InDesign is selecting the wrong page in page display

[Thomas_Calvin]

I wonder how much time this bug has wasted.

I noticed that when changing section-specific info in the Layout / Number & Section Options menu, sometimes it would produce totally unexpected results and screw up multiple sections and page layout.

It turns out that this is because pages are inexplicably selected in the Pages tab, unrelated to where the insertion point resides. Sometimes two pages are selected at once in that pane, other times only one... but frequently the selected one(s) is wrong. I didn't select it, and it doesn't reflect the page on which I'm working.

Further experimentation shows that it usually selects both pages of a spread, instead of the one you put the insertion point on. That is a major PITA; if you click on the right page thinking you're going to start a new section, InDesign will instead start the section with the left page, messing things up.

With the insertion point sitting in text, I expect any changes made to the section or chapter options to affect the section in which I'm working; not in some arbitrarily (and automatically) highlighted thumbnail in a disconnected pane.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

The best thing to do, when adding Sections - is to first double-click in the Pages panel, on the page you want to make active.

Page that is highlighted in the Pages panel - doesn't have to be the one that you've displayed. 

[leo.r]

To illustrate the point made by @Robert at ID-Tasker, in the Pages panel you can select multiple pages or deselect all pages. Basically, in the Pages panel you can only reliably identify the active spread by its highlighted page numbers, but not the active page.

I do agree that it can be confusing in situations where the highlighted page is not the actual active page.

[Thomas_Calvin]

Thanks guys.

Just now I was reminded that there's yet another hole in this mess, making this

"in the Pages panel you can only reliably identify the active spread by its highlighted page numbers"

not true.

If you apply a parent page to a child and then add another page to your document, whoops: It doesn't add another page to your document. It adds another parent page, because using a parent page leaves it somewhat selected?

Therefore it is not reliable to perform all your page operations in the Pages pane. Oh well.

Screen grab of this ridiculousness attached.

[Mike Witherell]

Hi Thomas,

Why would you have 4 triangles indicating Start Sections in the first 5 pages? What really are you trying to do?

If I was going to add or remove or move pages around, the first thing I would do is get out of the Type tool and into the black Selection tool. Page icons in the Pages panel can be targeted by clicking the individual page icon for an individual page, or selected by double-clicking the individual page icon or double-clicking the number label beneath the Page Spread icons to target a spread and also to be selected to and viewing that page or spread. A technique I would not practice is sliding up and down the OS vertical scrolling slider to go from page spread to page spread. Cmd/Ctrl+J is the go-to-page command. I like to be targeted to the page icon and viewing the page before I operate the Type tool in that page.

[Thomas_Calvin]

Was that directed at me? I don't know what that's about; I never said anything about moving pages around.

[Barb Binder]

Hello again, @Thomas_Calvin:

I'm going to visually support the other helpful answers already here...

I head off this confusion by having all my students undock the Pages panel, keep it visible and focus on using it for page navigation. As you are belatedly figuring out, the blue highlighting is critical.

Below, I am showing with Mike is saying. (BTW, we are both InDesign instructors. As a matter of fact, Mike taught InDesign a million years ago because he saw the writing on the wall noting PageMaker's demise so much more quickly than I did.)

• When I double click the page 2 icon, page 2 is selected and is centered. The page 2 thumbnail and the page numbers underneaath are both blue. 
• When I double click the page 3 icon, page 3 is selected and is centered. The page 3 thumbnail and the page numbers underneaath are both blue. 
• When I double click the dash between pages 2 and 3, the spread is selected and centered. The thumbnail for the spread and the page numbers are both blue. 

To get to the A-Parent, double click the words A-Parent. Both the page icons and the words A-Parent will be blue.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with Mike and say you can also change the selected spread by scrolling and clicking/selecting—but you always have one eye on the Pages panel to be sure you are where you think you are. And Leo has an excellent example of the perils of the Pages panel in his second screen shot—the page numbers 4–5 are selected but the page icons on some other spread are selected. They need to all be blue.

It's tough to teach yourself a mature application like InDesign without buying a book or taking a class. There are so many little things to trip us up that just aren't obvious or discoverable.

~Barb

[Thomas_Calvin]

Thanks Barb. I actually have two classes and a book at my disposal. However, going through these, I (and coworkers) have found that they focus on things that have nothing to do with our work. Making brochures and whatnot. Positioning graphics and doing funky layouts. I doubt that it would adequately emphasize the incompetence of this particular display... although if it did, I would be impressed.

[leo.r]

I doubt that it would adequately emphasize the incompetence of this particular display... although if it did, I would be impressed.

By @Thomas_Calvin

In your screenshot, you selected a master page in the Pages panel. You might have wanted to delete this page or perform some other page management tasks. Certainly you wouldn't want some other page to remain selected while you don't want to perform any actions with that page. The highlighted numbers indicate the active spread.

[leo.r]

P.S. It could indeed possibly be helpful to introduce a different highlight type or indicator specifically for the active page as opposed to the selected page. 

[Thomas_Calvin]

I didn't, though. I was not working with the master page. If you watch these selections, they will arbitrarily change. Sometimes you'll find only one page selected in the child-page area, sometimes two. But it doesn't follow the insertion point correctly.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Thomas_Calvin 

Pretty "normal" - you can "select" page on Master at any point - with a single click - even when your cursor is in the text, on a normal page:

Exactly the same way as you can click any other page - but still edit text where your cursor is:

The only thing that "matters" are the highlighted page numbers of the spread.

[Thomas_Calvin]

Those highlighted page numbers change all the time while you work, and yet don't reflect where you're working. If I'm typing along and decide, well, it's time for a new section... and go to Layout / Number and Sections, it's going to mess up my document because two pages are inexplicably selected even though I'm obviously only working on one. So any change you make will actually start at the leftmost of those two pages, which is wrong if you're working on the right page.

So, based on this defective behavior, you must continually baby-sit the UI by re-clicking the thumbnail of the page you really want to work on whenever your cursor transits to a new page. Actually, it's worse than that: You have to click some other random thumbnail to deselect the two pages, because clicking one of them doesn't work. Then you can re-click the one you're actually working on.

[leo.r]

Those highlighted page numbers change all the time while you work

By @Thomas_Calvin

The highlighted page numbers always reflect the active spread.

The highlighted page icons do not, indeed, necessarily reflect the active page. They cannot always reflect the active page due to the nature of the Pages panel functionality, where you can select arbitrary pages for the purpose of page management (deletion, rearrangement, etc). I agree that in certain situations this behavior can be misleading.

As already mentioned, I also agree that ideally there should be an additional indicator that would denote the active page as opposed to the selected page.

You can submit requests here:

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests

[Thomas_Calvin]

Thanks. But I disagree that they can't show the active page; they already attempt to do so, albeit incorrectly. When the editing pane has focus, the "selected" page in the thumbnails should be the one where the insertion point is sitting (unless there's a selection that crosses the page boundary).

This would not preclude anyone from clicking on multiple thumbnails in the Pages tab and performing actions. When the user clicks back in the editing area, the pages pane would return to highlighting the page containing the insertion point as the selected one. This behavior already exists (although it's absurdly inconsistent): If you select three page thumbnails, and then click back in the editing area, the selected page thumbnails will indeed change... oh, but only if it happens to be a page outside of the selected collection. Otherwise, nothing happens.

The current behavior is a lackadaisical mess. It's really not hard to clean it up.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

(sorry, this message should be under the previous one - I've clicked wrong reply)

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

[...] If I'm typing along and decide, well, it's time for a new section... and go to Layout / Number and Sections, it's going to mess up my document because two pages are inexplicably selected even though I'm obviously only working on one. [...]

By @Thomas_Calvin

Not sure if you're responding to me...

I have just checked something -  you can just right-click on the page you want the Section to start on - it doesn't even have to be highlighted or active or selected 🙂

I'm right-clicking on the page 15:

but my cursor is editing text on the page 4 - red square - completely "invisible" page in the Pages pallet.

And the effect - my text cursor is till in the text and I can edit it without any interruptions:

You can go even "further" - you can edit your text and drag&drop Parent/Master on any page:

I'm still editing the same text:

[Thomas_Calvin]

Thanks Robert, that context menu is a handy find! Quicker than digging through the Layout menu.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Thanks Robert, that context menu is a handy find! Quicker than digging through the Layout menu.

By @Thomas_Calvin

It's not a "find" - you have this context menu pretty much everywhere - pretty much every option in the top menu / hamburger menu - is available when you right-click:

Aven when nothing is selected on the Page:

Or when you're editing text:

With Styles you can go even further:

You can edit another style - when your cursor is in the text and another style is active.

[Thomas_Calvin]

It's a find because the context menu's contents change, depending on the object clicked upon and its circumstances. One could not be expected to guess that section and numbering options would appear in this one, because those are not page-specific operations that you expect to find in the Pages pane (like deleting, duplicating, adding pages).

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Thomas_Calvin 

I'll even mess it up for you a bit more 😄

Of course, only ONE document / copy can be active - but you can use 2nd window to get a preview of some other part of the document - that otherwise would be unreachable - but your editing might influence it.

For example - edting Master/Parent Page - and see the changes in real time in full scale:

On the left - Master that I'm editing - on the right - live preview of the effects.

It's not "fully live" - you need to stop creating / dragging / resizing your element to get previews updated in the other window.

But when editing text - preview is almost instant.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

>>>Thanks Barb. I actually have two classes and a book at my disposal. 

You have definitely NOT taken classes from Barb or myself. One of our specialtys is long-document production.

Garden-variety classes are not in-depth enough for covering the this type of documentation. 

[Thomas_Calvin]

The classes were chosen for us by management, so unfortunately I was not involved. If yours singles out UI gaffes like this, kudos to you.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

To some extent. Some of it is just using the proper techniques and understanding any limitations (and possibly finding solutions). 

[Barb Binder]

Ha. Here you are! 

Your final image is what is was referring to by  "And Leo has an excellent example of the perils of the Pages panel in his second screen shot—the page numbers 4–5 are selected but the page icons on some other spread are selected. They need to all be blue." I call that view "Never Never Land"—not sure what Mike calls it—but it's a place you don't ever want to be. It happens when you single click and don't double click when navigating with the Pages panel. 

As for training classes, how effective they are depends on the instructor. A lot of people teach InDesign, but don't know it well. In my opinion, they need to know InDesign, they need to use it for layout outside of class, they need to be effective communicators and in your specific case, they need to understand long document layout, which is very different from designing brochures and flyers, etc. You would likely benefit from a custom class tailored to your specific needs, rather than most of the public classes out there.

Or maybe this course would be both beneficial and cost-effective: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/indesign-creating-long-documents-13887227/creating-indesign-book-f... though you might want to skim David Blatner's Essentials Training first. Mastering the interface is surprisingly important, as you are learning.

~Barb