Adding two different page numbers in A-master

Report · Mar 13, 2024

Hi all,

I am currently working on a diary, i've created a label for each day (total 366) in my A-master. Now the author also wants to have page numbers, which are not in sync with the dates. I already tried to add page numbers in my A-master, but the labels won't stay the same and will show the page number instead of the day.

Is it possible to have two different 'page numbers' on your a-master?

Thank you verry much in advance

Report · Mar 13, 2024

The short answer is no; InDesign is very rigid about numbering pages and it's almost impossible to override the feature in any way.

The other answer is that you can number the pages yourself — which I'll get to in a minute.

I don't quite understand the problem here, though. If you have one page per day, and you (for the author) want serial page numbers... at what point does the page number not align with the day-number of the year (that is, June 1 being about Day/Page 180)? You should be able to have a date string of some configuration, and a page number, without any conflict. More details will help, here.

The basic way to get around InDesign's rigid numbering system, though, is to number it yourself. Put a small text frame on your Parent page, where you want the page number. On the first page using that Parent (that I assume you want to be Page 1), dump in a text file of the numbers from 1–365 or whatever, one per line/paragraph. Apply a style that both formats the number to your liking and forces a break to the next frame, so that each frame throughout the document has one and only one number. You can modify this process in all kinds of ways, such as numbering only even or odd pages, doubling up a page number (so you have two Page 2's on a single document page, etc.) or using nonlinear or fancy-symbol numbering.

If that doesn't solve your problem, explain further what you're trying to accomplish.