Participating Frequently

Answered

Parent Page Header Not Displaying on Left Page After Update

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
March 22, 2025
6 replies
1627 views

I have used parent pages since I started using InDesign 4 years ago. I made the latest software update today and am suddenly having this issue:

A-parent is applied to 4 pages (two spreads). A-parent consists of a running header on the top (left and right, centered), and page numbers on the bottom (left and right).

On the first spread, both headers and page numbers appear on the designed page. On the second spread, both page numbers appear, but only the right header appears.

The thumbnail overview clearly shows that the A-parent is applied to all four pages.

I tried substituting a copy of the A-parent to the page that is not showing the header. No difference. I also tried susbstituting the [None] parent. This works, but of course it's not the parent I need there.

I also tried creating an alternate A-parent, moving the header text to the bottom of the page, next to the page number. In this case, both text and page number show up on the designed page. It's as if something is blocking the upper portion of the parent from being displayed on that page only.

I'm sure this is something stupid that I'm not seeing . Any idea how to troubleshoot or fix it? Thanks in advance.

Correct answer Robert at ID-Tasker

@rainydaypixels

Some extra mess has been imported from WORD:

And, in the BODY TEXT ParaStyle, you have:

Both rules - Above and Below are ON:

To show it better - I've changed them from White to Yellow - above, and Cyan - below:

Robert at ID-TaskerCorrect answer

Legend

@rainydaypixels

Some extra mess has been imported from WORD:

And, in the BODY TEXT ParaStyle, you have:

Both rules - Above and Below are ON:

To show it better - I've changed them from White to Yellow - above, and Cyan - below:

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

@Robert at ID-Tasker Did you get a look at the OP's file or is this an educated guess? (If a guess, it's a good one...)

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@Robert at ID-Tasker Did you get a look at the OP's file or is this an educated guess? (If a guess, it's a good one...)

By @Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Got the file 😉

R

rainydaypixelsAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks so much everyone for your responses. Sincere apologies for my slow followup. My heavy schedule has prevented a faster reply.

For the project that inspired this query, I found a temporary workaround which involved reordering the layers on a page, placing the layer with the parent page on top. (Thank you Willi for suggesting I look at the layers.) Now I'm on a new project and that solution doesn't seem to work anymore.

I created a mockup with three images so you can see what I'm dealing with. As best I can tell, it's as if there's an invisible border (about one-inch thick) around the text frame that blocks out anything below it. This border only appears on certain text frames, I have no idea why. (Some spreads work just fine.)

In the attached photos, the right-hand page is as I want it (text frame, author header, page number footer). The header and footer are on the A-parent.

The issue is with the lefthand page.

In image 1, the title header is obscured by the text frame's invisible border.
In image 2, the title header is revealed because the text frame was lowered (but note that this obscures the number footer).
In image 3, the title header shows through the body text because the text frame has been raised quite high. (Apparently only the invisible border blocks the content underneath.)

Does anyone have any idea what the heck is going on here? As I said in the original post, I've been using InDesign for years and never had this problem until the most recent update.

Thanks so much!

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@rainydaypixels

Doesn't look like a TextWrap problem?

Will be much easier - if you could share your file - or this specific part - you can scramble text or fill with a placeholder.

Please click my nickname if you prefer to share it privately.

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

I've had a situation in the past where if a running header text frame 'touched' the page edge at the spine - the header on the other page disappears in the layout.

I never have text frames touching on Parent Pages since - well could be this but I don't really know, just remembering a scenario I faced before maybe it helps.

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

Are you sure you did not accidentally override and remove the running header?
Are you sure that the header was not covered by content? To avoid this, work with layers and put page numbers and headers on a layer above all other layers.
Could text wrap affect the content? Apply the used object style with the property to ignore text wrap.
To get cleaner files, rename the generic names of masters/parents with more descriptive name and letters or numbers. Don't end up with several identical named masters/parents as it cause confusion.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@rainydaypixels

If it's an old file, created in some older version of InDesign and then multiple InDesign updates were installed - and you were only doing Save - then maybe your file is corrupted?

Try IDMLing - export as IDML, open, save with a new name - do not overwrite your original file.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Are your headers based on variables or directly typed in?

Any chance your Cntl/Cmd-Shift-clicked on the header?

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded