If you do it right, InDesign will fill in all your page numbers for you automatically. It will even update them if you move pages around or take pages out.
Here’s everything you need to know about how to insert page numbers into InDesign.
How to Add InDesign Page Numbers Manually
If you want to, you could add page numbers manually, one by one, but we wouldn’t recommend it. This would involve creating a separate text frame on every page and then typing the current page number into it.
Even if you have that text frame built into your Master Pages, it’s not a good idea to do it this way. A basic text frame on your Master Page would enable you to store the styling and the position of your page number, but not much else. Most importantly, it would not change automatically if you decide to reorganize the pages in your document.
Inserting page numbers in InDesign manually is also labor-intensive and inefficient. It’s a much better idea to use automatic page numbering instead.
How to Use InDesign Automatic Page Numbering
Whether you’re laying out a Master Page or a regular page in your document, you can easily add numbers to them with a few clicks.
To demonstrate, we’re going to add the current page number of our document to our headline. In this current layout, that’s number four.
To add the current page number, select Type > Insert Special Character > Markers > Current Page Number. You can also insert InDesign page numbers from the context menu. To open it, right-click the text where you want your page number to appear, and select Insert Special Character > Markers > Current Page Number.
InDesign has now inserted the current page number into our title. This is automatic, and it updates if you move this page to another part of your document.
To demonstrate this, let’s move the whole spread forward a couple of pages. The four automatically changes to a six. The Pages window shows your current page layout and how your pages are numbered.
You can use the same technique to add page numbers in a more traditional position at the bottom of your pages. We’re going to do that in our Master Pages, so we don’t have to do it repeatedly.
We’ve created a black text box on the bottom of our Master Pages, where our page numbers will go. We then use the context menu to insert the current page number marker.
You can copy this text frame anywhere else you want it to appear, and it will behave in the same way, automatically inserting the current page number. We’ve copied it to the second page of our Master spread.
Now, if you head to any other page based on this Master, the page numbers will be automatically filled in.
Building page numbers straight into your Master Pages like this will allow you to quickly apply them across multiple pages in your document.
How to Change Page Numbers
By default, InDesign pages are numbered in a straightforward linear fashion. So the first page of your document will be number one, and every subsequent page number will increase by one.
While that makes sense for most documents, there are situations where you might want to do things differently.
You might, for example, not want your front cover or the inside front cover to count as pages one and two of your document. This is certainly the case with some books, where the covers aren’t part of the page count. In such cases, page one would be the third page in your InDesign Pages window.
Sometimes, books also use a different numbering format for introductory sections—Roman numerals are common in those cases.
To change the numbering in InDesign, select the page you want to be number one in the Pages window. To demonstrate, we’re going to turn page three into page one. Right-click page three in the Pages window, and click Numbering & Section Options. You can also find this under Layout in the main menu.
In the panel that opens, you have a variety of settings you can change. Click Start Page Numbering at, and set it to one. Click OK.
You’ll see a warning about pages in your document having the same number. Basically, it can cause problems when you try to print or export your document. Ignore this for now, and click OK.
There is now a new section in the document, starting from the third page. What used to be page three is now page one, and the pages that follow have been updated too.
But the cover and inside cover are still labeled one and two as well. You’ll need to change this if you want to print or export your document.
One way to fix this is to use a different numbering system for these pages. Right-click on page one and open the Numbering & Section Options panel again.
Under Page Numbering, click Style, and choose one of the options from the dropdown menu. We’ve gone with Roman numerals.
The pages in this section now use Roman numerals.
Another way to get around this problem is to give each new section of your document a unique prefix. To do so, open Numbering & Section Options, and fill in the Section Prefix box. In our case, we give our new section a prefix of “A.”
There are now pages in our document called A1, A2, and so on. This makes them distinct from pages one and two, which don’t have a prefix.
You can also create new sections in your document without changing page numbers. Just leave Automatic Page Numbering selected in the Numbering & Section panel.
You can still use section prefixes here as well. This can be useful if you want to print or export specific sections of your document at any time.
Adding Section Markers and Other Page Numbers With InDesign
When you create a new section, you’ll find that there’s a Section Marker option in the Numbering & Sections panel. Fill this in how you want. We’ve broken our document up into Part One and Part Two.
Now, when you go to Type > Insert Special Character > Marker > Section Marker, InDesign will import whatever text you defined in Numbering & Section Options.
There may also be times when you want to refer to something on the previous or next page. In that case, you can insert either of those numbers just as you would with the current page number—either from the right-click context menu or from the Type menu.
Improve Your InDesign Documents With Page Numbers
You can add page numbers to your InDesign documents in a few different ways. For very short documents, it might be okay to do it manually, page by page.
However, it’s usually better to use InDesign’s automatic page numbering. Not only will this fill in all your page numbers for you, but it will also update them if you make changes to the order of the pages in your document.
Automatic page numbering is just one way InDesign helps you build documents. If you’re working with a lot of text, there are some more advanced features that you should know about.
Image Credit: DarkmoonArt_de/Pixabay
