Changes to Parent no longer show in pages.

[California Gold]

First off, I am VERY new to InDesign, I had never even heard of it a week ago.

I have a 15 page document, the pages are grouped under four Child Parents, which are in turn under a single A-Parent.

At some point yesterday, new objects created in any of the parents stopped displaying in any pages. Any previously existing elements in the parent can be edited, and those edits display as normal. This happns with items inserted into the A-Parent and the Child Parents alike.

This seemed to start after I inserted a frame into a Child Parent. After inserting the frame into the parent, it only displayed on one of the two pages under that parent, and from the page the frame did display on, I was able to edit and delete that frame from the page, even though that frame was in the parent, and none of the changes I made to the frame from the page displayed in the parent.

What did I mess up and how can i fix it? I have several days into this document and would really hate to have to start over. I am at your mercy, dead in the water with nowhere else to turn.

Thanks for any help.

[Derek Cross]

Sounds like you've over-engineered the Parent / Master pages. They are used normally for repetitive items like folios.

By the way, make your document 16 pages; you can't have a 15 page one!

[California Gold]

I'm creating a sales portfolio, one page for each product, with products grouped under 4 brand names. I want a consistant design accross all pages, but a different logo and color theme for each brand. My goal was basic layout in Parent, the colors and brand logos added in the Child Parent, and the unique photos, titles and descriptions on each page. Is there a better way I should be trying to accomplish this?

It can be 15 pages, it's not going to be bound, each page will be printed in color and inserted into a plastic sheet for inclusion in a tabbed 3-ring binder.

Thanks.

[Derek Cross]

That's 15 leaves or sheets – a page is considered one side of a sheet!

Sounds like you don't need any parent pages – they just seem to be causing you issues.

A screenshot of a couple of the pages would help us see what you're trying to do.

[California Gold]

The leave/sheet thing you mention is beyond my knowledge. Until this week I had a vague knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator but now my employer is throwing me into more advanced graphic design projects that I am frankly unqualified for.

I have no clue how I could accomplish this any other way with so many duplicated design aspects.across all the pages.

Here is a screen shot of one of my Child Parents. You should see a frame at the top where a logo will eventually go. The gradient rectable is in this Child Parent, over top of another empty rectangle in the A-Parent used solely as a guide. In the middle of the gradient I am trying to add a circular frame in the A-Parent, to be shared axcross all pages, but it will not work. The logo in the bottom left is in the A-Parent and is just fine, displays on all pages, and I can edit it as expected. Then you may see a text box in the lower right, that is in the A-Parent, but will remain empty and is there strictly as a guilde for the unique text that will be inserted on each individual page.

Does that make sense? I am open to any input as to how i can streamline this, but I'd like to stay the course just for the sake of the week I already have invested into this. Thaanks

[Derek Cross]

InDesign is a professional publishing application with a steep learning curve. It seems mean of your employer to throw you into this without any training.

I suggest you take a LinkedIn Learning online video training course. You can get 30-days free access.

Come back to the forum with specific questions when you get stuck!

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/

[California Gold]

Unfortunately I don't have time to take any more courses, I'm doing this all off short Youtube videos. I am in college as well as work, just wrapping up summer term. Maybe over Xmas I'll have time, but that's too late. Its not mean of my boss, we simply need it done and I am the only emnployee, better at this stuff than he is. I have no choice to but to continue on, we need these printouts made, I will have to start over from scratch if no one will help.

Sorry I realized I forgot to include my screenshot, I will post it up if you are still willing to try and walk me through this.

[Barb Binder]

It sounds like you have some override issues. Can we start with you showing us a screen shot of your Pages panel so that we can see how the parents are linked? And let us know which parent you added the frame to. 

~Barb

[California Gold]

Thanks for your reply. Here is a screenshot showing my Pages panel. I hope this is what you meant, if not please let me know.

The B, C, D and E parents are children of the A parent, and all of the pages are children of either B, C D, or E. I asked about this on Reddit and someone told me to unassign and reassign all the parent relationships, but that did not help.

These parent/child relationships were all previously working as they should, then all of a sudden they weren't.

Thanks

[Derek Cross]

Can you show us one or two pages larger, so we can see your design

[California Gold]

Here is a screen shot of one of my Child Parents. You should see a frame at the top where a logo will eventually go. The gradient rectable is in this Child Parent, over top of another empty rectangle in the A-Parent used solely as a guide. In the middle of the gradient I am trying to add a circular frame in the A-Parent, to be shared axcross all pages, but it will not work. The logo in the bottom left is in the A-Parent and is just fine, displays on all pages, and I can edit it as expected. Then you may see a text box in the lower right, that is in the A-Parent, but will remain empty and is there strictly as a guilde for the unique text that will be inserted on each individual page.

[California Gold]

So the problem only pertains to certain parts of the parent. I can draw a frame in the upper part of the parent and it shows up everywhere, every page and child parent. But if I try to draw the same frame in the middle of the parent, it only shows up on the Parent, none off the child parents or pages.

What would cause this? Any potential overrides have been eliminated, and from what I can tell there were no overrides in the first place.

[Barb Binder]

Hi @California Gold:

I just went to read your Reddit thread to see if I could gain any additional insight and this line stands out:

"I'll just tried reapplying the parents and no change. If I make changes to my top parent, those changes do not display on any of the child levels below it." 

If the changes made to the A-parent don't impact the pages based on it, then those pages have overrides. We can't quite make out your layout from the little page icons and perhaps that was intentional. But it seems like A-parent holds the placeholder frames, and the you are adding content for the 4 products into those frames into B–D? And then it gets murky. It sounds like you need to remove the overrides, but without seeing the file it's hard to be more specific.

~Barb

[California Gold]

What causes these overrides? That is not an action I conciously performed. Somone mentioned that on Reddit but I didn't quite understand what they meant.

Here is an image of the C-Parent, which is below the A-Parent and above the pages.

[Barb Binder]

This explains how to override master page items, and how to remove the overrides. Knowing that this is new to you, work on a copy of the file. 

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/how-to/override-master-pages.html

~Barb

[California Gold]

I just followed the directions to remove any overrides thsat may have been erroneously placed, by dragging the parent onto its child, but there is no change in behavior. I think I understand how overrides work but I can't see that any have been applied here. Do I need to try and utilize these overrides to get the parent/child thing working how it is supposed to?

I also noticed that two of my pages under the same Parent have differenent logo sizes for some reason, even though that logo is in the parent and not either page, and there are no overrides. How is that possible?

The weird part is this stuff was all working properly until suddenly it wasn't anymore.

I'm about to just start over, I think I can recreate what I had done in a day or so.

[California Gold]

So the problem only pertains to certain parts of the parent. I can draw a shape in the upper part of the parent and it shows up everywhere, every page and child parent. But if I try to draw the same shape in the middle of the parent, it only shows up on the Parent, none off the child parents or pages.

What would cause this? Any potential overrides have been eliminated, and from what i can tell there were no overrides in the first place.

[Barb Binder]

Are you comfortable sharing the file with me? You can put it on a file sharing server like dropbox and post the link here (public) or click my name above this post and message it to me (private).

~Barb

[California Gold]

Yes, I think I will do that, it will take me a few minutes to figure out how to do. Thank you very much, my only alternative at this point is to start over completely from scratch.

[California Gold · Accepted solution]

OK wait, I think I might have just figure this out, or maybe its just working better after a reboot, or both......

I think I get it, if I make a frame in a parent, I can't put a different image in that same parent frame in each child.

Do I want to be creating a shape in the parent that looks like the frame I ultimately want to create, and then use that shape as a temmplate to create identical frames with their unique images for each page?