Defining Document Sections

Category: InDesign Tutorials 1,742 0

InDesign tutorials can show you a great deal about creating and formatting multi-paged documents, as that’s what the program is extremely good at. InDesign CS5 has huge capabilities when it comes to working with documents created to have many pages, and it makes the job extremely easy. There are, of course, quite a few challenges you will come up against when you decide to design a magazine or book in InDesign CS5, but this InDesign tutorial can help you to work through at least one of them.

This InDesign tutorial focuses on how to divide your document into sections. This is useful when you have, say, a 10 page document you want to be divided into 2 parts. You can divide the pages by the two separate parts, into quarters, by chapter, or however works best for you.

Steps to Follow

1. First of all, open the pages panel in InDesign. You can get to it from the Window menu.

1 - Defining Document Sections2. The first page of your document is automatically the start of a section, because it’s the start of the document. However, as this is usually the “cover” page or a separate page from the document, I’m going to go to the second page to start a new section, which is part 1 of the document.

2 - Defining Document Sections3. By right clicking on the second page in the Pages Palette and going to the Numbering and Sections option, I can open the corresponding dialog.

3 - Defining Document Sections4. When I check the box marked “Start Section”, I begin a new section. I’m going to name this section “Part 1”, and put that text in the Section Prefix box.

4 - Defining Document Sections5. Now all the pages after page one, from page two on, say Part 1, Part 1-2, and so on. I only want the pages up to page 6 to be part of part 1, however, so there’s something else I have to change. I have to go to page 6, right click it, go back into the Numbering and Sections options, and check the Start Section box. Now, I change the Section Prefix to Part 2, and click OK.

5 - Defining Document Sections6. Once this is done, my document will have 3 different sections: front page, Part 1, and Part 2. This makes it easier for me to not only navigate the pages, but also number them properly and correctly.

If you have a long book with many chapters, an appendix, a foreword, and more, these options could be extremely useful to you in both organizing your thoughts during the design process and correctly numbering the pages. This InDesign tutorial shows you the basics of creating sections so that you can have an easier time in your work. Remember these tips next time you have to design a multi=page document.

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