Chapter 4

Discovering How Pages and

Layers Work

In This Chapter

ᮣ Adding and removing document pages

ᮣ Adjusting page numbers and creating sections

ᮣ Navigating through a document

ᮣ Adjusting page layouts and objects

ᮣ Setting up layers

ᮣ Working with individual objects on layers

ᮣ Manipulating entire layers

It’s a rare InDesign user who creates only one-page documents. Even if you spend your time working on business cards, ads, and posters, you probably produce at least a few multipage documents. And if you create newsletters, newspapers, books, catalogs, or any other such multipage publications, you must know how to add pages to your document, move pages around if you change your mind, and delete pages if necessary. InDesign also lets you divide multipage documents into independently numbered sections. As documents grow in size, getting around can be a real drag — on your time, that is. The longer you spend getting to the page you want, the less time you have to work on it. Fortunately, InDesign provides several navigation aids that make it easy to move around on a page or in a document.

Understanding the Pages Panel

The Pages panel is where you do most of your page actions, so you get to know it better as you use InDesign more.

62 Part II: Document Essentials

If you intend to create a multipage document, you want to display the Pages panel (Window➪Pages [Ô+F12 or Ctrl+F12]), shown in Figure 4-1, because it provides the controls that let you add pages (both document and master), delete and move pages, apply master pages to document pages, and navigate through a document.

For more information about using the Pages panel to work on master pages, see Chapter 5.

Figure 4-1:

The Pages

panel and

its flyout

menu,

showing a

facing-pages

document.

Keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of multipage documents are facing-pages publications, such as books, catalogs, and magazines. Some exceptions are flip charts and three-hole-punched publications printed on only one side. In this chapter, the figures show examples of a facing-pages document. If you create a single-sided multipage document, the techniques are the same as for facing-pages documents, but the icons in the Pages panel show only single-sided page icons. (The icons aren’t dog-eared.) Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work

Adding pages

A document can contain as many as 9,999 pages — more than anyone would ever want to have in one file. In general, try to break up long publications into logical pieces. For example, if you’re creating a book, it’s a good idea to create separate documents for the front matter, each chapter, the index, and any other parts (appendixes and so on). Also, if you’re producing a long document, you want to take advantage of master pages (covered in Chapter 5), which save you the work of building each page from scratch.

When you create a multipage document, you’re free to add however many pages you want. But be careful: Even though InDesign will let you create a seven-page newsletter, in real life, facing-page publications always have an even number of pages — usually a multiple of 4 and often a multiple of 16 —

because of the way printers arrange multiple pages on a single sheet of paper before folding and cutting them into the final document.

Here’s how to add pages to a document:

1. If it’s not displayed, open the Pages panel by choosing Window➪Pages (Ô+F12 or Ctrl+F12).

2. From the Pages panel’s flyout menu, choose Insert Pages.

3. In the Pages field, type the number of pages you want to add.

4. Select an option from the Insert pop-up menu: After Page, Before Page, At Start of Document, or At End of Document.

Be careful: If you’ve already started working on page 1, for example, make sure that you add new pages after page 1. Otherwise, it won’t be page 1

anymore, and you’ll have to move the objects you already created.

5. Type a page number in the field next to Insert or use the arrows to increase or decrease the value in one-page increments.

6. From the Master pop-up menu, select the master page you want to apply to the new pages.

7. When you’re finished, click OK to close the dialog box.

InDesign offers a faster way to add and manipulate pages if you don’t happen to have the Pages panel already open: Choose Layout➪Pages and then select the appropriate option, such as Add Pages, from the submenu. The resulting dialog boxes match those accessed from the Pages panel.

64 Part II: Document Essentials

If you want to quickly add just one page after the current page, click Layout➪Pages➪Add Page (Shift+Ô+P or Ctrl+Shift+P).

You can also add new pages or spreads one at a time at the end of a document by clicking the Create New Page iconic button at the bottom of the Pages panel. (Spreads are added if a spread is selected in the Pages panel.) When you use this method, the master page applied to the last document page is applied to each new page. Pages are added after the currently selected page in the panel.

You can also click and drag a master page icon (or both pages in a facingpages spread to add a spread) from the top of the Pages panel to add a page using a master page’s settings (use the [None] page for a plain page) between any pair of document page spreads or to the right of the last document spread. If a vertical bar appears when you release the mouse button, the spread is placed between the spreads on either side of the bar. If a vertical bar doesn’t appear between document page spreads when you release the mouse button, the new spread is placed at the end of the document.

