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Question

Spread cannot have more than 10 pages - what does this mean?

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Hello there, often when synchronising (book) files or even (right now) when writing text on a page which does not affect the rest of the document in terms of space, a window pops up stating "Spread cannot have more than 10 pages". Why? How do I solve this? Also, I noticed that when adding a page to a file (which I just did because of this message, after which the file synched at last), the new page/s go to the right of the last spread in the pages panel. Why? Boo hoo! I would much appreciate any help.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

@Glove4Help said: "… I'm just desperate. I wondered if you'd used an old copy of Indesign with that script to create what you have, could you get a copy of that indesign and script, create a two spread version of what you have and then open it in new Indesign? …"

Hi @Glove4Help ,

as far as I can remember InDesign version 7.5 (CS 5.5) was the last one (or perhaps the only one??) where a trick by scripting could create a spread with more than 10 pages. I think, that the code for this script still could be found in this very forum. It required a two pages document to start with where the first page has a different size than the second one.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

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G

Glove4Help

Participating Frequently

Thanks UWE! I have a copy of CS6 still, so it's possible it would work with that. I'll see if I can find the script as well.

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L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi @Glove4Help ,

CS6, InDesign version 8, was the one where this did not work anymore.
As far as I can remember…

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

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L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi together,

there once was a method to overcome the 10-pages-per-spread limit by scripting. This method is not working anymore.

But be warned: Extending a spread beyond the limit is extremely risky. If you export to IDML and open the IDML file as document that spread with more than 10 pages will be torn apart and the objects on the pages likely will be positioned in a chaotic way.

Nevertheless, I attached an InDesign document with 16 pages on the first spread.

You will be able to remove pages from that spread, but you cannot add pages. And you cannot duplicate the spread.

Work with that document at your own risk!

Important notes:

Duplicating the spread is not possible with InDesign 2023, not by using the GUI, not by using a script that tries that with spread.duplicate(). Export to IDML cannot mainatin the spread with the 16 pages.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

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FirstSpread-16pages-CS6-SavedWith-CC-2023.zip

G

Glove4Help

Participating Frequently

How did you get to the point of the 16 page spread? That's what I need, but I need a second spread that the same and I'd love to know how you got to the point you did to see if I can find a way to get a second spread the same

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L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi @Glove4Help ,

as I already wrote, that's not possible anymore by scripting. It was never possible with the GUI.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

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M

Mike Estrada

Participant

Just make sure that when adding additional pages, select the parent page that is set to a single page instead of a spread. It can just be a single page with nothing in it. Then after you can just apply any of your set spread templates. Hope this helps 😄

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Rishabh_Tiwari

Legend

Hi @Mike Estrada,

Thank you for reaching out and sharing the suggestion. I am sure it will help other community members.

Thanks

Rishabh

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D

drasahershoff

Participating Frequently

Utter nonesense. This bug shows up regularly in dozens of my documents, books, etc. Who would intentionally ask for a ten page spread? But I guess the bug doesnt exist if you say so. There are dozens of other permanent InDesign bugs that I guess are "features" also.

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E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

There's limit to the amount of spreads you can have - the limit is 10.

I'm not sure what you're referring to as a 'bug'

If you have an idea to fix a 'bug' or add a 'feature' you can request here

https://indesign.uservoice.com/

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D

drasahershoff

Participating Frequently

This bug has been there at least 10 years and I have seen it pop up easily 100 times.. . Like so many other parts of Adobe they simply don't fix bugs, they just move on to creating more. Even worse, even though you turn off the shuffle option, ID will reinstate it on its own whim. A great program, but we have to live with Adobe's disinterest in getting things right.

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James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

I'm not sure this (the OP's issue) is a bug. If you move pages around in the Pages pane and do so in a way that creates multi-page spreads, you'll eventually run into this limit.

That is, it seems to be caused more by inexpert/inept movement of the pages in Pages than by any glitch in ID—with the drags forming spreads, not rearranging the pages in spreads.

If it's occurring when no multi-page spreads are being created, that's different... but it's not how I read the OP's question.

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