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smashkirk
Inspiring
January 24, 2025
Answered

Hidden spreads, table of contents, and page numbers

  • January 24, 2025
  • 4 replies
  • 1433 views

I have a document with a couple of hidden spreads. The page numbering seems to respect the hidden spreads in that it skips those pages in the numbering. This makes sense. But when I create a table of contents, it seems to insert the page numbers as if the hidden spreads were not hidden. 

 

You will see in my attached images that the page numbers on the bottom left shows page 16 on spread 20-21. This makes sense given that spreads 16-19 are hidden. When I create the TOC it does not do this. It treats page 16 as 20. Is this normal functionality? I sent this to a client and it was wrong. I should have double checked, but still, not good.

Is this a bug or a feature?

Correct answer Abhishek Rao

Hello @smashkirk,

 

Thanks for your patience.
I have received an update from the product team, who confirmed that this functionality is not yet implemented in InDesign.
Please rest assured that this request is on their radar, and I recommend keeping an eye on updates for future releases.
Moreover, please go through the suggestion dropped by @Eugene Tyson and other experts. Let me know if it helps.

 

If you need any further assistance, feel free to reach out.

 

^
Abhishek

 

4 replies

Participant
September 5, 2025

Is there any update on this?

Community Expert
January 25, 2025

Prior to this method when the feature wasn't in the program.

For 'hiding pages/spreads' I would drag them into the Parent Page Sections then delete the pages, so they are only in the Parent Page section.

If needed again I could drag them back to the layout and sort it out. 

 

It was a good way of handling it for me.

Robert at ID-Tasker
Legend
January 25, 2025

Or 2nd document. 

 

And it gave me an idea for the extra functionality for my IDT 😉 more "dynamic layout" 😉 even sets of layouts easily manageable... 

 

James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
January 24, 2025

The Hide Spreads feature was (IMHO) released in badly undercooked form and has only slowly had its faults patched. I simply would not use it for any project or layout where you really, really want certain pages to disappear/reappear with consistent results in page numbering, TOCs, indexes etc.

 

Probably fine for looser layouts without hard content organization or numbering. At least so far.

Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Community Manager
January 24, 2025

Hi @smashkirk

 

Thanks for reaching out. We have a UserVoice logged for it as: Hide spread not reflected in Table of Contents – Adobe InDesign. I would request to keep upvoting it so that you will be notified with the updates. In the meantime, allow me some time to get this checked with the product team. I will keep you posted with the updates from the team. 

 

^

Abhishek 

 

Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Abhishek RaoCommunity ManagerCorrect answer
Community Manager
January 27, 2025

Hello @smashkirk,

 

Thanks for your patience.
I have received an update from the product team, who confirmed that this functionality is not yet implemented in InDesign.
Please rest assured that this request is on their radar, and I recommend keeping an eye on updates for future releases.
Moreover, please go through the suggestion dropped by @Eugene Tyson and other experts. Let me know if it helps.

 

If you need any further assistance, feel free to reach out.

 

^
Abhishek

 

smashkirk
smashkirkAuthor
Inspiring
January 27, 2025

Instead of saying "the functionality of hidden spreads is not yet complete", you say "that functionality is not yet implemented in InDesign." It's ok, I get it. It's all about optics.
Thank you for getting back to me.