When you insert an uneven number of new pages into a facing-pages document, existing pages are automatically changed from left-hand pages to righthand pages, and vice versa. You can prevent this change for selected spreads by first selecting them in the Pages panel and then clicking Keep Spread Together in the flyout menu. You may opt for this approach for a spread, such as a two-page table, that you don’t want to have broken apart when other pages are added or deleted. Of course, for proper printing, you may need to move that spread when you’re done adding or deleting pages so that it follows a complete spread.

Selecting pages

InDesign offers several choices for selecting pages from a document, so you can move, delete, copy, or otherwise manipulate them:

Click a page’s icon in the Pages panel to select it.

To select both pages in a spread, the easiest way is to click a spread’s page numbers to select both pages.

To select a range of pages, you can click a page icon or spread number beneath it and then Shift+click another page icon or spread number. ߜ

To select multiple, noncontiguous pages, hold down the Ô or Ctrl key and click page icons or spread numbers.

Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work

InDesign shows a preview image of your pages in the Pages panel. You can control the display by choosing Panel Options from the panel’s flyout menu. In the Panel Options dialog box, select the desired icon size and make sure that Show Thumbnails is checked. You can also set separate view settings for master pages.

Copying pages

You can copy pages from one document to another by clicking and dragging the page icons from the source document’s Pages panel to the target document’s Pages panel. Any master pages associated with the copied document pages are copied as well.

You can also duplicate the current spread within the current document by clicking Duplicate Spread from the Pages panel’s flyout menu or by choosing Layout➪Pages➪Duplicate Spread.

Deleting pages

The fastest way to delete selected pages is to click and drag them to the pane’s Delete Selected Pages button (the trashcan icon) or simply click the Delete Selected Pages button.

Moving pages within documents

To move a page within a document, drag its icon between two spreads or between the pages of a spread inside the Pages panel. A vertical bar indicates where the selected page will be placed. Release the mouse button when the vertical bar is where you want to move the page. To move a spread, drag the page numbers beneath the icons (rather than the page icons themselves).

InDesign automatically scrolls the Pages panel’s pages as you move pages up or down.

Alternatively, you can select the pages you want to move in the Pages panel and then choose Move Pages from the Pages panel’s flyout menu. (If you don’t want to work through the Pages panel, you can also choose Layout➪Pages➪Move Pages.) In that dialog box, you can specify where to move the pages: after a specific page, before a specific page, at the beginning of the document, or at the end of the document.

66 Part II: Document Essentials

Although you can move pages around in a document, do so only with great care — if at all. Generally, if you want to move the objects on one page to another page, it’s safer to cut (Edit➪Cut [Ô+X or Ctrl+X]) or copy (Edit➪Copy

[Ô+C or Ctrl+C]) the objects than to move the page, which can cause subsequent pages to shuffle. What’s the big deal about shuffling? Shuffling will move pages around to make space for the moved page, which can move what had been left-hand pages to the right-hand side of the spread and vice versa. If you have different alignments on left and right pages — such as having page numbers on the outside of pages — this shuffling can wreak havoc with that alignment.

If you absolutely must move a single page, it’s safer to move its spread. (Of course, if you’re working on a single-sided facing-page document, shuffling isn’t an issue.)

Moving pages among documents

You can also copy or move pages to other documents. Select the page in the Pages panel and then drag its icon to the document you want to copy or move it to. (You’ll need to have that other document window accessible by having it displayed in a tiled view, as described in Chapter 1.) The Insert Pages dialog box then appears, giving you a choice of where to insert the page in the new document as well as whether to copy or move the page into the new document. To move a page rather than copy it, be sure to check the Delete Pages After Inserting option.

Alternatively, you can copy or move pages among documents by choosing Layout➪Pages➪Move Pages or by choosing Move Pages from Pages panel’s flyout menu, either of which opens the Move Pages dialog box. Here, you also can select the destination (at which page number to insert the new pages) and which document you want to move the page into via the Move to pop-up menu. (The document must be open to display in that pop-up menu.) To move a page rather than copy it, be sure to check the Delete Pages After Moving option.

Figure 4-2 shows both the Insert Pages and Move Pages dialog boxes.

Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work

Figure 4-2:

The Insert

Pages

dialog

box (top)

displays

when you

drag pages

between

documents,

while the

Move Pages

dialog box

(bottom)

displays

through

a menu

option.

Starting documents on a left page

By default, InDesign starts all documents on the right page, which makes sense because the first sheet in a document is always a right-hand page. But sometimes you want documents to start on a left-hand page, particularly if they’re a chapter or section in a larger document. For example, magazine articles often start on a left page, giving the introduction a full spread. To start a document on a left page:

1. Select the first page in the Pages panel and then choose Numbering

& Section Options from the panel’s flyout menu or choose Layout➪Numbering & Section Options.

2. Select the Start Page Numbering At option and enter an even number in the field.

3. Click OK.

The Pages panel updates, showing the start page on the left of the spine.

You may not want to assign a starting page number (for example, if the starting page number is unknown because the number of pages that precede this document is unknown and you let the book feature determine the page numbers later). In this case, repeat Step 1, but deselect Start Section. Doing so leaves the page as a left-hand page but lets the book feature figure out the page number.

68 Part II: Document Essentials

See Chapter 22 for more information on the book feature and long-document creation. Sections are covered in the “Dividing a document into sections” section, later in this chapter. Working with Page Numbers

By default, pages are numbered automatically starting at 1, but you can change the page numbering from Arabic numerals to Roman numerals or letters, as well as change the start page to something other than 1. To do so, select the first page in the document in the Pages panel and choose Layout➪Numbering & Sections or choose Numbering & Section Options from the Pages panel’s flyout menu. You get the dialog box shown in Figure 4-3. (If the current page isn’t the first page in the document and if a section hasn’t been applied to this page previously, the dialog box is called New Section. Its options are identical.)

To change the initial page number, select the Start Page Numbering At option and type a new starting page number in its field. To change the page numbering style from the default of Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4 . . .), use the Style pop-up menu and choose from I, II, III, IV . . . ; i, ii, iii, iv . . . ; A, B, C, D . . . ; and a, b, c, d . . . .

Figure 4-3:

The

Numbering

& Section

Options dialog box lets

you change

the starting page

number and

the types of

numerals

used.

To have a facing-pages document start on a left-hand page, the starting page number must be even.

Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work

Dividing a document into sections

Some long documents are divided into parts that are numbered separately. For example, the page numbers of book introductions often use Roman numerals, while standard Arabic numerals are used for the body of the book. If the book has appendixes, you can apply a separate numbering scheme to these pages. In InDesign, such independently numbered parts are referred to as sections.

A multipage document can contain as many sections as you want. (A section has to contain at least one page.) If each section of a document uses a different page layout, you probably want to create a different master page for each section. Here’s how to create a section:

1. If it’s not displayed, open the Pages panel by choosing Window➪Pages (Ô+F12 or Ctrl+F12).

2. Click the icon of the page where you want to start a section.

3. Choose Numbering & Section Options from the panel’s flyout menu.

If you’ve selected the document’s first page, the Numbering & Section Options dialog box appears (refer to Figure 4-3). Otherwise, the identical New Section dialog box appears. By default, the Start Section option is selected. Leave it selected.

You can also create a section starting at the current page in your document by choosing Layout➪Numbering & Section Options.

4. In the Section Prefix field, type up to eight characters that identify the section in the page-number box at the lower-left corner of the docu- ment window.

For example, if you type Sec2, the first page of the section will be displayed as Sec2:1 in the page-number box. This prefix won’t appear as part of the actual page numbers when you print — it’s really just a way for you to keep track of sections while you work.

5. From the Style menu, choose the Roman numeral, Arabic numeral, or alphabetic style you want to use for page numbers.

6. For Page Numbering, select the Automatic Page Numbering option if you want the first page of the section to be one number higher than the last page of the previous section.

The new section will use the specified style; the previous section may use this style or another style.

7. Select the Start Page Numbering At option and type a number in the accompanying field to specify a different starting number for the section. 70 Part II: Document Essentials

For example, if a book begins with a section of front matter, you could begin the body section of a book on page 1 by choosing Start At and typing 1 in the field. If you select Continue from Previous Section, the first page of the body section begins one number higher than the numeral on the last page of the front matter.

8. In the Section Marker field, type a text string that you can later auto- matically apply to pages in the section.

You may want to enter something straightforward like Section 2 or, if the section is a chapter, the name of the chapter.

You can insert the section marker name so that it prints in folios, chapter headings, and story text by choosing Type➪Insert Special Character➪Markers➪Section Marker. This technique is a great way to get a chapter name (if you use it as the section marker) in your folio or to have cross-references in text to a section whose name might later change. (A folio is the collection of a page number, magazine or chapter name, section name, or issue date, and so on that usually appears at the top or bottom of pages.)

9. Click OK to close the dialog box.

When you create a section, it’s indicated in the Pages panel by a small black triangle over the icon of the first page in the section, as shown in Figure 4-4. (If you move the mouse pointer over the black triangle, the name of the section appears.) The page-numbering scheme you specify is reflected in the page numbers below the page icons. When you begin a section, it continues until the end of the document or until you begin a new section.

By default, the Pages panel displays section numbers beneath the icons of document pages. If you want to display absolute page numbers — the first page is page 1 and all other pages are numbered sequentially —

you can do so by choosing InDesign➪Preferences➪General (Ô+K) or Edit➪Preferences➪General (Ctrl+K). Then choose Absolute Numbering from the General pane’s View pop-up menu.

