A

Anonymous

Question

Resizing pages and layout adjustment frustration

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
December 5, 2010
9 replies
42994 views

I'm a bit new to InDesign and have the need to resize pages in a book that is basically finished. Searching for the answer led me to believe that using the page control button with automatic layout adjustment turned on was the solution....uh...well, apparently not unless I've missed some critical step.

When I change the page size (select to start from the upper left corner or anywhere, etc), and confirm I have layout adjustment enabled, the page size changes but nothing on the page corrects itself to fit the new size. I thought the layout adjustment selection was supposed to make text and other itemsconform to the new page/margins...and in one article, and some online help about this tool, this was even illustrated. Am I missing something...or is this flaky?\

I'm really very confused why in a program like InDesign it isn't an outright default that if you change the page size the program will automatically adjust (at least a best fit) your existing layout to the new page size. It seems so obvious to have that easily done. Having text or items flow to fill existing margins seems a standard given for any number of requirements (pages, columns, etc.)...so I want to believe there's some easy option in InDesign that takes care of this. At the moment I'm almost convinced I'm going to have to recreate the book from the beginning and reflow all my chapters into the correct page size to get this done. (a real pain imho..)

If there is a right way to accomplish this I'd appreciate the information. My text frames (content) are actually correct for the new page size, but with facing pages I need to have the page size shrink toward the center margin and then the text et al center itself in the new page. At least that's the idea.

Thanks,

JT

This topic has been closed for replies.

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

Layout adjustment works only—this is VERY important—only, if all items align to the border margins.

This set up will work, if I use layout adjustment:

================

This setup will not work when you use layout adjustment, because everything is floating on the page without alignment to the margin guides:

===

If someone has worked the second way, he could do it this way:

Turn off the Layout adjustment
Change the border frames to the wanted values.
Adjust the object style (or apply it) to the page number frame, so that it can align to the margin guides with defining frame offset, even this frame should align to the outside of the margin borders (as far as the layout allows it).
Work completely with styles to make further adjustments global.

Kerrigan Marois

Participant

Try holding the Alt key when you click and drag using the page tool, or the mac equivalent. Just clicking and dragging is meant to preview.

P

pixels13

Participant

I just figured out a hack to make it work for me. Resize your page to whatever size you need (can be done through the page tool, Document Setup, or Pages tab (F12 on PC) on the right. Select All content (Ctrl+A on PC). Right-click, use the Object menu or use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+G on PC) to make it a Group. Then right-click or use the Object menu to Transform>Scale. Check the Preview button (so you can see how it is working). Depending on your requirements, constrain or unconstrain proportions. Whatever you enter in X and Y will be converted into percentages by the software. You should be able to scale exactly to the new page size. I hope this helps.

Scott Citron

Legend

InDesign's built-in layout adjustment and Liquid Layout tools work with limited success depending on the complexity of the document. For a one-click solution check out QuickResize ($59) from Id-Extras.com. You'll be glad you did.

K

kspat

Participant

I just resized all of my pages by selecting all of the pages that I wanted resized in the pages window to the right of my workspace. Then, I chose File, Document Setup, and I changed the size of my pages. Then, with all of my pages still highlighted, I chose Layout, Liquid Layout, which gave me a box to with a drop-down option. I chose Scale, and it scaled everything to the Document Setup changes I had just made. I hope that helps!

J

jnwright59

Participant

I used the instruction that kspat listed, with the exception that I had to set all my pages and master pages to scale in the liquid layout pallet before resizing the document parameters in document setup. I think this is because I was using multiple master pages with my book.

camw53906409

Participant

Thank you so much! You have no idea how much this helped me, all fixed now

S

SamanthaInDenver

Participant

Hi JT-

Did you ever find a fix for this? I'm having the same problem and am extremely frustrated. The entire reason I purchased InDesign was to format my book, and it doesn't even do something as simple as resizing?

Thanks,

Samantha

goshawk2

Participant

Well, now I reopened the first file, and have more to tell.

The book pages adjust according to what I have selected in the Master pages section of the Pages window. If nothing is selected, only the currently selected individual pages in the lower part of the Pages window adjust (the little icons are blue-tinted when selected).

