Section Numbering

well, if you don't define any sections counting, how the system can know what number to set? 🙂

you can use Book, or set the next box as Primary Frame and create section marker with numbered Paragraph style (and just a Space as a text) (but I'm not sure that it's a good idea to use Primary Frame this way), or write a script (or ask someone to write a script) which will count the entries of this kind of section marker and type the proper number. At least, you can type the number in Section Marker field of Numbering & Section Options window.

Honestly, I believe the Book is the easiest way 🙂

Hi Dative:

I think you are confusing the term sections with paragraph numbers. InDesign pages can be divided into sections for various purposes—for example, one might a new section for each article in a journal so that InDesign will restart the footnote numbering at 1 for each new article. Another reason to define a section is to use lowercase roman for the page numbers in one section (i, ii, iii), and arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) in another section in a single file.

You can use paragraph numbering to set up incrementing numbers in a heading, and the heading can use the word Section or Chapter if you like. In a single file, you make a paragraph style and then define the paragraph numbers as a list. Once the list is defined you can assign the style to the correct paragraphs in your document.

~Barb

You can adjust a bit the section marker.

Do I understand well that you create each chapter as a separate doc and add them all to the book, and each new chapter also comes into the book as a new doc?

then you can do the follow:

1. Create a section marker and type there "Chapter", then go to Type menu and choose Type > Text variables > Insert variable > Chapter number.

2. Add all needed master items.

3. In the Book panel menu open Synchronise Options window and check if Master Pages option is selected.

4. Synchronise the book. 

Generally Chapter numbering is set as "Automatically" (the bottom part of the Numbering and Section Options window), so synchronising will add the right master and update the numbering according to documents order in the book.
If something is not good, you can also use Update Numbering command in the Book panel menu. Select Update Chapter & Paragraph Numbers to make sure that all numbers set as you want.

When you create a section marker, you tell the program where must be a chapter name and how it must look. But you don't set the content. So, working with Section marker, you have to select the first page of section, open Numbering&Section Options window (Page > Numbering&Section Options) and type the chapter name in Section Marker field. The name will repeat on each page of the section.