Removing a section start

If you decide that you want to remove a section start, navigate to the page that begins the section, choose Numbering & Section Options from the Pages panel’s flyout menu, or choose Layout➪Numbering & Section Options, and deselect the Section Start option. That’s it! The pages in the former section remain, but their numbering now picks up from the previous pages.

Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work

Figure 4-4:

The small

triangle

above a

page icon

represents

a section

start.

Navigating Documents and Pages

Moving from page to page in a long document and scrolling around a large or magnified page are among the most common tasks you perform in InDesign. The more time you spend navigating to the page or page area you want to work on, the less time you have to do the work you need to do. Like most trips, the less time you spend between destinations, the better. Navigating with the Pages panel

For navigating through the pages of a document, the Pages panel (Window➪Pages [Ô+F12 or Ctrl+F12]) offers the fastest ride.

When the Pages panel appears, you can use it to quickly move from page to page in a multipage document and to switch between displaying master pages and document pages. To display a particular document page, doubleclick its icon. The selected page is centered in the document window. To display a master spread, double-click its icon in the lower half of the panel. (Note that you can reverse the order of master pages and regular pages in the Pages panel by choosing the Panel Options option in the flyout menu.) 72 Part II: Document Essentials

The Fit Page in Window command (View➪Fit Page in Window [Ô+0 or Ctrl+0]) and Fit Spread in Window command (View➪Fit Spread in Window

[Option+Ô+0 or Ctrl+Alt+0]) let you enlarge or reduce the display magnification to fit the selected page or spread in the document window. Related view options are View➪Fit Spread in Window (Option+Ô+0 or Ctrl+Alt+0) and View➪Entire Pasteboard (Option+Shift+Ô+0 or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+0). (Note that the shortcuts use the numeral 0, not the letter O. ) Navigating with the menus and shortcuts

The oldest way to navigate pages in InDesign is via the Page-turning buttons, pop-up menu, and field at the bottom left of the document window, as described in Chapter 1.

InDesign also offers several menu commands and keyboard shortcuts to quickly navigate your layout, as Table 4-1 details.

Table 4-1

Page Navigation Menus and Shortcuts

Navigation

Menu Sequence

Macintosh

Windows Shortcut

Shortcut

Go to first page

Layout➪First

Shift+Ô+PgUp

Ctrl+Shift+Page Up

Page

Go back one

Layout➪Previous

Shift+PgUp

Shift+Page Up

page

Page

Go forward one

Layout➪Next

Shift+PgDn or

Shift+Page Down

page

Page or

Ô+PgDn

or Ctrl+keypad

Layout➪Go

PgDn

Forward

Go to last page

Layout➪Last

Shift+Ô+PgDn

Ctrl+Shift+Page

Page

Down

Go to last page

Layout➪Go Back

Ô+PgUp

Ctrl+keypad PgUp

viewed

Go forward one

Layout➪Next

Option+PgDn

Alt+Page Down

spread

Spread

Go back one

Layout➪Previous

Option+PgUp

Alt+Page Up

spread

Spread

Go to a specific

Layout➪Go to

Ô+J

Ctrl+J

page

Page

Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work

The New Navigator Option

You can use the navigator to move among decide you’ve navigated some place you didn’t pages: With the Hand tool selected, click and

mean to, just press Esc — as long as the mouse

hold the mouse button to zoom and then move

button is still pressed — to start over.

the mouse to move through the document’s This navigator feature replaces the Navigator pages, as shown in the figure. Release the panel from previous versions of InDesign. I mouse when you’re at the desired location. believe this approach is more useful for scrolling You’ll be put back to the original zoom level.

within a page, particularly for doing detail work

If the autozoom is too fast, you can use the on a page that’s displayed at a high magnificaup and down arrow keys instead to manually tion, than for moving from page to page. But you

move through various zoom levels. And if you

get to decide what’s right for you.

09_388488-ch04.indd 73

9/23/08 6:49:44 PM

74 Part II: Document Essentials

Adjusting Page Layouts and Objects

If you’ve ever created and worked with a document all the way to the finishing touches and then discovered that the page size was wrong from the beginning, you know the meaning of frustration. Manually adjusting the size and placement of all the objects in a document is an ugly chore — one you want to avoid at all costs. However, should the unthinkable happen — you have to modify the size, orientation, or margins of a document that is partially or completely finished — InDesign can automatically resize and reposition objects when you change its basic layout.

