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arminm27369325
Participant
January 8, 2017
Question

Expand automatic page numbers from a masterpage into an independet textbox on each page

  • January 8, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 513 views

Yeah the title says it... I am working on a book with two different content sections. These different contents are printed on different kinds of paper and are of other page size. So one content is printed on shiny paper in A4 the other content is printed on translucent paper and ten milimeter shorter on the top and on the outer sides of every page. And these make up a book with these alternating two contents so 8 pages shiny, 8 pages not shiny and 8 pages shiny again you get the idea (its alternating throughout the book). Now I am trying to split the shiny content into one indesign file and the other content into its own indesign file for a print-ready pdf. So when I do this the page numbers start again from 1 even-tough it should be page 17... So I was looking for a command that said something like: «expand automatic page numbers on every page» or something. This command would just turn the Master-Text-Boxes on every normal page into a ordinary text-box like you would draw one using the text-tool on an ordinary page.

Help much appreciated!

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    2 replies

    vinny38
    vinny38
    Legend
    January 9, 2017

    Hi there!

    I'm not sure I understood why you want to detach master text frame but it can be done easily:

    place the master items you want to detach on a separate layer. Lock all other layers, select all pages in the Pages panel Menu and choose Detach All Objects From Master from the Pages panel menu.

    However, you can also choose to work with a single file.

    No problem creating two Master with different sizes:

    Now, the thing is, you'll need to export two PDF, so instead of specifying  "9-16, 25-32..." (headache for sure), you can use the Print option instead of Export. Using sections could also be part of the solution, but here's the Print options trick:

    There is an option - that unfortunately doesn't exist using Export - that automatically select page range with same size (based on the format of the current selected page). That's handy:

    Hope that helps

    regards

    Vinny

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Barb BinderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 8, 2017

    turn the Master-Text-Boxes on every normal page into a ordinary text-box

    You can copy the text frames with the page numbers from the master pages to the body pages by Control Alt clicking them (Cmd Opt click on a Mac) with the Selection tool.

    the page numbers start again from 1

    Right click the page icon in the Pages panel and choose Numbering and Section Options to control the page numbering.

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
    A
    arminm27369325Author
    Participant
    January 8, 2017

    hey thanks for the quick reply!

    well with cmd opt click I can unlock it. but when I do this and I delete all previous pages up to this page it still changes the page number.

    And right clicking the page icon just sets the start point on my new page so I could do that for the first page (so Start at 17) but not for the next sections of 8...

    I have alternating sections throughout the book. the book has 380 something pages... so I would have to do this manually.

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Barb BinderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 8, 2017

    so I would have to do this manually

    That's correct. There's nothing automatic about this unusual pagination requirement, but with patience, you can make it work.

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
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