Best Arrangement and Definition of Layers

[Margaret5EDF]

Is there a best way to define and arrange layers in InDesign? I recently adopted an InDesign template from Adobe and it had these layers:

• Guidelines
• Text
• Graphics
• Placeholders
• Background

Since this template came from Adobe I see it as a kind of recommendation. Is this what most people use? 

[BobLevine]

That is whatever the original designer felt was appropriate.

[Willi Adelberger]

The most important thing is that the layers in all documents have the same name and the same order. It si important:

1. When you copy and paste (Paste remembers layers is active) InDesign remembers the name, not the order. If the order is different, Objects get a different orxer and can mess up contents.
2. When you move a page from a document to another, layers shuffle around and make a mess.
3. In Export to PDF from a book file, Acrobat recognizes the layers by name, not by order.
4. Even if layers are not used, they cost no space, do not delete them.

There are layers which have to be on top, like page numbers, runing headesrs, logo, so they are not covered by any content.

Other layers have to be always in the background, like background, so that a backgroun image or color does not cover other objects.

Other layers can be decided o or so, there are reasons to to soe and different opinions not right or false per se.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Willi's points are all good ones. If you are going to use layers in multiple projects, keeping names identical will be a big time saver. Order, as long as you observe the purpose of each, is not as important since it's the work of a few seconds to drag layers to different order. Locking all layers that don't need changes is another very useful trick. (Ideally, only the layer you are actively changing should be unlocked, but that can get a bit restrictive. But things like backgrounds, guidelines, fixed elements... keep them locked so you don't inadvertently modify or select them.)

As for templates... don't put too much faith in their being some kind of absolute or perfect model. Few are as well-designed or optimized as they should be, and you quite often find quirks, if not flat-out flaws, in the way they implement layout and design features. Feel free to modify anything you dislike, and move layers around, and modify styles... as long as you understand that the reasons not to have more to do with "breaking" the layout than violating some arbitrary rules.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

To add to other posters - treat layers as 3rd dimension - they are for your convenience to keep objects of the same kind / functionality in order.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

This, very much. With only a few exceptions, they are no essential part of any document or layout; they are just a (sometimes huge) convenience, like acetate layers in the old-old-old days, that let you group like components of a project so those groups can be locked, unlocked, hidden or restacked easily. You don't need them on most simple projects, but as you get into more complex work, being able to, say, put all your backgrounds into one layer, all your text into another, all your fixed page elements into yet another, etc. makes all kinds of things easier.

TL;DR — learn to use layers, but learn to use them well, and don't regard them as essential in their own right.