard shortcut, it goes ahead and it continually numbers and puts that Section Value on there. Now the only thing I have to do is I noticed that I have B and C, and C and C. I need this last one to be B, so I'm gonna grab B and just drag it on top of that document page that's here. So I have page 2:3 and 2:4. The nice thing is by having those Sections, as I put new pages in those Sections, it automatically know that it is a part of those Sections. One thing I do a lot when I'm going along is I'll create something on a document page and I realize that it probably should've lived on a Master Page, so I'm going to jump back to that Annual Report document that we have here. No. Maybe this. We're gonna have a lot of quote pages, so this items that's on the left. A lot of quote pages, then followed by a little layout over here. So if I decide I like both of those, or even just one of those, I can go ahead and decide at any moment to make this document page a Master Page. So I'm gonna Shift + Select both of those and just drag that document page up into the Master Page Section. When I drag that up, I can see now that I have this Master Page already here for me inside the Master Page area. So if I come in here, and now it's a Master Page, because I realized I actually like this style. I need to apply that to a lot of pages. I need to make a Master Page of that. I can do that super easily. The problem is these document pages down below that look exactly the same, that's where those started, this Master Page is not actually applied to this document page. Not like Styles where you redefine it and automatically say apply to selection. Here I have to actually take a couple of steps. I'm gonna come into this page, the actual Document page. I'm gonna select Everything on this page and hit Delete, which is a little scary sometimes. I come in here and select both of these items and I'm going to drag it down on top of this Section that's here. Whoops. Let's Undo that. Let me drag the left hand side down here and then the right hand side down here. Now that is actually applied to this Master Page, or attached to that Master Page, so if I should delete a photo that's here, or something like that, it is reflected in that page as well. Let's go back to our other document that we have here with the different items. Let me go back to the Annual Page. One of the things I wanted to tell you about was, in conjunction with layers, we sometimes have to put our page numbers, or other Master Page items, on a separate layer. Because what happens here, you notice we have these page numbers down below and that's great, but when I get into the different document pages, it looks fine here, it looks fine here, but over on this side we may or may not be able to see the document page numbers. For instance here, it's there but it's underneath all of those items. You may or may not see it peeking through, because I do have transparency applied to those images, but in this case I can't see it at all. I wanna make sure that no matter what I put on the page, even if I have an image like this, I want to make sure that you can see the page numbers. In this case, I can zoom in and I think I can kind of see them coming through because I have, like I say, some transparency on that image. But if didn't, if this image was completely solid... Let's come in here and that's actually on a Master Page, if I were to make this image, instead of transparent, it's 84% solid here. Let's make that solid. When I go to this document page here, I can't see that page number and wanna make sure I see that and it sits on top of everything. What happens is everything on your Master Page, is at the very back of the stacking order. We've talked about stacking order on a page. Individual items, the order you put them in, is the stacking order that they're in. Also layers, we can stack layers on top of each other. Well, on a Master Page, everything that's on the Master Page is at the very back of all of that. It's at the very bottom of this entire stacking order. But in the case of page numbers, we'd really like those to be in front. So I'm gonna actually undo that last thing I did, which was change that opacity, and I'm gonna actually come to this page here. I wanna make sure that those page numbers show up all the time. So what I need to do is come into the Layers Panel and create a whole new Layer. I'm gonna Create a new one. Option or Alt, Click on that. I'm just gonna call this Page Numbers. I'm gonna make sure that it sits all the way at the very top. On top of absolutely everything. I don't even know if I'm using any of these layers, but I wanna make sure that my page numbers sit at the very top. So I'm gonna say that, put at the very top. Then I'm gonna come over here to my page numbers, on the Master Page that they're sitting on, let's make sure we're on the Master. Looks good. It's on that Master Page. I gonna select both sets of those, fit that in the window there, and then I'm going to go to the Layers Panel and I can see that I have a little blue dot telling me something's selected. I'm gonna grab that blue dot and I'm gonna drag it up to the very top to the page numbers level. Now when I go into the different pages... Let's go back to this guy here... We have the Master Page applied here. There we go. That shows up on both pages. Let's come down to this one here and I can see that it's applied. It's not ghost to back like it was before. It's not super easy to read, of course. You may have another set of Masters that have white page numbers. You might need to apply that on the pages that applies to. You may have it so that you have a second set of Masters here that look exactly like this A Master one, and everything on the page is the same except that the page numbers are in a specific color. So maybe use one for your light colored photos and one for your dark colored photos. If I look here, I can also see the page numbers actually there and they're on the top and they're still connected to the Master Page. Let's go back to this Master Page here. So we can see how we've built this out so that we have this Numbering, the Chapter Numbering, and the Page Numbering as well. Now I want some text to flow across this text that's here, so if I want I can go ahead and put this Text Frame right on this Master Page A, so that again ripples down through all the different Master Pages, and also through all the document pages as well.

Ratings and Reviews

Marianne Stewart
 

I've been using InDesign for a decade, and decided to take this class to see what else I could learn. Wow! Erica taught me ways to do repetitive tasks easier, faster, and cleaner. She showed me many, many ways that I wasn't using InDesign to it's fullest potential (and now I am!). Her teaching style is very thorough and in-depth, but also easy to follow and understand. I highly recommend this class!

Ivan
 

Great class, but as a former professional typesetter (before InDesign, PageMaker and QuarkXpress), Erica uses the term "Justified Left" incorrectly! (sorry!) There is no such thing. Justified refers only to text that spans the width of it's column from edge to edge. The spacing in-between words will vary. Used primarily in newsprint where the columns widths are narrow. The other proper terms for text alignment are: Flush Left Ragged Right (or) Left-Aligned Flush Right Ragged Left (or) Right-Aligned Centered Justified The oddball is "Justified". It's the only option where word spacing is variable. This is the least desirable because it creates "Rivers and Valleys" of white space that distract the eye. Letter and word spacing can be tightened or tweaked to improve the overall look, but at cost in time.

Sarah
 

Great class and very informative. Erica’s a good instructor. Given the volume of information presented I’d like to see class materials included. It makes the course much easier to follow.

Student Work

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES