Am I visually impaired or just not internet savy?

Question

Dear all,
     Sorry if this is a very obvious question.  I have been hunting around the internet for a tutorial or something a little more discriptive then the adobe documents.   I'm currently working on a book, 288 pages.  its divided into 12 different chapters.  However I have a intro document befor the chapters.  what i am trying to do is start page counting starting on the 1st chapter, not in the first (pre) chapter which is 12 pages.
     if this is very obvious, i do appologies, I'm just starting to do this, and working on a school computer to actually do the work, so Im on limited time on a computer that doesn't have internet access.  i take instructions print them off, then have to bring them to another room.  We have a very strict policy with internet access and certain computers.
Nd

Answer 1

This is fairly simple, if not intuitive.
Select the first page in the document of the pre-chapter in the Pages Panel, then use the panel menu or right click to select Section and Numbering Options. You'll want to sart at 1, but change the scheme to Roman numerals or letters or something so ID doesn't complain about duplicate page numbers when you have your real page 1.
You haven't said if this is multiple docs combined in a Book, or a single document. If multiple files, select the first page of the document that has the page you want to number 1 and go back to numbering and section options. Click the radio button for "start page numbering" adn enter 1 to force a number restart.
If this is all one document, select the page where you want to start at 1 and in the Numbering and Setions dialog check the box to start a new section, then set the number to 1 and change the style back to Arabic numerals (this is the point at which ID would complain if there were to pages with the same number using the same numeral style).