Master glitches for InDesign

[Millicent98A7]

All of a sudden, I've lost control of my masters and override doesn't help. I have two masters, one for the chapter opening pages of my novel that doesn't include page numbers or book/author name, and one for the regular pages that does include that. Currently, I can only assign one or the other to all the pages in the book (all pages is the only option on the clickdown menu). Frustrating.

[Peru Bob]

I've moved this from the Using the Community forum (which is the forum for issues using the forums) to the InDesign forum so that proper help can be offered.

[Migintosh]

First, I'm not sure how overriding is going to help with applying masters to document pages. That's for editing master objects on document pages independently from the master items on the master pages. There are reasons to do that, but that's a different discussion.

What I'd try first is to make a new document with a few pages and two masters and see if you can do what you want there. If you can, it suggests that you could have some document corruption in your problem file. A few standard fixes are to do a save-as (pick a new name or location so you can keep the original). Next you can export as .idml, open that file and see if it works. If not, come on back.

[Millicent98A7]

I exported as .idml and opened it, still only has 'all pages' as the pulldown menu on Apply Master. I'll try next the option of making a new document (but hate to lose hours of programming for the old one).

[Randy Hagan]

You may want to truy manually dragging a master page onto the corresponding page number icon in your Pages panel.

Try one page to make sure that will work for you. I you don't already have it available, open your Pages panel. Go to the first chapter's first page and then drag down from the icon for your opening page master and place it on the icon for your first page of the first chapter in your document. If it does, and I suspect it will, assign All Pages with your regular pages, then drag and drop the exceptions for your chaper opening pages.

This may not get to the root of your issue, but it will hopefully get you past it with just a little extra effort.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[Millicent98A7]

Randy, dragging of the master page I want on top of each individual page seems to be working, I'll keep going with it, thanks a million! I was pulling my hair out. It's strange that it doesn't happen with a brand new created file, so as you mention, something got corrupted. I tried creating a new file and copying the content, but the corruption came with it. Is it safe to uninstall InDesign and reinstall it, if I have the files created with it saved? I'm not sure whether that would help if the corruption is within the file itself.

[Randy Hagan]

Glad I could help on the first count. Sometimes working your way around the problem is easier than beating your head up against it.

As long as your working files aren't stored in the same folder as your InDesign program files (not likely, but I have to say it anyway justy in case), you can remove and reinstall your InDesign program without affecting your working files. But there is a step short of that you may want to consider.

As long as you don't have a lot of custom preferences set within your InDesign program (custom master pages don't count), you can reset your preferences to default and see if that helps you with your issues. Resetting prefernces can cure a lot of odd little ills with InDesign. Maybe it'll help in your case.

It may be worth a shot.

Good luck,

Randy