How to Change Margins for Book in InDesign 2024?

[Energy8990]

I am brand new to InDesign and have a book project I am working with (approx 200 pages). I am trying to adjust the margins, but the text is not moving with the margin change - I am not able to find where that layer may be locked - ? There may be another basic fix, but I'm just not familiar enough with this software - can anyone help?

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[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

Changing the document margins should be done with the Document Setup menu. Other tools may affect only the current page or have other unwanted limitations.

It's best to select your Parent pages and make the doc setup changes while using them as the visual reference. That, however, will not change the position of the Primary Text Frame; you'll have to do that manually on each Parent page. (I assume you're using a facing pair, with mirrored inside margins?)

Getting that change to automatically replicate through all of the document pages is a bit fussy. I believe it will happen only if you've set up facing pages, with a primary text frame, and flowed the content from that basis. Any manual setup or changes will be persistent and ignore such global adjustments. In the worst case, you have to go through page by page and adjust each text frame. (There are some streamlined procedures, but others here can better explain them.)

You also want to make sure you have only one (primary/body) text frame per page; it's easy to end up with duplicates that can confuse things no end. To check for this, save your file, then on any page select and move the primary text frame over an inch or two. If you see or can select another text frame in the same former place... you've got duplicates.

The really comprehensive way to fix this is to start over. Create a new doc file with your margins exactly as you want them (with facing pages and a primary text frame selected). Then select and copy all the text from your current file, place the cursor in the first page text frame of the new one, and paste. You should get a clean, new single flow with your new layout, and all of your styles carried forward. That can be easier, despite some duplication of setup work, than laboriously finding and fixing a host of other setup mistakes. 🙂

[Eugene Tyson]

You need to Adjust Layout

https://helpx.adobe.com/ie/indesign/using/adjust-layout.html

And your text frames need to be touching the margins that are already there.

It's not perfect, but will get you nearly there.