Why does adding a page create a three-page spread?

[Thomas_Calvin]

My parent pages are a two-page spread. I have one page, to which the appropriate parent page has been applied. When I insert a page break on that first page, InDesign inexplicably creates a three-page horizontal spread.

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Thomas_Calvin:

I couldn't recreate this with by manually shuffling spreads/pages but I could by disabling the primary frames in one file, setting it as the style source and then syncing the parent pages to the other files in the book.

Since this is an on-going issue and a clear pain point, you could triple check that the style source has primary frames but honestly, I would just avoid syncing the parent pages at this point. If you need to make a parent page change, just copy and paste in place in the other nine files. (Or use a library item or a snippet.)

Without looking over your shoulder and watching your work, I have absolutely no idea if you have uncovered a bug or are making a mistake that you just haven't realized yet. There's just no way to know. I know you are convinced it is a bug—and it may well be!—so be sure you are amending your bug report with additional examples, and if Adobe staff wants to see your files, I'd share them even though I know maintaining content confidentiality is important to you. 

~Barb

[Thomas_Calvin]

Thanks! How do you disable the primary frames?

Anyway, I think I've reported this, and I'd be willing to share the files with Adobe staff only. But without clear reproduction steps that I might actually have done, it seems a bit futile. My work on this book at this point is extremely repeatable and routine; I'm not changing the parent pages, drawing frames, "shuffling" pages manually. So, while the triggers you guys have discovered are interesting clues, I don't think there's any way they happened in my case. I simply don't venture into those areas.

My process has been to copy the legacy, non-flowing file and have it open in InDesign. Then delete all but the first page from the working version, delete the independent text frame from that first page, apply the new parent (with the flowing, primary text frame) to the first page, and then start copying and pasting the text (the text only, not frames) one page at a time from the legacy version into the primary frame of the reconsitututed one. As I copy and paste, InDesign adds pages automatically. So I know that flow is primary and working.

I also set the book "sync source" to the file I'm working on. If I find that some style needs to be adjusted, I do so and then sync the book. All the time, throughout the book. Over and over, all day. It is imperative that the book be consistent and set up for future maintainers.

The "book" functionality should allow book-level parent pages and styles; to me that's a huge portion of why you'd want to create a book in the first place. This continual baby-sitting of the sync source and manually-triggered syncs is annoying and error-prone, even without the primary-flow bug.

[rob day]

I also set the book "sync source" to the file I'm working on.

I would expect that might cause your problems. You should choose a single book file to act as the Style Source. If you want to change all the book’s masters and styles do it from the chosen Style Source document then sync to get the other documents’ masters and styles to match.

[Thomas_Calvin]

That's not a reasonable requirement. As I go through the various chapters, I may encounter a style that needs adjustment but isn't even used in the previous "style source" document. That's why I make the style source the document I'm working on. If that's a problem, the functionality is defective.

[rob day]

That's why I make the style source the document I'm working on

If you change the Style Source to the active document every time you make an edit, you have effectively eliminate the feature—there would be no need for a Style Source if the active document always acts as the source when you sync. If you really want to do that run a Sync before you swich sources.

[Thomas_Calvin]

I don't see how that "eliminates the feature." I'm refining our styles as I put the book together and discover new layout situations that need to be handled, or style combinations that don't look good together and need to be tweaked.

> If you really want to do that run a Sync before you swich sources

I do. I run it after every style change, or after I'm done editing each document.

[rob day]

I think you would have to do a Sync before and after every snyc source change, and all you would have to do is forget once to potentially introduce a problem.

[Thomas_Calvin]

Why would I have to one after a source change, having just done one before the change? All the documents in the book are supposed to be synced at that point. What do you expect to happen?

[rob day]

What do you expect to happen?

Prevent your Primary Text frame problems.

[Thomas_Calvin]

How? That doesn't follow at all. You're telling me to sync all files twice in a row. That doesn't make sense.

Once you sync all characteristics of all files, it should not matter what your "sync source" is until you change one of the syncable properties in one of the files. If it does, syncing is defective, because the files are obviously not synced.

I performed extensive testing and reported the results in the appropriate thread here: Re: Book-syncing marks all text flows as "non-prim... - Adobe Community - 15344893

Let's confine further dicussion of the syncing problem to that one.

[rob day]

You're telling me to sync all files twice in a row.

No, I’m really telling you to stop changing your Style Source document, which I don’t think has been mentioned in your other threads?

I used to do a lot of Book work 20 years ago when processing speeds made long, complex docs a challenge, and the complications of Book .indb files were worth it. I never changed the Sync source—its not that difficult to go to the source doc, edit a style or parent page, then Sync.

