Where is the binding option in Indesign 2024?

[cecilya27223639]

For some mysterious reason my document is set up to bind on the right, which is causing my pages to export in the wrong order. I can't find where the option is to correct this -- it's not in the document setup dialogue box where i think it used to be. Weirdly, though the document is set up in USA English, when I try to copy a page over into a correctly set up file, everything pastes as Hebrew and the text flows the wrong way. Help!!

[Mike Witherell]

What computer operating system are you?

What version of InDesign are you running?

[cecilya27223639]

Hi Mike, I'm using MacOS Ventury 13.3 with Indesign 19.1 cc 2024. Thanks!

[Mike Witherell]

Have you experimented with upgrading to 19.2?

This might be relevant:

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/kb/fixed-issues.html

[cecilya27223639]

Hi Mike,

I just updated, but I still can't find the binding side option. And my document is still scrambled when I put it in spreads.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Are you using the MEL version of InDesign?

[cecilya27223639]

I don't know what that is, James!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

InDesign has (at least) two specialty language versions, a CJK (Chinese-Japanese-Korean) version that has features that handle Asian languages, and an MEL (Middle Eastern Languages) version that handles RTL, alternate-alphabet languages such as Arabic and Hebrew. The only significant support for RTL languages like Hebrew — which you mention — is in this latter version. (I'm not even sure if the English/Western version can do RTL content flow...)

All in all, it sounds like you have a corrupted document. Is this behavior happening in more than one document, and have you tried creating a completely fresh document to see if the problem persists there?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Jsut to add clarity: I don't think the standard edition of ID has a binding-direction setting. So the fault is something quite wrong with the document, or with corrupted app settings. All fixable, one way or the other.

[rob day]

Hi @cecilya27223639 , Make sure Allow Selected Spread to Shuffle is checked in your Pages flyout menu:

Then you should be able to drag Page 1 to the right of the spine:

[cecilya27223639]

Hi Rob, sadly, spread shuffle is on -- I can move pages around so that the spreads appear right in Indesign, but they still show up in the Pages panel in the wrong order, ie "3-2," "5-4", "7-6," and then export wrong.

If I could just find where they put the binding setting, I think it would fix it. But it's disappeared!

[Joel Cherney · Accepted solution]

That setting is actually only in the Middle East edition of InDesign that James is posting about. If you go into the preferences for the Creative Cloud app (File -> Preferences -> Apps -> Default Language), you can pick a language like "English (اللغة العربية)" or "English (שפה עברית)" and reinstall InDesign, and it'll give you an English interface with right-to-left controls, like the binding option in the Document Setup dialog. Your memory is correct; that's where it's located.  If you had binding controls, then you had one of those versions installed.

However, I've found that for many of us, Creative Cloud likes to forget the language selected when it gets updated, sometimes. So if you had InDesign 2023 (18.x) installed with "English (שפה עברית)" selected, and then you updated to InDesign 2024 (19.x), it may have updated with the "English" default language selected, and so you no longer have any of those RTL controls. (Also, even if this storyline doesn't apply to you, I do see at least one post every month or two from someone with an English localization of InDesign whose settings have somehow acquired some RTL behavior through some kind of bug or corruption in InDesign preferences.)

If you just want to fix this one document and don't want to much about with reinstalling a new localization of InDesign, I'm guessing that we could change the binding of your document with a single-line script:

app.documents[0].documentPreferences.pageBinding = PageBindingOptions.LEFT_TO_RIGHT;

[rob day]

Thanks, @Joel Cherney I wasn’t paying attention to the other spreads, your script does work—I don’t think the preference is available in the UI.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I was wondering if the RTL switch could be flipped in a doc that would then cause confusion in a non-MEL version of ID. Other than corruption, I'd bet that's what's up here.

[Joel Cherney]

Almost all of the formatting tools for RTL and CJK languages are present under the hood in generic English InDesign, but there's nothing attached to those functions in the UI.  They are accessible via scripting, but there's nothing to click on in the English interface. That's why I can make an Arabic document (including spine-right binding), and send it to a designer or printer with English-only InDesign, and expect it to render correctly; the underlying engine is basically identical. Something like this could have happened to Cecilya, but since Cecilya clearly correctly remembers exactly where the binding selection is found in ME versions of ID, I'm betting that they had it installed previously. 

(I say that the engine is "basically" identical because there are a few exceptions. It doesn't seem relevant to go into the details here, though, as no one is talking about classical vertical Chinese text, or laying out the Quran, neither of which is really doable without the appropriate localization of the UI. )

[Willi Adelberger]

1. Install a ME Version (like Hebrew or Arabic) above your version. There is no need to uninstall your version. You need only temporarily switch to that vaersion and after installation you can switch back.
2. Now some additional features are installed. To be exactly, no new features are installed, but some UI part so you can control ME languages.
3. The binding settings can now be changed from the Document Set Upd Dialog and in the New Document Dialoge for ne documents.

[cecilya27223639]

Many thanks — I switched the language and was able to access the binding edge selection tool, which fixed the issue. No idea how it got switched in the first place but glad it is working now!

[Design It.]

If I already designed a document how can I gt it to print with right to left binding?

I do not have the Middle Eastern version installed.

[Joel Cherney]

My answer posted upthread (back in February of 2024) has both of the possible answers:

1) Install a version of InDesign that has the binding control - either Arabic or Hebrew versions will have it

2) Run the one-line script I posted that changes the binding direction. If you need one, here's a guide on how to install and use scripts in InDesign.

[Willi Adelberger]

Install a ME version above the existing InDesign. This will add a bunch of functionalities and also a right binding in set up.