Setting Up 5 Column Guide Across Spread

Forum|Forum|6 hours ago
July 29, 2026
11 replies
53 views

Hello,

I’m working on setting up a document where I have 8” x 9” pages forming a 16” x 9” spread. I’m trying to set up a 5 column grid on my master spread that jumps the gutter, but I can only find ways to set the number of columns per PAGE, and not to set the margins for the spread. In essence, I need a 16” x 9” page with a 5 column grid, but I need to set it up using two 8” x 9” pages so it can be printed as a spread. I functionally need 2.5 columns per page to create the grid structure I am looking for, but InDesign doesn’t support fractional columns, either.

Can anyone tell me if there is a clean way to achieve this?

Thanks!

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

A couple of ideas…

If you set up 3 columns per page, you CAN unlock your column guides and adjust the width manually. It would be like this: Left page: full-width col, full-width col, half-width col; Right page: half-width col, full-width col, full-width col.
Create a 5 columns per page and know that each column is half width. Just jump to columns for a “full-width column”.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

rob day

Community Expert

Hi @B. Stone , Just to clarify, will the facing page document be printed and bound? If that’s the case aren’t you going to have a binding/registration problem where the 3rd column of text crosses over the spine?

B.+StoneAuthor

Participant

Hi rob, yes, the facing page document will be printed and bound. The columns are just a visual grid for designing, not columns of text—I won’t use the center column for body copy, but it’s still useful to have these columns for page proportions.

Gord@APL

Inspiring

Set it up as a 5-column grid per page, facing pages, with the inner margin half the width of your column spacing. Then, each of your content columns is two page grid columns, and your middle column spans the gutter while remaining the same overall width as the others.