Keep my headings with my masters!

November 13, 2006 9:16 AM

InDesign Filter: What's the best strategy for applying a certain master page only to pages with a certain heading style?

I'm formatting a very long book (400-600p), and will need to have a different master page (B) applied to the first page of each section (each section is only a few pages long). The only difference between the two masters will be deleted elements at the top of the page, so local overrides and keeping one master page (A) applied is possible. They also will be starting only on odd pages. What is the best strategy to prevent myself from having to go back and fix these if the page flow changes?

a) Manually apply A and B masters
b) Manually overrride master A
c) Convince the editors that every page needs a header
d) method (a) or (b) but also keep each section in a discrete file and let the book function worry about flow
e) ?

Knowing my editors, I'm banking on nitpicking and heavy revisions, so I'd like to keep housekeeping changes to headers and such to a minimum.

posted by cowbellemoo to Computers & Internet (1 answer total)

Best answer: d) + b) sounds good -- Because the book will worry about flow, you don't have to worry about an edit 200 pages earlier messing everything up later. Also, it's much faster.

Also, manually applying masters A and B means that you can later edit B and change all of the B-mastered pages at once, or even set B as identical to A and remove whatever changes you have made.
posted by suedehead at 2:44 PM on November 13, 2006