Problems with spreads--and why do some page numbers have brackets, as [16]?

[lawrenceg94065294]

My page spreads have gone squirrely. I'm moving pages from one document to another. There are 16 pages in the document 1. When I move pages from document 2 to the end of document 1, the first (right-hand) imported page of document 2 doesn't form a spread with p. 16 of document 1. The new, imported page 17 is on a new line below it. The last page of document 1 has brackets around the page number in the Pages window, as in [16].  I can drag the page 17 thumbnail up to make a spread, which is now numbered with brackets [16-17]. If I try to add two pages after p. 17, they don't form a new spread below [16-17], but instead make a FOUR-PAGE SPREAD [16-17-18-19]. If I try dragging 18-19 off this monstrosity, they don't align properly, either in the Pages window or in the main document window, as per attached images.

Help! How can I restore the spreads? And what do those brackets mean???

[lawrenceg94065294]

The images didn't display correctly in the post. Here they are, first the main document window, then two pix of the Pages window.

   

[BobLevine · Accepted solution]

Looks like allow pages to shuffle and / or allow spreads to shuffle is turned off. Check it in the pages panel menu.

[lawrenceg94065294]

That fixed it, thanks! Now what do those brackets around the page numbers mean???

[BobLevine]

It means they won't shuffle. Select them, open the pages panel menu and set them to allow them to shuffle.

[lawrenceg94065294]

Thanks, Bob. How in the world is somebody supposed to know this without learning it on a support forum? And what is the point of stopping pages from shuffling?

[Migintosh]

Bob can answer this with great detail, but here's a reason:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUvayH_AIG8

[BobLevine]

InDesign has a learning curve. There are plenty of ways to learn it from books to video courses.

Invest the time.

[lawrenceg94065294]

I'm not a newbie. I've used InDesign to make more than half a dozen books over twice that many years (see http://www.larrygonick.com/). But there are always plenty of features I haven't needed. It's a much more efficient use of my time to get tips from people like you than to watch a bunch of training videos!!! In particular, I wasn't able to find out what those bracketed numbers mean by referring to Adobe's online documentation, but got a quick answer by asking here in the forum. For which I thank you kindly.

[BobLevine]

Well, that's what we're here for.