InDesign won't resize a document

[Steven Hiatt]

I'm redoing a book from several years ago to a new format the publisher wants to use. We'll go from 36 x 46.5 picas to 129mm x 198mm. I don't want anything to rescale--only the page size/interior margins to change. It's understood that there will be some text reflow--the text measure will go from 26 picas to 23.

I've tried both the Document Setup and Adjust Layout routines, and they don't work. As in, the document pages remain exactly the same size as they were before, though the interior margins do change. 

[Willi Adelberger]

If the sizes were changed with the page tool changes in the document set upare ignored.

[Steven Hiatt]

The page sizes were changed via File > Document Setup and File > Adjust Layout, as Adobe suggests on https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/adjust-layout.html.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I think Willi means that if the pages in the document were changed using the (essentially spot-override) method of selecting them with the Page tool, they are now outside the document control menus.

You may find it easiest to simply flow the content into a new document with the correct page setup, and touch up from there.

[Steven Hiatt]

As I said, I didn't select pages and use the Page tool, but used the Document control menus. That didn't work.

You may be right that Adobe has messed this up, and that it's best to, basically, start over.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

To re-re-clarify... 🙂

It may be that the pages in the document were resized at some point using the Page tool method, which is now blocking changes using the more global methods. This is not otherwise any kind of common occurrence, at all. Resizing a document can be a headache in a number of ways, but completely failing to respond to page size changes is an individual fault of some kind, not a general app fault.

Try the 'purge' fix: save the document in IDML form, then reopen that and save as a new INDD file. See if that fixes the problem.

[Steven Hiatt · Accepted solution]

I don't think the pages were ever resized using Page tool--I created them originally, which is why the job has come back to me: I have the original files. But I'll try your IDML fix--that sounds like the best avenue to take. Thanks!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Fixing problems like these often falls into Sherlock Holmes territory: if you've checked everything it might be without success, you have to start checking things it can't be. 🙂

It's surprising — or not — how often  these nagging problems end with some variation of "Oh... I didn't think that mattered." But if it's not some forgotten operation or setting, it might be doc corruption, and the IDML trick should help.

If the book is correctly set up with one text flow (or a few organized flows/stories), the 'dump the contents into a new page layout' process might bypass a lot of frustrating fix-up work.