For example, maybe you created a magazine for an American audience that subsequently needs to be converted for publication in Europe. Most newsletters in the United States use letter-sized pages (81⁄2 × 11 inches), while in Europe the standard page size for such publications is A4 (210 × 297 mm), which is slightly narrower and slightly taller than U.S. letter size. Of course, you have to change color to colour, apartment to flat, and so on, but you also have to both squeeze (horizontally) and stretch (vertically) every item on every page to accommodate the A4 page’s dimensions.

The Layout Adjustment command (Layout➪Layout Adjustment) gives you the option of turning this chore over to InDesign, which automatically adjusts object shape and position according to the new page size, column guides, and margins.

The Layout Adjustment dialog box lets you turn layout adjustment on or off and specify the rules used to adjust objects when you change page size or orientation, margins, or columns. To adjust a layout, follow these steps: 1.

Choose

Layout➪Layout Adjustment to display the Layout Adjustment dialog box, shown in Figure 4-5.

Figure 4-5:

The Layout

Adjustment

dialog box.

2. Select the Enable Layout Adjustment option to turn on the feature; deselect it to turn it off.

Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work

3. In the Snap Zone field, type the distance within which an object edge will automatically snap to a guideline when layout adjustment is performed.

4. Select the Allow Graphics and Groups to Resize option if you want InDesign to resize objects when layout adjustment is performed.

If you don’t select this option, InDesign will move objects but not resize them (the preferred option, so you don’t get awkward sizes).

5. Select the Allow Ruler Guides to Move option if you want InDesign to adjust the position of ruler guides proportionally according to a new page size.

Generally, ruler guides are placed relative to the margins and page edges, so you probably want to select this option.

6. Select the Ignore Ruler Guide Alignments option if you want InDesign to ignore ruler guides when adjusting the position of objects during layout adjustment.

If you think that objects might snap to ruler guides that you don’t want them to snap to during layout adjustment, select this option. If selected, InDesign will still snap object edges to other margin and column guides.

7. Select the Ignore Object and Layer Locks option to let InDesign move locked objects (either objects locked directly via Object➪Lock Position [Ô+L or Ctrl+L] or objects that reside on a locked layer).

Otherwise, locked objects aren’t adjusted.

8. When you’re done, click OK to close the dialog box.

The Layout Adjustment feature works best when you don’t have much work for it to do. Otherwise, it usually creates more work than it saves. For example, the switch from a U.S. letter-sized page to an A4-sized page is a relatively minor change, and the layout adjustments will probably be barely noticeable. But if you decide to change a tabloid-sized poster into a business card in midstream, well, you’re probably better off starting over.

Here are a few things to keep in mind if you decide to use InDesign’s Layout Adjustment feature:

If you change page size, the margin widths (the distance between the left and right margins and the page edges) remain the same.

If you change page size, column guides and ruler guides are repositioned proportionally to the new size.

If you change the number of columns, column guides are added or removed accordingly.

If an object edge is aligned with a guideline before layout adjustment, it remains aligned with the guideline after adjustment. If two or more edges of an object are aligned with guidelines, the object is resized so that the edges remain aligned with the guidelines after layout adjustment. 76 Part II: Document Essentials

If you change the page size, objects are moved so that they’re in the same relative position on the new page.

If you used margin, column, and ruler guides to place objects on pages, layout adjustment will be more effective than if you placed objects or ruler guides randomly on pages.

Check for text reflow when you modify a document’s page size, margins, or column guides. Decreasing a document’s page size can cause text to overflow a text frame whose dimensions have been reduced.

Check everything in your document after the adjustment is complete. Take the time to look over every page of your document. You never know what InDesign has actually done until you see it with your own eyes.

If you decide to enable layout adjustment for a particular publication, you may want to begin by using the Save As command (File➪Save As [Shift+Ô+S or Ctrl+Shift+S]) to create a copy. That way, if you ever need to revert back to the original version, you can simply open the original document.

Using Layers

If you’ve ever seen a series of clear plastic overlays in presentations, understanding layers is easy. In one of those old overhead presentations, the teacher may choose to start with one overlay containing a graphic, add another overlay with descriptive text, and then add a third overlay containing a chart. Each overlay contained distinct content, but you could see through each one to the others to get the entire message. InDesign’s layers are somewhat like these overlays, letting you isolate content on slices of a document. You can then show and hide layers, lock objects on layers, rearrange layers, and more. You can use layers in the following situations (and in many others): ߜ

A project with a high-resolution background image: For example, a background such as a texture may take a long time to redraw. You can hide that layer while designing other elements and then show it occasionally to see how it works with the rest of the design. ߜ

A document that you produce in several versions: For example, a produce ad may have different prices for different cities, or a clothing catalog may feature different coats depending on the climate in each area. You can place the content that changes on separate layers and then print the layers you need.

Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work

A project that includes objects you don’t want to print: If you want to suppress printout of objects for any reason, the only way you can do it is to place them on a layer and hide the layer. You can have a layer that’s used for nothing but adding editorial and design comments, which can be deleted when the document is final. (Even though InDesign supports nonprinting notes, they can be inserted only into text, so having a design-comments layer is still useful to be able to make annotations for frames, images, and other nontextual elements.)

A publication that is translated into several languages: Depending on the layout, you can place all the common objects on one layer and then create a different layer for each language’s text. Changes to the common objects need to happen only once — unlike creating copies of the original document and flowing the translated text into the copies, which you’d need to do for each language’s version.

To ensure folios and the like are never overprinted: By placing standard elements, such as folios (the document’s page numbers, running headings, and so on), on their own layer, they’re uppermost in the layer stack. This order ensures that they’re never accidentally obscured by other objects.

To help text print properly over transparent elements: Layers are also useful to isolate text above other objects with transparency effects. This isolation avoids the rasterizing of text during output to plate or film —

something that can make the text quality look poor.

Layer basics

Each document contains a default layer, Layer 1, which contains all your objects until you create and select a new layer. Objects on the default layer — and any other layer for that matter — follow the standard stacking order of InDesign. (What’s the stacking order? Well, the first object you create is the backmost, the last one you create is the frontmost, and all the other objects fall somewhere in between. This order is how InDesign knows what to do with overlapping objects.)

Like the clear plastic overlays, the order of the layers also affects the stacking order of the objects. Objects on the bottom layer are behind other objects, and objects on the top layer are in front of other objects. For example, for a business card, the Default layer would contain the business card’s standard graphics and the main text. An additional layer would contain a different set of contact information — in separate text frames — for a different person. Each new person would have his information on his own new layer. Each layer has its own color, and frames will display in that color if frame edges are visible. (Choose View➪Show Frame Edges [Control+Ô+H or Ctrl+H.])

78 Part II: Document Essentials

Although people often compare layers to plastic overlays, one big difference exists: Layers aren’t specific to individual pages. Each layer encompasses the entire document, which doesn’t make much difference when you’re working on a one-page ad but makes a significant difference when it comes to a 16-page newsletter. When you create layers and place objects on them, you must consider all the pages in the document. The Layers panel (choose Window➪Layers [F7]) is your gateway to creating and manipulating layers (see Figure 4-6).

Figure 4-6:

The Layers

panel and

its flyout

menu.

Working with layers

Each document contains a default layer, Layer 1, that contains all the objects you place on master pages and document pages. You can create as many layers as you need. After you create a new layer, it’s activated automatically so that you can begin working on it.

Creating a layer

The Layers panel (choose Window➪Layers [F7]) provides several methods for creating new layers. It doesn’t matter which document page is displayed when you create a layer because the layer encompasses all the pages in the document. To create a layer, do one of the following:

To create a new layer on top of all existing layers, click the New Layer button on the Layers panel to open the New Layer dialog box. The layer receives the default name of Layer x.

To create a layer above the selected layer, Ô+click or Ctrl+click the New Layer button. The layer receives the default name of Layer x. ߜ

To create a new layer on top of all existing layers but customize its name and identifying color, Option+click or Alt+click the New Layer iconic button, or choose New Layer from the Layers panel’s flyout menu. Use the New Layer dialog box to specify options for the layer. (The New Layer dialog box — set with a custom name and color — is shown in Figure 4-7.)

Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work

Figure 4-7:

The New

Layer dialog

box.

Customizing layers

You can customize the name, identifying color, guides, and lock status of objects on a new or existing layer. If you choose to customize the layer when you create it (by Option+clicking or Alt+clicking the New Layer iconic button or by choosing New Layer from the Layers panel’s flyout menu), the New Layer dialog box appears. If you choose to customize an existing layer, double-click it to display the Layer Options dialog box. (You can also choose Layer Options for Layer Name from the flyout menu on the Layers panel.) Whether you’re using the New Layer dialog box shown in Figure 4-7 or the nearly identical Layer Options dialog box, the options all work the same: ߜ

Name field: Type a descriptive name for the layer. For example, if you’re using layers for multilingual publishing, you might have a United States English layer, a French layer, and a German layer. If you’re using layers to hide background objects while you’re working, you might have a Background Objects layer.

Color pop-up menu: Choose a color from the menu. A layer’s color helps you identify which layer an object is on. The color appears to the left of the layer name in the Layers panel and appears on each object on that layer. The color is applied to frame edges, selection handles, bounding boxes, text ports, and text wraps. By default, InDesign applies a different color to each new layer, but you can customize it to something meaningful for your document and workflow. ߜ

Show Layer check box: Selected by default, this control lets you specify whether objects on a layer display onscreen. Hidden layers also don’t print. The Show Layer option has the same effect as clicking the eye icon on the Layers panel.

