Is it possible to hide pages?

Finally Adobe have listened! 🕺New in InDesign 2024, Hide spreads. Select page or spread in the Pages panel, right click and select "Hide spread"., and the hidden pages won't be included in the export. Just updated and haven't tested it yet though, so I can't speak about the page numbering.

There's an update on this for 19.0

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/unveiling-indesign-s-latest-gem-quot-hide-spread-quot-feature/td-p/14145958

Another vote for alternative layouts.

Thanks for all your reponses! But I need some time to process it 😉

Hiding pages - not sure exactly if this is what you want.

But I often get requested to remove entire pages - which isn't an issue - but I simply drag them to the Master Pages - then delete the page from the dcoument

If they want it restored - I'll just drag back to the pages into the position they want it.

Not the cleanest but works.

There are at least a couple of ways you could do this—Numbering and Section Options or Create Alternate Layout, but I would probably go with the first option to keep things somewhat simple. Using Numbering and Section Options allows you to keep the page variations next to each other. For example, if you want to create three different cover page designs, you can do the following:

1. Select and Right + click on page 1 and uncheck Allow Document Pages to Shuffle.

2. Select and Right + click on spread 2-3 and uncheck Allow Document Pages to Shuffle and Allow Selected Spread to Shuffle.

3. Right + click again on spread 2-3 and choose Numbering and Section Options. Set the value the Start Section > Start Page Numbering field to 2.

4. Right + click on page 1 and choose Insert Pages and add 2 pages.

The pages will come in as part of the page 1 spread. If you wish to separate them so they appear as individual pages, click and drag each page to the right until you see a straight line appear in the panel.

Deleting any of the cover page variations will not affect the rest of the document numbering.

Create Alternate Layout was intended for creating alternate vertical and horizontal layouts for digital publications, but it can also be used for this purpose, although it places any alternate pages at the end of the document and adds some complexity. It does allow you to link stories so that if you change text in original, it can be automatically updated in any variations. See Adobe's help page for more information. https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/alternate-layouts-liquid-layouts.html#id_84683

If you are doing page numbering the standard way, you are placing a text frame on the master page, and inserting the page-number character (Type>Insert Special Character>Markers>Current Page Number). Any document pages that have that master page applied will show the current page number. To not have a page number on some pages, apply a different master page that doesn't have the page-number text frame on it. If you want several numbered pages, followed by some un-numbered pages, and then some numbered pages again, you can re-start page numbering on a particular document page at what ever would have been the next number in your sequence in the Numbering and Section Options of the Pages window. Keep in mind that if you are in a facing-pages document, inserting an odd number of pages between two consecutive pages will change which side of the fold subsequent pages will be on, so having your variations sprinkled throughout your document will mean you will have to undo sections at some point, and if that's OK with you, you can certainly do that, but I probably wouldn't want to do tha myself. Have you considered doing your alternate pages as layers on the pages they are alternates of? That might save you some work.