[Thomas_Calvin]

Yes, your suggestion amounts to syncing twice in a row.

Your insistence upon picking a single document in the book as the sync source and never changing it is, as I pointed out, not a reasonable or practical solution. As I'm going through chapters and find that I need to adjust a style, I'm supposed to remember everything I want to do to it... then run over to this other document... go into the style properties... change the ones I wanted to tweak... then re-sync the whole book? No.

Not only is this a pain in the ass, but there's no evidence at all that this has anything to do with the syncing bug. In fact, there's now evidence to the contrary. Did you look at my test results in the thread on that issue? They show that your suggestion will not work.

What your suggestion amounts to is what should already exist in the book functionality: master pages, styles, and all other syncable characteristics stored at the book level; not in an individual document. The continual baby-sitting and manual syncing is asinine and error-prone, and undermines one of the core reasons to set up a book in the first place.

I'm not addressing the syncing defect in this thread anymore, and I'm not entertaining any time-wasting workarounds that are in fact not workarounds at all.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I do change my sync source as needed, especially if I create (or find) a new style in another chapter. 

However, I always go though Sync Options and only select the settings I've changed/created. For example, if I only modified/created a paragraph style, that's all I sync. I very rarely sync everything all at once. Of course, one can sync from the Options panel.

Another thing I do is create a "style master" at the end of the book that contains ALL the styles grouped together, such as all the Title styles, all the Heading styles, all the Body styles, all the Table styles, etc. It makes it easier to update that file and sync back to the other files. With that in mind, I sync any new styles to it, enter the style name and format it appropriately in the actual document for visual reference. Then that always becomes my sync source. 

[Thomas_Calvin]

I was thinking about how I'd implement this if I were on the InDesign team, and I would do just what you did: create a "style master" document at book-creation time. It would be stored in the INDB file and invisible to the user. This would minimize development time and allow the function to use already-existing logic that lets you import styles and whatnot from one document to another.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Just a bit of nostaliga, The old Ventura Publisher used to have an external style sheet. 

[Thomas_Calvin]

That tidbit led me to this, which in the first two comments indicts InDesign's handling of styles and calls for a common stylesheet: Does Ventura Publisher still exist? : r/coreldraw

"I use InDesign every day... the way it handles styles is terrible when you need to synchronize between documents. As far as I'm concerned, we should have the option to use the equivalent of a CSS style sheet - wherein all associated but separate documents share a central style source."

[Thomas_Calvin]

Aaand this just happened again. I had finished my whole book, going through all 8 or so remaining chapters that were still in legacy one-story-per-page form and making them one "primary" flow through all pages.

At some unknown point, a full-book sync (which I had previously done dozens of times during the day) broke every one of my files. The sole text flow in each one is now non-primary. And this time there are no extra frames on the page, overlapping the "primary" one from the parent. There's just one. All the pages are still interconnected, but the "primary" flag has been removed from the flow. POS.

[Mike Witherell]

You might export to IDML and reopen the IDML and Save-As to a fresh InDesign document, if you suspect file corruption.

My next question: Why the desire to flow text continuously through threaded text?

Another question: Why not delegate the responsibility to break to the next page with an attribute built into the Paragraph Style? Look in Paragraph Style Options > Keep Options > Start: In Next Frame or On Next Frame?

[Thomas_Calvin]

Thanks for the suggestions.

My next question: Why the desire to flow text continuously through threaded text?

How else are you supposed to have automatic page addition, and ensure no text is lost?

Another question: Why not delegate the responsibility to break to the next page with an attribute built into the Paragraph Style?

Good question, but we don't have any style that must always appear on a new page.

[rob day]

Hi @Thomas_Calvin , With your page 1 selected in the Pages panel make sure Allow Document Pages to Shuffle is checked in the Pages panel:

If it is unchecked like this:

And drag the Parent there is the option to conect the new page to the spread (note the connect icon I’m getting when I drag the new page)

With Allow Document Pages to Shuffle is checked I get this:

[Thomas_Calvin]

Thanks. In my case, "all pages to shuffle" had been turned off, while "spreads to shuffle" was on. Turning spread-shuffling off restored the normal left/right cadence. After noting that, I did turn page-shuffling back on.

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Thomas_Calvin:

If you always want the normal right first page then the left/right page flow, keep both on.

This post may be helpful in understanding this very confusing feature: "https://www.rockymountaintraining.com/adobe-indesign-allow-document-pages-or-selected-spread-to-shuf...

~Barb

[Thomas_Calvin]

Thanks Barb, I'll check that out.

The misleading thing here was that turning "shuffle spread" off fixed the endlessly-widening-spread problem by itself, even when "shuffle pages" remained off.