How to Keep Headers on Master Page In Place When Adding Additional Pages?

[raquelindsay]

We have a report template for company documents, and it is set up on the master page to have chapter headers, page numbers, footer, etc. We are using CC 2017.

The issue is that once a header has the chapter title added to it on a page, it doesn't stay in place when additional pages are added to the report that cause the page to change from right-hand to left-hand. The pictures of the master page and document pages are below, showing how the headers are shifted to the spine leaving white spaces on the edges of the page.

Thanks for your help.

[Barb Binder]

Hi Raquel:

How are you adding the content? Are you overriding the frames on the body pages?

~Barb

[raquelindsay]

Yes, using ctrl-shift-click to enter the chapter title on the page.

Entering it in the master page would mean needing to create a different master page for every chapter, doesn't that defeat the purpose of a master page? If there is a better way please share!

Thanks,

Rachel

[Barb Binder]

Yes. You can define a running header text variable to pull the text off the page for you.

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/text-variables.html

https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quick-tip-how-to-make-running-headers-in-adobe-indesign--vecto...

~Barb

[raquelindsay]

We use running header text variables to pull the chapter title and other info into the footer of each page. But the header is the first and  only place the chapter title would appear on the page, so there isn't anywhere to pull the text from without repeating the chapter title below the header bar in the body of the text. Which would be redundant and make the header bar unnecessary.

The only workaround I can think of is layering an additional text box over a solid filled frame instead of using a filled text box for the chapter headings. Which I was avoiding because it's more likely to result in the text position in the header getting shifted accidentally.

But I still don't understand why the header bars are shifting at all, since they are centered across the full width of the each page (R or L irregardless) to begin with.

[SJRiegel]

raquelindsay  wrote

header is the first and  only place the chapter title would appear on the page

You could still use a running text variable. Just have its source text in a text frame that barely touches the page, with the text outside of your bleed area.

[raquelindsay]

This would work. We've used this workaround too, when we compile books and need to have the footer in each section reflect the report name. We have to be careful how many of these workarounds we build into the template because we have an office of 7 people who might be editing any given document. We found a solution that works even better for us - posting it below.

[raquelindsay · Accepted solution]

The best correction we found was reformatting the chapter headers using paragraph shading instead of a text box fill. Added a paragraph shading to the paragraph style, set to fill the column width, with insets to align the text with the border.  We can stick to the system of lifting the header to the page and entering the chapter heading, and for some reason there is no shifting anymore when we add extra pages.

Thanks for everyone's help!

[Barb Binder]

Great idea. Glad you go to work.

Happy weekend,

~Barb

[Barb Binder]

Or just define a regular text variable with the value equal to the chapter name.

~Barb