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beatrices55187455
Participant
August 25, 2020
Question

viewing only layers of current page

  • August 25, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 2487 views

Hi, my indesign just changed so now I constantly see all layers of the document, regardless of the page I am on.  I am not sure what changed.  I just want to see the layers of the currernt page.  How can I do that?

 

I really don't want to see 100 layers at once when only 5 are applicable to what I am working on at that moment. Its too overwhelming for me.

 

Why did this change?

 

Thank you!

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3 replies

rob day
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 25, 2020

Also, there are Layers that you create and name that are contained by the document, and if you toggle open a document layer, the page items for the active page will be listed—page items are not the same as a document layer.

 

Here my document contains 4 layers that I have created via the Layer panel’s + button:

 

I have page 1 active, so if I toggle open the 4 layers I will see the page 1 page items listed. Page items can be named by double clicking them, which I’ve done with Red Rectangle. The other page items are listed by their default names:

 

If I navigate to page 4 there is only one page item listed. Page 5 has no page items, so my document layers are empty:

 

 

beatrices55187455
Participant
August 25, 2020

I understand what you are saying. And I see that your view looks like my view does now. But, before two days ago, if page 5 had no items, I would only see layer one in my layer panel. And if I added a second layer it would be layer two, and the color would correlate with layer two on other pages. 

Now, if I have 10 layers on page 1 and go to page 2 when I go to do a new layer, I get layer 11. 

 

So, here I am making a multi page interactive form. All of the named layers are only applicable to page one. 

When I then go to page 4, yes I can only view the layers that are on that page, but when I go to make a new layer, it creates layer 17 and puts it at the top of the list. 

 

 

its a lot to look at is all I am saying. On basic documents this won't be an issue. But on things like this, this was a shock. And I guess I am not sure why I have been using it for so long on such a regular basis -- the cc version -- and it was never like that. I immediately noticed the difference and spent way too long trying to fix it back. 

this was after finding out a few of my files suddenly became corrupt and I now have to recreate this. Maybe there was something wrong with my indesign program altogether? But I have had cc for several years. 

rob day
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 25, 2020

The items listed inside of Layer 1 are not layers, they are a list of page 4’s page items, which have been moved into Layer 1. The new Layer you created is empty and contains no page items. Layer 17 is a document layer, not a page item—you can think of it as an empty folder.

 

Community Expert
August 25, 2020

You are mistaken in your understanding. If the document has 5 layers then each page also has five layers. Open the layer panel and see for yourself, the layers would remain a constant five as you navigate across the document spread. Secondly you don't need to remember anything, first you can visually see what object is placed on which page, second each object on selection is highlighted with the border of color assigned to the layer, and third the selected object is also suitably marked on the layer panel(the small square on the right is filled on selection). To cut the confusion the layer panel shows the state of the layers for the currently active spread, i.e., even though the layers remain a constant across the document, the object shown in these layers would only correspond to the current spread.

-Manan

-Manan
Community Expert
August 25, 2020

Layers are document wide and not page specific. So all the pages have all the document layers and this has been the same way for long, if i remember correctly. You see the state of layers for the current spread on the layer panel.

-Manan

-Manan
beatrices55187455
Participant
August 25, 2020

So lets say you have a 30 page document and each page has 5 layers on it.  I have a list of 150 layers that I have to keep straight and remember/figure out which layer correlates with which page when I come back to it 2 months later to make some edits? I already rename layers, now I have to name them by page number as well?

 

Before today, my indesign program did not work like that.  I desperately need it to go back to how it was before.  I can't work like this. Its too many layers. I don't care about the layers on page 1 when I am working on page 10, I don't want to see them.