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Create and manage pages and spreads

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Learn how to manage pages and spreads in InDesign.

You can use the Pages panel to freely arrange, duplicate, and recombine pages and spreads. Keep the following guidelines in mind when you add, arrange, duplicate, or remove pages within a document:

  • InDesign preserves the threads between text frames.

  • It redistributes pages based on the Allow Document Pages To Shuffle setting.

  • An object that spans multiple pages stays with the page on which the object’s bounding box covers the most area.

Go to Windows > Pages to access the Pages panel.

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Try it in Adobe InDesign
Follow along with any project to learn how to add, manage, and delete pages or spreads.

Open InDesign

Start a document with a two-page spread

Instead of beginning the document with a single page, you can begin your document with a two-page spread.

Create a new document

  1. Select File > New > Document.

  2. Enter 2 in Pages and select Create.

Update an existing document

  1. Open the document and select File > Document Setup.

  2. Enter 2 in Number of Pages and select OK.

Create a multiple-page spread

Most documents use two-page spreads exclusively. When you add or remove pages before a spread, the pages shuffle by default.

Within a spread

  1. Select a spread in the Pages panel.

  2. Select the Pages panel menu    icon and deselect Allow Selected Spread To Shuffle.

    You can identify an island spread in the Pages panel by the brackets around its page numbers.

  3. Select the Pages panel menu    icon and select Insert Pages.

    You can also drag an existing page to the spread in the Pages panel. To drag an entire spread, drag its page numbers.

With any page

  1. Select the Pages panel menu    icon and deselect Allow Document Pages To Shuffle.

  2. Select the page you want to convert to a multi-page spread.

  3. Select the Pages panel menu    icon and select Insert Pages.

     

    InDesign will preserve spreads of more than two pages while letting two-page spreads repaginate normally.

     

Note:

You can include up to ten pages in a spread. When you have reached the limit, the black vertical bar will not appear.

Redistribute spreads or pages

You can redistribute a spread’s pages to match the Facing Pages setting in the Document Setup.

Spreads

  • Select the Pages panel menu   icon and then select Allow Selected Spread To Shuffle.

Pages

  • Select the Pages panel menu   icon and select Allow Document Pages To Shuffle.

Move pages

You can move pages with a document and also between two different documents. When you move pages between two documents, if both contain styles, layers, or parents with the same name, the destination document settings are applied to the moved pages.

Within a document

  1. In the source document, select Pages panel menu   icon > Move Pages.

  2. In the Move Pages panel, specify the following:

    • Move Pages: Enter the page numbers you want to move.
    • Destination: Select the location and enter the page number.

    Select Delete Pages After Moving to remove the pages from the original document.

Between two documents

  1. Open the source and destination documents.

  2. In the destination document, select the Pages panel menu   icon and deselect Allow Document Pages To Shuffle. This will keep the spread together.

  3. In the source document, select Pages panel menu   icon > Move Pages.

  4. In the Move Pages panel, specify the following:

    • Move Pages: Enter the page numbers you want to move.
    • Destination: Select the location and enter the page number.
    • Move to: Select the destination document from the drop-down.

    Select Delete Pages After Moving to remove the pages from the original document.

If you copy a page from a document that has a different size than the document you're copying to, the page and page item positions may not match exactly. However, you can create different page sizes within a document.

Duplicate a page or spread

You can duplicate a page just after the selected page or at the end of the document. You can also split a page from a spread or delete pages and spreads.

  1. Select a page or spread.

  2. Duplicate right after the source

    • Select the Pages panel menu   icon > Duplicate Page to duplicate a page.
    • Select the Pages panel menu   icon > Duplicate Spread to duplicate a spread.

    Duplicate at the end of the document

    • Select the Pages panel menu   icon > Duplicate Page at End of Document to duplicate a page.
    • Select the Pages panel menu   icon > Duplicate Spread at End of Document to duplicate a spread.

Hide spread

You can hide selected spreads to exclude them from export options and presentation mode.

  1. Select the spread you want to hide.

  2. Select the Pages panel menu   icon and select Hide Spread.

    This icon    indicates that the spread is hidden.

To revert this change, select the spread > Pages panel menu   icon > select Show Spread.

Split a page from the spread

  1. Select the spread from which you want to split the page.

  2. Select the Pages panel menu   icon and deselect Allow Selected Spread To Shuffle.

  3. In the Pages panel, drag a page out of the spread until you view a vertical bar.

Rotate the spread view

You can rotate the spread view when you work on rotated calendars and tables. Rotation of the spread view does not affect printing or output.

  1. In the Pages panel, select the page or spread that you want to rotate.

  2. Select View > Rotate Spread > 90° CW, 90° CCW or 180°.

A rotation icon  appears next to the rotated spread in the Pages panel.

To clear the rotation, go to Pages panel menu   > Pages Attributes > Rotate Spread View > Clear Rotation.

Create different page sizes within a document

You can define different page sizes for pages within a single document. A page inherits its page size from its parent page, but you can change the layout page size so that it’s different from the parent page applied to it. 

  1. Select one or more pages with the Page  tool.

    Ensure the entire page is selected in the layout, not only in the Pages panel.

  2. Specify settings in the Control panel to change the page size of the selected pages:

    X and Y values

    Change the Y value to determine the vertical position of the page in relation to other pages in the spread.

    W and H page size values

    Change the width and height of the selected pages.

    You can also specify a page size from the drop-down.

    Select Custom, specify a name, the page size settings, and orientation, and then select OK to create a custom page size.

    Orientation

    Select a landscape or portrait page orientation.

    Liquid Page Rule

    Select from Off, Scale, Re-center, Object-based, Guide-based, and Controlled by Parent.

    Objects Move With Page

    Select this option to make the objects move with the page when you adjust the X and Y values.

    Show Parent Page Overlay

    Select this option to display a parent page overlay on top of any page selected with the Page tool.
Note:

You can't view the Pages Control panel in Essentials, Review, and Touch Workspaces.

Use parent page overlays

When you use the Page tool to select a page and enable the Show Parent Page Overlay option, a shaded box appears over the selected page. The Show Parent Page Overlay option is especially useful if the parent and document pages have different page sizes.

Aligning the parent page overlay to a smaller layout page

Follow the steps to move the parent page overlay:

  1. Select a page with the Page tool.

  2. Select Show Parent Page Overlay in the Control panel.

  3. Drag the edge of the parent page overlay to position the page items.

Delete a page or spread

  1. Select one or more pages from the Pages panel.

  2. Select Delete selected pages   icon.

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