Real World Adobe® InDesign® CS5: Creating Pages of Different Sizes
Note: This excerpt is from a draft manuscript and may not be representative of the final published work.
From the book
From the book
From the book
InDesign now offers a feature that people have been requesting for years—the ability to use multiple page sizes in the same document.
Should you use different page sizes in a document? That all depends on what you’re trying to do. To avoid potential printing complexity, you’re sometimes better off keeping different page sizes in different documents and using the Books feature to synchronize styles, swatches, and other common design elements. But there are other situations in which having different page sizes in a document saves time and effort. Examples:
Book cover with a spine. You may not know the exact width of the spine until late in the process. Keeping the spine in the same document as the front and back covers allows you to alter the spine width up to the last minute while still sharing the design with the cover pages (see Figure 2-14).
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FIGURE 2-14 Multiple Page Sizes in Same Document
Company stationery. Use the same logo and address block for a letterhead, envelope, and a business card.
Gate fold for a magazine. Does your magazine require a little fold-out flap for the cover? Or a centerfold? Instead of using a separate document for extra wide pages, simply apply a different page size, and use the new widgets in the Print dialog box to print them separately.
Use either of these methods to apply a different page size to pages:
- To create a different page size quickly, select the page in the Pages panel. Then choose a preset from the Edit Page Size menu at the bottom of the pages panel.
- To take a more advanced approach, use the Page tool to click a page in the layout window (or double-click the selected page in the Pages panel). Then use the options in the Control panel to determine the page dimensions (see Figure 2-15).
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Figure 2-15 Multiple Page Sizes
As a general rule, when you want to create a different page size within a document, you should create a master page with a different size, and then apply the master to the document page. That way, you’ll avoid a sticky situation in which a master is applied to a document page with different dimensions.
In some cases, you may want one master page to apply to different page sizes. For example, you may want a company logo to appear on a master page, and you want that same logo to appear on an envelope and a business card. In that case, you can use the Master Page Overlay to position the logo properly on the page (see Figure 2-16).
If you try to apply a master to a page that doesn’t have its same page dimensions, you have the choice of keeping the custom page size or overriding it with the master’s page size.
When you select a page using the Page tool, the Control displays options for creating a different page size. Adjust the Y value to determine where the page appears vertically in relation to the rest of the spread.
To create the new page size, specify Height and Width values, or select a preset from the menu. You can also change the orientation by clicking the Portrait or Landscape icon. The Control panel has three check boxes that need their own explanation.
Enable Layout Adjustment. Tries to keep objects aligned to margins while you change the page size. See “Adjusting Layouts” later in this chapter.
Show Master Page Overlay. If the page has a different size from the master page assigned to it. If you turn on Master Page Overlay, you can slide around the overlay to make sure the master objects appear in the right place (see Figure 2-16).
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Figure 2-16 Master Page Overlay
Objects Move with Page. Select this option if you want the objects to move along with the page when you change the X and Y values or drag the page to move it within the spread. Option/Alt-drag the page using the Page tool to move the page with or without moving objects on the page—the opposite of this option’s selection status.
When you send a job to the printer, make sure you let the printer know your document has multiple page sizes. If you need the print the document yourself, the Print dialog box includes a set of icons that lets you select and print all the matching page sizes. We’ll talk more about this in Chapter 11, “Printing.”