changing page margins

[#1]

I have just adjusted the page margins of a document in document setup...

The text frames did not change though (I don't know if there's a setting to enable this?).

So I went to the master page and adjusted the text frames to fit the new margins...

I now notice that although the text frames are the right size on the page, they are not correctly aligned with the margins (even though they are on the master pages).

I've tried "apply master" to pages in the document but this just seems to insert new blank pages and shift the existing text forward to the next page.

I'm going through page-by-page and re-aligning the text frames manually - thankfully it's only 36 pages long... but if it were a long document I'd be a bit stuck!

Any advice for future reference? - is there a "right way" to adjust page margins and automatically resize and align existing text frames?

[#2]

I have just adjusted the page margins of a document in document setup...

The text frames did not change though (I don't know if there's a setting to enable this?).

So I went to the master page and adjusted the text frames to fit the new margins...

I now notice that although the text frames are the right size on the page, they are not correctly aligned with the margins (even though they are on the master pages).

I've tried "apply master" to pages in the document but this just seems to insert new blank pages and shift the existing text forward to the next page.

I'm going through page-by-page and re-aligning the text frames manually - thankfully it's only 36 pages long... but if it were a long document I'd be a bit stuck!

Any advice for future reference? - is there a "right way" to adjust page margins and automatically resize and align existing text frames?

[#3 · Accepted solution]

When you reset the margins through Layout>Margins and Columns make sure that "Adjust Layout" is checked. The layout will shift to adjust for the new margins. This will work especially well if you have a one text frame to a page layout such as with a book. If there are multiple frames on a page then those will also be adjusted—possibly not to your liking. However, if you lock any frames that you don't want adjusted (Object>Lock) and make sure that "Adjust Locked Content" is unchecked then that won't be a problem.

[#4]

Thanks Bill, that works!

What I was doing wrong it seems was changing the margins through File>Document Setup.

Interestingly, when I follow your instructions, changing the margins via Layout>Margins and Columns, the old margin setting remains in File>Document Setup, and I get a grey line where that margin is defined. So it seems these are two different types of margins within the one document.

[#5]

Margins and Columns guides are a page property. You can change a specific page’s margin guides by selecting the page or master page in the Pages panel and then setting its margin guides via Layout>Margins and Columns. The Margins and Columns in Document setup sets the default for newly added pages and doesn’t affect page margins that have been overridden from the Layout menu.