Moving parent page text box doesn't update the rest of the document

Question

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I've had this work perfectly for me and also never work no matter what I try, so I must be messing something up in the set-up stage.

I'm formatting a novel, and after getting the proof copy I'd like to move the text boxes out a little. Problem is that moving the text box out on the parent pages doesn't update them on the document itself, I'm assuming because the link was broken when I placed the text and unlocked the boxes from the parent pages?

Sample page:

Nudged the text frames out on the parent pages but obviously doesn't update to the rest of the doc:

I understand that this must be because placing the text unlocks the text boxes and unlinks them from the parent pages...but I don't understand how I'm supposed to handle this. If I need to go back and nudge out the margins after I've placed the text, I would think this is why parent pages exist, but if they just get automatically unlinked, I don't know what to do.

I've tried reapplying the parent page, but it just pushes the pages I have down and doubles up the page number. I would just delete the pages and reflow the text, but I have some images placed in and I'd rather not have to go through the entire thing again just to replace them, especially when all I want to do is move the text frames out a bit.

Like I said, I've had it work before, and I really have NO idea why it works perfectly sometimes, and sometimes not, when my workflow is the same each time. 😅

I'm sure I'm missing a very basic concept here so thank you all in advance for your help!!

Eugene Tyson · Answer

The link to the parent page was most likely broken inadvertently.

Once you move or adjust a frame on a document page even slightly it becomes overridden, which breaks its link to the parent page.

Any change made directly on the document page, such as resizing, repositioning, or unlocking the frame, will cause it to no longer update when you modify the parent.

To maintain the link, the frame must remain untouched on the document page. Once it’s overridden, updates from the parent won’t apply unless you remove the override by selecting the frame and choosing Remove Selected Local Overrides (from the Pages panel menu) or by reapplying the parent page — though reapplying can duplicate items like page numbers if not handled carefully.

Here I've threaded text frames on the parent page and move them around and they update on the pages

Once I break the relationship by going to the page and slightly even nudge it

Then it won't update when the parent page is updated

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What you need to do is reconnect the Parent Page -

and you'll probably have to drag the Parent Page to the page in your document and that will recreate the parent elements, then remove the other elements and insert them to the parent items.

If it's all threaded from page 1 to end - then you can select all - cut the text - then delete all pages - apply parent page to page 1 - reflow the text - add another page and click the red overflow box and shift click on page 2 where the parent text frame is.

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