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Participant
January 3, 2017
Answered

Help with book page numbering in InDesign!

  • January 3, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 11433 views

I have a bunch of documents that I created and I've pulled them all into a book file because that's been the easiest way for me to produce a large booklet and have the page numbering flow correctly. However, in the book file menu, I've set the Book Page Numbering Options to "continue from the previous document" but for whatever reason, it's not responding. It acts like it is, but the pages in each section start back at page one. I've done this a bunch of times so I don't know what I'm missing. My preferences are set to section numbering (not absolute numbering) and I'm just puzzled why this particular book isn't working. My others all seem to work fine. Help!??

    Correct answer hammer0909

    Make sure that each individual InDesign document is set to "Automatic Page Numbering" in the numbering and section options. If it is set to "Start Page Numbering at" this would cause the problem that you are experiencing.

    3 replies

    Participant
    November 30, 2020

    Please help 🙂 I'm having the same problem and tried doing a fresh new sample book with just 2 separate documents and adding them to indb. the pages are correct but the display on the book panels all starts with 1 (and not continuous)  already pulling my hair out, desperately needs help.

    ppppppppgonzaga
    Inspiring
    January 1, 2022

    https://creativepro.com/book-panel-shows-wrong-page-number-fixed/

     

    Found the solution here, following the tip of another topic. 

    Sounds like there is a preference that turns on by itself in the preferences pane, so cmd+k and turn from absolute numbering to section numbering.

     
     

    Likes

     
    Dave Creamer of IDEAS
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 1, 2022

    It wasn't turned on by itself--preferences don't do that. In the text, it reads "I had (for no apparent reason) changed to Absolute Numbering at some point…".

    David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
    hammer0909
    Community Expert
    hammer0909Community ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    January 3, 2017

    Make sure that each individual InDesign document is set to "Automatic Page Numbering" in the numbering and section options. If it is set to "Start Page Numbering at" this would cause the problem that you are experiencing.

    Participant
    January 3, 2017

    Yes, sir! I just did that. Simple, I know ... but I thought I'd covered all my bases. Thank you!

    Legend
    January 3, 2017

    Have you gone into the book menu to update numbering? It could be that the book is set to not update the documents until you tell it to (this is useful to prevent having to wait for the whole book to reflow each time you make a document change)

    Participant
    January 3, 2017

    In the book file menu, I've set the Book Page Numbering Options to "continue from the previous document" but for whatever reason, it's not responding. It acts like it is, but the pages in each section start back at page one.  Am I missing something?

    Participant
    January 3, 2017

    Well, I've been playing with this and I went back in to each individual document and had to set the layout for page numbering as as continuous in each document. I thought that, in the past, that happened when I added them to a book file and changed the preferences there, but apparently I remembered incorrectly! No excuses - it's 2017 ... Yikes! Thanks all for checking!