Welcome back to another InDesign tutorial. One of the first things we do in Adobe InDesign is creating our parent pages, also called master pages.

Why are parent pages important?

When you have repeating content, you can use elements such as page numbers, footers, and headers. They can either be single pages or spreads of two pages.

Let’s Get Started in InDesign!

You can continue using the same file that you may have that you used when you first created a new document. If not, go ahead and create a new document, in the main menu, File – New or the keyboard shortcuts is Command N for a MAC or Control N for a PC. Pick a size.

Click on the left side of the A-Parent Pages panel to ensure you’re on the parent pages. To illustrate, I’ll draw a box using the rectangle tool. It should appear on even pages, i.e., pages 2, 4, 6, 8 and so on.

You can select any even page to work on by double-clicking on it. That square box cannot be moved. In my case, I don’t want to unlock all the master pages, but if I want to override or unlock a single item from the page that has the master page item, I hold Command Shift and click the black box for MACs or Control Shift then click the box for PCs, which will automatically unlock the master page item.

Create some page numbers and a footer.

The first step is to delete the black box we unlocked. Click on the A-Parent thumbnail in the Pages panel and double-click on its left side. I will select the black box again and delete it. As you can see, our pages do not have anything on them. In case a black box remains, make sure to delete it.

The Text tool can be selected on the toolbar or using the keyboard shortcut T. Drag a rectangle to create a text box. When you are satisfied with the box’s size, release the mouse button. You should see a blinking cursor. Go ahead and type in a footer. To change the size or font, click three times on the words. Now you can change the font and size. Align the Left, Right, or Centre of the parent pages by using the ‘Align Tools,’ either in the Align panel or through Window – Object & Layout. You can also grab the Selection Tool (V) or the black arrow to pick up the text box and move it to a different page part.

Let’s create a page number now. Another text box will be created. The letters you use don’t matter since this will change anyway. Two letters will be used and positioned in the corner. Double-click on the page numbers, and go to the main menu, Type – Insert Special Character – Markers – Current Page Number. Double-click on the even number pages to verify this. If you zoom in, you should see the pages with even numbers. For the right-hand side or odd pages, I would copy and paste the current page number from the left to the right side of the parent page. Adjust it and when ready, double-click on the right-side pages, and now you should see the odd number of pages.

By adding page numbers to footers and unlocking any parent items on the parent pages, you’ve learnt how to use the parent pages. Thank you for reading and watching. See you next time!