Discover the process of creating consistent page designs in Design software. Learn how to work with master pages, add uniform elements across numerous pages, and insert page numbers automatically.
Key Insights
- The article provides a step-by-step guide on how to create consistent page designs in Design software, starting from the insertion of a uniform bar across the bottom of each page to automated page numbering.
- To ensure design uniformity across pages, changes can be made to the A master pages, which will automatically apply to all other pages assigned to it. This includes the placement of a colored bar and the automatic assignment of page numbers.
- The article also provides insights on how to edit elements on individual pages without affecting the master design. This includes making page-specific edits, such as leaving a page blank or moving elements to different positions.
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In this video, we'll begin working on our next pages. Before beginning, let's pull up our request for proposal again.
And within the request for proposal, we have specific instructions for us. We've already completed our cover being sent to Virtual Design Construction Institute. And if we scroll down, we can see additional contents that we need to add to our proposal.
One of these elements is our cover letter. Here, we have to provide a one-page cover letter on our letterhead. So let's begin working on this.
We'll do this on page 3. And we'll leave page 2 blank. If we hit W on the keyboard, we can see our normal view with our baseline grid. And before we begin starting page 3, let's actually discuss the rest of the pages.
We're going to want to have a consistency throughout all of our pages with page numbers, as well as with that bar on the bottom that we've created on our cover page. We could do this by adding the same bar to every single page and typing in the page numbers. Or we can also do this within our pages.
We go to pages here. We can change our master pages. And as we can see in all of our pages, they're currently assigned to master A. This means that any changes we make in our A master will also be applied to the remaining pages.
So to edit our A master pages, we can double click A master. And we now have the capability of changing standard changes across all of our A master pages. If we want to only select our left page, we can double click the left page and only make changes to the left page or the right page.
Remember that to edit both of them, we're going to want to double click A master the text itself. Now, for the changes that we want across all of our A master pages, we're going to want the bar across the bottom. And we'll utilize our rectangle tool for this.
With the rectangle tool selected, let's simply drag a rectangle from the bottom corner all the way over to the other side. Since it's a spread, it can go across both pages. Additionally, let's change it up, selecting CC libraries.
And I'm going to change mine to red instead of color two. From here, we'll want to make sure that we're only covering the bottom inch. So let's go to our properties panel.
And for our height, let's type in one and hit ENTER. We'll then make sure that our X value is set to zero and Y value set to 11 inches, making sure that our reference point is the bottom left. This means that it comes up one inch and goes all the way across all 17 inches across both pages.
Next, we want to add our page numbers. So let's zoom in using CTRL PLUS (+) (+). And we'll add our page numbers right at the corner of the margin.
So to do this, we'll utilize our type tool. And let's simply drag a box here. And from here, we're going to want to add our page number.
Now, while we could type this out for each individual page, we can have InDesign do the work of assigning a page number based on this template from the A master. To do this, we're going to add a special character. We'll go to type.
And from here, we're going to go to insert special character. We'll then go over to the right hand side. And we'll go to markers and current page number.
Here, we can see that we have the letter A marking the current page number. To see what this looks like, we can go back out to pages now. And we can click on any of our pages.
For example, if we click on page 6, we'll see that we have a 6 there. Page 10, we have a 10. However, we need to change the styling a bit and add it to the right hand side.
So let's go back to our A master. Double clicking A master. And let's stylize this text.
We'll double click. And first, let's start by changing the color from black to paper. And we'll also change the font.
Clicking the font and typing Chivo. And we'll do Chivo bold. Selecting bold below.
Next, let's increase the size just a little bit to 14 points. And we now want to align our text to the bottom right hand side. We'll start by aligning our paragraph align right.
And then utilizing our selection tool. We'll select the entire text frame. And we're going to align the text to the bottom.
Going to align bottom in our control bar. Make sure that you have enough room on the left side of your text frame. So that if the page number is two digits, both fit.
We'll then hit control C to copy this. And let's paste it on the right hand side. We also have a page number for our right pages.
We'll make one change. Double clicking the text inside. And making sure that it's the left aligned.
That it's lined up with the left hand margin corner. We use our selection tool and click outside. We can zoom out and now see what this looks like.
Next, if we go back into our pages and click on our pages. We can see that we have our page numbers. At the bottom of each of our pages.
Additionally, because it's part of our a master page. We can't edit it on the actual page itself. These items are essentially locked from us to be able to edit.
So that we don't accidentally move them around. If we do wish to edit them. For example, in this case, we want page two to be completely blank.
We can edit these by holding CTRL and shift. And then highlighting or clicking whatever materials we want. So with CTRL and shift held.
Let's drag a selection box over the bar, the two and the three. And we can now edit these. In this case, we simply want to get rid of number two.
We'll hit delete. And then let's just drag our bar over from the left side. So that's only on the right page here.
We've effectively left the second page to blank. And we still have our same format for page three. However, in this case, the bar is now in front.
So let's move it behind holding CTRL shift open bracket. And we now have our formatting correct for page three. Additionally, if we go down.
Even though we change page two and page three. Page four and five are still locked because we haven't made changes to those. If we go back up to the top, however.
Our cover page is still part of a master. Because it's previously been assigned to a master. We also need to change this.
To do that, we'll hold CTRL shift and select the bar. And delete it. And we can't currently see the page number.
Because it's hidden behind the bar that we've previously created. If we want to, however. We can drag the bar off hold CTRL shift.
Select this number. We'll delete it. And we'll simply put our bar back.
Well done. We've now created a theme that will follow throughout this proposal. By utilizing our a master.
Let's now save our work. Hitting CTRL S on the keyboard to save. And in the next video.
We're going to begin creating the actual cover letter. For this page. See you there.