Lock Layer check box: Deselected by default, this option lets you control whether objects on a layer can be edited. You can lock a layer that contains boilerplate text or a complex drawing that you don’t want altered. Locking and unlocking layers is easy, so you can lock one layer while focusing on another and then unlock it. Select Lock Layer if you don’t want to be able to select items and modify them. For example, in a document containing multiple versions of text on different layers, you can lock the layer containing background images and other objects that stay the same. The Lock Layer option has the same effect as clicking the 80 Part II: Document Essentials

lock icon on the Layers panel. The Layers panel’s flyout menu contains additional locking options to, for example, unlock all layers and lock all layers but the active one.

When you lock an object to a page (by choosing Object➪Lock Position

[Ô+L or Ctrl+L]), the object’s position stays locked regardless of its layer’s lock status.

Print Layer check box: Selected by default, this option lets you control whether the layer prints or exports to PDF. You can use this option for a layer containing design comments, for example. (In previous versions of InDesign, deselecting Show Layer also prevented the layer from printing. That remains true, but now you can control whether unhidden layers print or not as well.) You can also override whether nonprinting layers print in the Print dialog box, as explained in Chapter 25.

Suppress Text Wrap When Layer Is Hidden check box: Deselected by default, this option prevents text wrapping around the layer’s objects when the layer is hidden. Be sure to select this option when you use multiple layers for variations of the same content, such as multilingual text or different contacts for business cards. Otherwise, your layer’s text can’t display because it’s wrapping around a hidden layer with an object of the same size in the same place.

Show Guides check box: This check box lets you control the display of guides that were created while the selected layer was active. When selected, as it is by default, you can create guides while any layer is active and view those guides on any layer. When deselected, you can’t create guides. Any guides you create while that layer is active aren’t displayed, but you can still see guides that you created while other layers were active. Note that when guides are hidden entirely (choose View➪Grids & Guides➪Hide Guides or Ô+; [semicolon] or Ctrl+; [semicolon]), this command has no apparent effect. ߜ

Lock Guides check box: This option works similarly to Show Guides in that it affects only the guides that you created while the layer is active. When deselected, as it is by default, you can move guides on any layer for which Lock Guides is deselected. When selected, you can’t move guides created while that layer was active. You can, however, move guides on other layers for which Lock Guides is deselected. Note that when all guides are locked (choose View➪Grids & Guides➪Lock Guides or Option+Ô+; [semicolon] or press Ctrl+Alt+; [semicolon]), this command has no apparent effect.

You can select multiple layers and customize them all at once. However, because each layer must have a different name, the Name field isn’t available in the Layer Options dialog box when multiple layers are selected. Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work

Working with objects on layers

Whether you’re designing a magazine template from the ground up or modifying an existing ad, you can isolate specific types of objects on layers. You can create objects on a layer, move objects to a layer, or copy objects to a layer. The active layer is the one on which you’re creating objects — whether you’re using tools, importing text or graphics, clicking and dragging objects in from a library, or pasting objects from other layers or other documents. A pen icon to the right of a layer’s name means it’s the active layer. Although more than one layer can be selected at a time, only one can be active. To switch the active layer to another layer, click to the right of the layer name that you want to be active; the pen icon moves, making that the new active layer. Keep in mind that to activate a layer, it must be visible. Selecting objects on layers

Regardless of the active layer, you can select, move, and modify objects on any visible, unlocked layer. You can even select objects on different layers and manipulate them.

The Layers panel (choose Window➪Layers [F7]) helps you work with selected objects in the following ways:

To determine which layer an object belongs to, match the color on its bounding box to the color that appears to the left of a layer name. ߜ

To determine which layers contain active objects, look to the right of the layer names. A small square — the object icon — to the right of a layer name indicates that you have selected an object on that layer. ߜ

To select all the objects on a layer, Option+click or Alt+click the layer’s name in the Layers panel. The layer must be active, unlocked, and visible.

To select master-page objects as well as document-page objects on a layer, you need to Option+Shift+click or Alt+Shift+click the layer name. Placing objects on layers

To place objects on a layer, the layer must be active as indicated by the pen icon. Anything you copy, import, or create in InDesign goes on the active layer.

