This is beyond me, but maybe someone has seen this before and knows a way to stop it once and for all. I've spent most of this evening experimenting with this, and am still dumbfounded. But here goes as for an explanation:
I have three folders, each with basically the exact same set of files for a book–one .indb file and all the other .indd and image files, etc. I need them for my own reasons, but after David helped me yesterday I was able to get two of the three to go with 'absolute numbering' and show me the correct page numbers in the book panel.
In the third folder, with basically the exact same set of files, the Book panel showed section numbering for all the chapters, etc. I made sure the prefs showed “absolute numbering”, but the book still showed section numbers. I then went through ever individual .indd file to see if something was overriding things, but each was set to absolute numbering and to continue from the previous document. I even copied everything to a whole new folder just to see if I could jar something loose, but no go. So, on a lark I decided I would simply change preferences to go with “Section Numbering” thinking maybe that would reset something, or all the files in some way, and would then go back and switch to absolute numbering to see what might happen.
…Well, when I set it to section numbering in preferences, lo and behold, all the page numbers in the Book panel are now changed to absolute numbering!! Huh?? I set it back to absolute numbering and the page numbers changed back to section numbers again (i.e. 1-10, etc.) Something is really screwy! Have I got bad karma today or something??
So, I opened one of the other books/folder and checked it, and if I update numbering with “Absolute…” set, it converts all the page numbers to section numbering. Switching to “Section Numbering” and updating page numbers puts them all back to absolute numbers!! Good grief!! For all the good I think of InDesign (and especially Photoshop)…InDesign sure seem to have some serious bugs in it that make things flake out for no obvious reason.
…could someone tell me how to reset all my Preferences in InDesign? Maybe I need to give that a try.
-JT
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