Reply To: Indesign Book – chapter layout problem

In the Book Panel go to the Sub Menu – and go to Book and Numbering Options

From here you have

Continue from Previous Document

Continune on next odd page

Continue on next even page

Insert a Blank (greyed out when Continue from Previous Document is on)

Automatically update page and section numbers

Continue from previous document will just keep paginating your document so if you end on left page, then the next page is going to be a right page and vice versa. I use this for Magazine Layouts and other layouts simialr, where there has to be a continous document.

What you have is probably pages starting and ending on different right and left pages randomly. You could fix this manually, but it's unusual for a chapter to start on a left page (even numbers)

So what you need to do is start at the beginning of the document and make sure that the first chapter is set to a left page as the first page, you can do this with Numbering and Section options from the Pages Panel when you have the first page selected.

Make sure this is set to Start at an even number.

Now go to the end of the document and make sure that the last page is an odd number (odd numbers on the right page).

So you might have pages 1 – 7, or 3 – 9 or something.

Now with the Continue from Previous Document checked (Book Panel Sub Menu>Book Page Numbering Options) your next document should start on a left page. (You  may have to use the Update Numbering and Sections)

That is the manual way to do the book layout. If you can't fill all the pages on the spread then put a Blank Page in to finish the chapter, just make sure you end on an Odd Page number.

If it looks odd or you think people may think that the document is missing text, then I usually put a screen of Gray (just black at about 20 – 40 % tint). Some people put “Page Left Blank Intentionall” or just leave it blank. If you're doing a full colour book you can have fun with your swatches and end each chapter with a different tint of the swatches in your Swatches in your Panel.

Or depending on the book you may put an illustration there, a diagram, some witty text, or some large text like a pull quote from the text – whatever you want can go there, if you can't fill out the pages that is. If you can fill out that page with relevant material then do so.

So the automatic way of course is always there.

In the Book and Page numbering options (Book Panel Sub Menu) you have the option to “Continue on next odd page” or “continue on next Even page”.

In this case you want to continue on Next Even page (even numbers are always on the left page). And then the optiont o Insert a Blank Page becomes available, this will automatically insert a page at the end of a document.

And if you have Automatically Update Page and Section Numbers ticked this can be cumbersome when updating document page counts, I usually leave that off until I have all the pages sorted out, then I update Page & Section Numbers through the book Panel Sub Menu.

But if you're unsure of what way the pages will go then leave this on so that you can follow the page numbering as you update the chapters in your book.