If nothing is selected in the Pages window, only the page (or spread) where the cursor is (or where it last was) adjusts. In that case, the page numbers under the little icon in the affected spread are highlighted black; in my case, Sec2:142-Sec2:143 are highlighted black and adjustments are limited to that spread unless I've selected additional icons.

Again, if you're working on a big project with many pages, there's a chance you could inadvertantly make changes that you don't see (because you're not looking at the affected pages).

goshawk2

Participant

Tra-Verse,

I've strugged with the same thing, and I get inconsistent results. But I do get results. The trick seems to be in the Pages window (Pages palette?)

I have two books open now. In one, the auto adjustment works as Adobe claims. I can resize margins and the whole book adjusts.

BUT: if I have a single page selected in the Pages window, only that page adjusts. If I have several pages selected in the Pages window, only those pages adjust. If I select one master page in the Pages window, only the corresponding pages in the book adjust. And so on.

I can work with this. But note that if you're looking at, say, pages 140 and 141 but you have pages 130 and 131 selected in the Pages window, you might not see the adjustment (which will only be to pages 130 and 131), and you could think you've done nothing -- but you actually have changed pages you're not looking at. Be wary!

The second book I have open behaves differently. I can adjust the whole book by selecting pages in the master pages section of the Pages window. Same as the first book. But if I select individual pages (no master page selected) then nothing happens.

If there's a pattern here, I can't see it. At least I can make it work.

You're right that something is missing from the Adobe instructions.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Instead of using the Page tool, try using Document Setup which will change the size of the master pages, and should do what you want with Layout Adjustment enabled.

A

Anonymous

Thanks for trying to help...but the fact is that even with Layout Adjustment enabled changing the page size from Document Setup does not adjust the content to where it should be. As far as I can tell the text frames do not move at all relative to where they were when the page was it's original size...only the white of the page size reduces, leaving the text frames half off the page. I had tried every possible variation of Layout Adjustment (checking and unchecking the options), setting margins before and afterward, setting things in the Master Pages, then in the actual document pages, and short of a bunch of wrong results I never got one that was perfect. Oddly, in my experience it seems the Master Page objects, book numbers and horizontal line above them, would not adjust correctly even if I could get one of the document pages to seem to pop into place. The major problem seems to be that nothing wants adjust both the left and right facing pages...if you align to the top corner for one side or the other, the size all shrinks that way such that the text on that page may look okay but the facing page is now way out of whack.

...everything seems to suggest having Layout Adjustment 'enabled' to get any of the content to self-adjust when the page size is changed. So, the following has me very confused:

I sat back down just now and used the page adjustment icon (on the left) to manually select only the left-hand pages on a test chapter I'm using. All of them were blue tinted, and then I clicked the little black square to choose alignment toward the upper left corner, which is what I needed. Then, I disabled layout adjustment, which seems contrary to everything I've seen and read about leaving it turned on. At that point I picked the page size I wanted and voila!!!..all the pages down the left side are perfect. I did the same thing to the right side pages aligning toward the upper right corner and finally the entire chapter looks right.

Unbelievably, I just went and tested this again. Doing the right hand side pages starting at 8.5x11 size, if I do enable Layout Adjustment and then change the page size to the smaller 6x9, the objects and text frame do not adjust nicely. It's as if they stay put thinking they're on the original size even though the page has shrunk and the text overhangs the outside edge.

But, if I revert to the beginning and disable Layout Adjustment first, then change the page size, everything--including the objects that were set on the Master Pages--adjusts perfectly!!!

Good grief! <sign of my frustration>...I thougth Layout Adjustment was supposed to help by making things adjust automatically? In my case it caused me hours of trouble earlier today because I thought it was there to ease all this, but apparently if I had disabled it and tried this I would have figured out that it was causing me problems. Sure, I have to manually do the left hand pages and then do the right side, but at least I end up with 6x9 pages and everything aligned exactly as I want.

Hallelujah...

-JT

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Layout Adjustment normally works just as advertised, provided things are snapped to guides. I suspect your problem is related to having used the Page tool to adjust the sizes first.

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