Could someone help re: Left right page headers

Question

Hello all. I have been using indesign for around a year now and am only scratching the surface so please forgive if this is easy.
I have a book set up with a number of documents.
The pages are simple enough for laser A4 printing back to back.
The spreads therefore are set up with the first page as an odd number. I have set up indesign to always end each document so the next opens on an odd number.
All well and good however..
At the top of each page is the title for the page, on the left hand spread this is on the left hand side and on the right hand spread its on the right hand side, consequently when printed the page title always appear on outer most edge.
Where it all breaks down is if I have to insert a page, this then make the pages following it have the title on the inside edge. I hope I am making sense.
I could stick them into the master but this is not right as I would have to overide each master page to just to edit the title. And I am not sure how to proceed.
So basically I always want my titles to appear on the outer edge, left for left side spread and right for right side spread. If in the furture I add a page I need the rest of the pages to understand they have moved and adjust the title accordingly.
Is this possible?

Answer 1

Garethi wrote:
Hi just revisiting this one as I am aiming to streamline my workflow a little.
The company has me doing pretty large documents now so anything that can save me is a boon.
I am currently creating the document titles using a running header variable int he master pages. On the current pages a text frame with a specific style defines what will be in the title. I have made the text invisible otherwise you see two titles.
The downside to this is I don't know exactly what I am typing until I do a preview so if I make a spelling mistake I have to delete and start again. The use of layers has been mentioned but this has not worked for me. I created a new layer with the title vriable in it so I can see it, and turned it off for printing and sure enough in preview it goes away, but so too does the running variable, I need that to stay!
Any ideas?
If I understand your description, by "document title" you mean text that appears on a document page that's picked up by a running header text variable on the master page. If the source text changes frequently through a document, it's not a document title, it's simply a running-header text source that's captured by a running header text variable. A document title is source text created once in a document, is captured in a text variable on the master page, and appears on every document page that the master page is applied to.
If you really do need to hide source text instances to avoid displaying both the source and the variable on the same page or spread, the layer approach is one valid method; however, instead of turning the layer on and off, select the layer in the Layers panel, and in the panel fly-out menu, remove the check mark from Print Layer. The source will be visible for typing and spell-checking, but will not appear in Preview display mode, nor will it print.
Conditional text is another way you can show/hide the source text, but it's got the same requirement that you manually turn it on and off; the non-printing layer approach doesn't need manual attention.
However, if "document title" means the one instance of source text that is captured by a master-page running header variable and appears on all the pages in the document, perhaps you're not aware that if a running header text variable can't find a properly-tagged source style on the current page, it searches backwards (towards the beginning) through the document until it does find an appropriately-styled source. IOW, you only need one instance of the document title source on a document page; the running header variable on the master page will display it, no matter how many pages it has to search within the current document. You can use the non-printing layer method to avoid displaying both the source and the variable on the same page.
Another approach to avoiding the duplicate display of a source and the variable that captures it, is to create and apply a master page without the running header text variabler, to the first document page, the one that contains the title's source text. You'll need to apply this special master page to the first document page of each document.
You can also consider creating a text variable that contains the actual text of the book title and inserting this variable on the master pages (one for the special first document page, and one for the rest of the document pages.) In a multiple-file book, you can use InDesign's book Synchronize feature to share the variable's definition, and the master pages, across all files.
[EDIT]
Search InDesign Help, and Google, for InDesign non-printing lyer, InDesign synchronize book, InDesign book style source, and InDesign conditional text.
[/EDIT]
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices
Message was edited by: peter at knowhowpro