Cannot put buttons anywhere on a 2-page spread

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
March 2, 2024
2 replies
1666 views

My document is currently 200 pages, in 101 spreads. I am using navigation buttons (next/previous page, last viewed, next viewed) on all but a handful of inside pages. On one spread, I cannot get any of these buttons to appear anywhere within the document or even on the paseboard. As master page elements they don't appear, I cannot paste them in place, if I copy to the spread above and try to drag down onto that spread's pasteboard or into the document, they vanish instantly. I've tried "unlock all on spread" and that didn't work either. Is there anywhere a pasteboard can be locked out for a spread? This is crazy!

EDIT: After more experimentation, I am unable to draw or paste anything on that spread now either, again, within the document or anywhere on the pasteboard.

I really don't want to add a new spread, copy the contents, and delete the "bad" spread since that will break hundreds of hyperlinks from that point forward (don't ask me how I discovered that little gotcha last year--which took me ten days to find/fix). Any ideas? Thanks!

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Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@PeterD-NJ

Maybe your file got corrupted - try trashing / reseting preferences:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/reset-indesign-preferences-and-other-troubleshooting/m-p/11990234

Or IDMLing - but you've done that already.

P

PeterD-NJAuthor

Inspiring

Yep, trashed prefs and converted to IDML a couple of times. No joy, alas. As for the original issue, I just created a new spread, moved the conent over and deleted the old spread and it's all good, so the problem itself was resolved, but the issues brought out above (buttons) is unexpected.

Lukas Engqvist

Community Expert

Kind of difficult without seeing the file. Can you show the page and with the layers pannel, the button selected.
Interactive documents do require rigorous structure and having navigation and buttons on a top level layer named Navigation is a good routine (same goes for page numbers).

P

PeterD-NJAuthor

Inspiring

My layers panel is pretty simple: three layers. Content that always appears, content that appears only on the printed version, and content that only appears on electronic version (PDF and while editing normally). The interactive elements were on a fourth layer (at the top), but I moved them into the PDF/electronic layer to simplify things. If InDesign had sub-layers I'd prefer to go that route.

There was even more craziness going on on that spread, so I created two new pages, moved everything over and deleted the bad spread. It did break a few links, but not as many as I feared. I think it's back to normal now. But that was unnerving for sure. I just made an IDML of the document and will start again from there.

BobLevine

Community Expert

You're building this for a PDF? My friend, if that is the case you are about to be in for a world of pain. Buttons are nothing but trouble in PDF and that's when using Acrobat or Reader. In third party readers, they generally don't work at all.

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