Two automatic page numbering for the same page

[Zaid Al Hilali]

I'm trying to help a customer who's working on a book. The client is not using the "Book" feature in InDesign, rather just a normal InDesign document.

They placed automatic page numbering that goes from 1 for the first page, and 1378 for the last page, however, they want to apply an additional set of auto page numbering for each of the stories within the book. 

For example, page 324 is the beginning of a new story, the page number 324 is visible already on the bottom right corner of the page, yet they want to display number 1 on the bottom left corner of the same page as this is the start of a new story and subsequently next pages for the same story will run 325 on the bottom-right, and 2 on the bottom left and so on.

Do we have a script for this task? Or, any other InDesign native work around?

[Laubender]

Hi Zaid,

just some ideas: use threaded text frames and a couple of numbered lists perhaps.

If the applied parent pages do not already use the Primary Textframe feature for the main text one could use also this for the extra numbering.

A script is also possible. Would be a custom one that is adding one threaded text frame per page as long as a story proceeds.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Zaid Al Hilali]

I tried a numbered list now it will work alright. I however need more details about your second suggestion where the client can use the Primary Tex frame because they're not using the Primary text frame currently.

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

Hi Zaid,

I thought about my workflow again.

No Primary Text Frame needed for what I like to do.

Here we go:

[1] Add one text frame on both pages of your parent page.

Thread both text frames.

[2] Prepare a story with text for your page numbers according to the stories of your document on the pasteboard of the first spread with two facing pages where the numbers should start. The story could containauto numbered paragraphs or a plain sequence of numbers, one number a paragraph. Set the Start Paragraph options of the text to "Next Frame" in the applied paragraph style(s) .

[3] For backup duplicate that text frame with the number story that is now in overset because of the Start Paragraph setting.. Then load all the text of the story to your cursor. To do that click the outport of the text frame, then delete the text frame.

[4] Hover the loaded cursor with the numbers over the text frame from the parent page when you are on a document page. Hold the Shift key and unload the story with a click. That would move the whole story in and threads the whole story frame by frame and page by page.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Good on you Uwe, this is genius. It worked like a charm on my test document, however, I tested it on a sample file from my customer and saw the content of the second page and all subsequent pages shifts forward and the document now shows twice its original number of pages. 

I need to analyze what the customer has done on the pages in order to implement this trick on their file.

[Laubender]

Hm. Perhaps turn off:

Preferences > Type > [ ] Smart Text Reflow

That's a property of a document.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Right again, I turned off the Smart Text Reflow. thank you Uwe!

[m1b]

I think there is a native way to do exactly this: please see this article, and scroll down to "Create variables for running headers and footers". The idea is that every time a certain style is used, eg. For the story title, that variable is incremented. 
- Mark

[Zaid Al Hilali]

I followed the instructions on the help page but then couldn't see how to make an auto page numbering will be generated using text variable!

[m1b]

My apologies @Zaid Al Hilali, I did not understand your request correctly. Please ignore my suggestion.

-Mark

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Hi Mark, no need to apologise, the help page discusses page numbers, it is just Adobe had multiple topics on the same help page. Thanks for trying to assist.