When you create objects on master pages, they’re placed on the default layer and are therefore behind other objects on document pages. To create objects on master pages that are in front of other objects, place the objects on a different layer while the master page is displayed. 82 Part II: Document Essentials

You can cut and paste objects from one page to another, but have the objects remain on their original layer — without concern about the active layer. To do so, be sure the Paste Remembers Layers check box is selected in the Layers panel’s flyout menu before choosing Edit➪Paste (Ô+V or Ctrl+V). Moving objects to different layers

When an object is on a layer, it isn’t stuck there. You can copy and paste objects to selected layers, or you can move them by using the Layers panel. When you move an object to a layer, it’s placed in front of all other objects on a layer. To select multiple objects, remember to Shift+click them and then move them in one of the following ways:

Paste objects on a different layer. First cut or copy objects to the Clipboard. Activate the layer on which you want to put the objects and then use the Paste command (by choosing Edit➪Paste [Ô+V or Ctrl+V]). This method works well for moving objects that are currently on a variety of layers.

Move objects to a different layer. Click and drag the object icon for the selected objects (to the right of a layer’s name) to another layer. When you use this method, it doesn’t matter which layer is active. However, you can’t move objects from several different layers to the same layer using this method. (If you select multiple objects that reside on different layers, dragging the box moves only objects that reside on the first layer on which you selected an object.)

Move objects to a hidden or locked layer. Press Ô or Ctrl while you click and drag the selected objects’ object icon.

Copy rather than move objects to a different layer. Press Option or Alt while you click and drag the selected objects’ object icon.

Copy objects to a hidden or locked layer. Press Option+Ô or Ctrl+Alt while you drag the selected objects’ object icon.

Manipulating entire layers

In addition to working on objects and their layer positions, you can also select and manipulate entire layers. These changes affect all the objects on the layer — for example, if you hide a layer, all its objects are hidden; if you move a layer up, all its objects appear in front of objects on lower layers. Functions that affect an entire layer include hiding, locking, rearranging, merging, and deleting. You work on entire layers in the Layers panel.

The active layer containing the pen icon is always selected. You can extend the selection to include other layers the same way you multiple-select objects: Shift+click for a continuous selection and Ô+click or Ctrl+click for a noncontiguous selection. Chapter 4: Discovering How Pages and Layers Work

Rearranging layers

Each layer has its own front-to-back stacking order, with the first object you create on the layer being its backmost object. You can modify the stacking order of objects on a single layer by using the Arrange commands on the Object menu. Objects are further stacked according to the order in which the layers are listed in the Layers panel. The layer at the top of the list contains the frontmost objects, and the layer at the bottom of the list contains the backmost objects.

If you find that all the objects on one layer need to be in front of all the objects on another layer, you can move that layer up or down in the list. In fact, you can move all currently selected layers up or down, even if the selection is noncontiguous. To move layers, click the selection and drag it up or down. When you move layers, remember that layers are document-wide, so you’re actually changing the stacking order of objects on all the pages. Combining layers

When you’re just discovering the power of layers, you can create a document that is unnecessarily complex (for example, you may have put each object on a different layer and realized that the document has become too difficult to work with). The good news is that you can also merge all the layers in a document to flatten it to a single layer. To flatten all layers: 1.

Select

the

target layer (the layer where you want all the objects to end up) by clicking it.

Select

the

source layers (the layers that contain the objects you want to move) in addition to the target layer.

Shift+click

Ô+click or Ctrl+click to add the source layers to the selection.

3. Make sure that the target layer contains the pen icon and that the target and source layers are all selected.

4. Choose Merge Layers from the Layers panel’s flyout menu.

All objects on the source layers are moved to the target layer, and the source layers are deleted.

When you merge layers, the stacking order of objects doesn’t change, so the design looks the same, but with one notable exception: If you created objects on a layer while a master page was displayed, those objects go to the back of the stacking order with the regular master-page objects.

84 Part II: Document Essentials

Deleting layers

If you carefully isolate portions of a document on different layers and then find that you don’t need that portion of the document, you can delete the layer. For example, if you have a United States English and an International English layer and you decide that you can’t afford to print the different versions, you can delete the unneeded layer. You can also delete layers that you don’t end up using to simplify a document.

When you delete layers, all the objects on the layer throughout the document are deleted.

Using the Layers panel, you can delete selected layers in the following ways: ߜ

Click and drag the selection to the Delete Selected Layers iconic button. ߜ

Click the Delete Selected Layers iconic button. The currently selected layers are deleted.

Choose Delete Layer from the Layers panel’s flyout menu.

If any of the layers contain objects, a warning reminds you that they’ll be deleted. And, of course, the ubiquitous Undo command (choose Edit➪Undo

[Ô+Z or Ctrl+Z]) lets you recover from accidental deletions.

To remove all layers that don’t contain objects, choose Delete Unused Layers from the Layers panel’s flyout menu.