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Inspiring
December 5, 2020
Question

How to best Move Pages inside the same document?

  • December 5, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 1082 views

Dear all,

I'm taking care of the layout of a book which is made of multiple chapters, with hundreds of images and little graphical equations. 

The structure is pretty simple (just a couple of Master Pages to handle the most used variations). 

I have today received a request from the author that the last chapter should be moved to become the third in the list. I thought this would have not been a problem but once I went to the Pages panel, selected the desired page-range, right-clicked, Move Pages and hit OK something weird happened. 

 

The pages correctly moved to the desired place but all sections and headers and master pages messed up.

I thought this should have moved the sections as well but it seems not. Page numbers are governed by section names as well so moving pages around screwed this as well. 

Is there a way to simply move a whole chapter from one place to the other of the document?

Please let me know if I should provide any further detail to help you investigate the issue.

 

Thank you

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1 reply

Dave Creamer of IDEAS
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 5, 2020

Personally, I would take the time to split the large, single file into separate chapters and use the InDesign book file to organize the chapters.

 

Moving the pages shouldn't not have affected the layout but could if your left-and-right pages swapped postions--especially if you did not have layout adjustment on or use a primary text frame. 

 

Also, the sections will have to be manually updated. If you use a ID book file, a chapter number would replace the section marker. 

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
Inspiring
December 5, 2020

Thanks!

I thought about splitting the file and that's probably what I will do.

Assuming I would like to keep everything in a single document, though, what could I do? How could I use the feature you call "layout adjustment"? I've read of "primary text frames" but am not too familiar with how that works and how that would benefit my current situation.

The main issue is that all MP overrides have stayed in that page instead of moving, and now all subsequent pages have different MP applied to them, a total mess (sure, I've undone the moving so it's no permanent damage).

Inspiring
December 5, 2020

Another thing. 

I have two headers for each page which is not a chapter-first page. 

The outside header shows the section name, which is thankfully automatic and working beautifully while the inside header shows the name of the subchapter which, due to layout and to content, is going to change all the time.

Now I find myself with all those inside headers screwed up, with master pages reapplied without my consent or request. 

It is so irritating that one cannot just move things around and sections stay waterproof, like the containers they should be. There must be a better way to do this.