Well I would just do this with section starts and parent pages. Wouldn’t that work?

You said: “At the bottom of each page, I want it to say, for example, Section IV, subsection D, page 3 (or 4 or 5, etc.)”

Start a new section at the beginning of Section IV, set it to start on page one. Start another section when subsection D starts (assuming that subsection needs to start at 1 as well), set it to start on page one as well.

For the pages in Section IV (before/after any subsections), you’d create a parent page with the text “Section IV, page” in a text frame, and add the current number placeholder. Apply that parent to the Section IV pages.

For the pages in subsection D, create a parent page that has “Section IV, subsection D, page” in a text frame, and add the current page number placeholder. Apply that parent to the subsection D pages.

For pages in a Section that pick up after a subsection, apply the Section parent page. You’ll likely have to start a new Section and manually enter the page number there, or use the method David referred to in the article.

Wouldn’t that work?

Okay I think I get it. Clever solution. For whatever reason, ID cannot easily replicate the placement of the type in those irregular text frames.

So you’re taking the text, putting it into its own text frame, turning on Autofit, then cutting/pasting them into the parent text frame. Now you’re able to get the parent frame edges much closer to the text without the text always reformatting itself.

Neat! Thanks for sharing.