Friday, May 20, 2011

How to resize pages in InDesign

Imagine you have a document consisting of a number of pages that contain text and images. Now you need to change the page size to be smaller or larger.

One way to do this is to choose File > Document Setup, change the page dimensions, and click OK. While this works, it gives you no control over where the extra page width or height is added or removed. The rule is that the page enlargement or reduction is performed equally on all four sides, except in the case of facing pages documents where the width change happens away from the spine.

But, in CS5, you can control this behavior. Instead of using Document Setup, select the new Page Tool in the Tool panel (third tool from the top). Next, select a "reference point" on the proxy icon in the left end of the Control panel. Then adjust the width and height fields in the Control panel. The reference point you've chosen will remain fixed, and the page will grow or shrink in relation to it.

I've found this very useful when creating tablet screens for the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. One option with the Digital Publishing Suite is to create pages that are longer or wider than the tablet screen, allowing the user to swipe up and down or left and right to view a single long (or wide) "page". It can be really handy to create a 1024px x 3000px long page, add the page content starting at the top, and then just shorten the page from the bottom when finished. The technique above makes this painless!

18 comments:

Rachel said...

Thank you so much! I've been going crazy, trying to figure this out. Kudos!

Anonymous said...

THANKS SO VERY MUCH!!!

Unknown said...

Thank you! This helped me a ton =)

MaggieJ said...

This just saved my hide! Thank you for sharing!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks! Very very useful!

Anonymous said...

Awesome!!! So easy and such a huge difference.

Unknown said...

InDesign Says all pages are same size but when printing 'booklet' messages says inconsistent page size. I have tried your fixes but still get same message. Start over?
Ive spent more time trying to print mock-up than in the design.Please help

NotJustDrums said...

I love you!!! Thank you for this!

Anonymous said...

You just saved my butt. Thank you thank you thank you thank you!

Dimitra said...

This was really helpful, thank you!

Is there a way to automatically resize a lot of pages, without repeating the procedure for each one?

Keith Gilbert said...

@Dmitra: Sure, just select multiple pages in the Pages panel with the Page tool before making the change to the page size.

Unknown said...

Great tip - saved me a ton of time resizing a booklet.

Vapidium said...

This is a timesaver for sure. One thing I did notice is that if you have character and paragraph styles however, when you go to reflow text into new text boxes, it keeps text styles... so you might need to play with your styles.

Atara Yunger said...

THANK YOU!
This is what i was looking for!


Anonymous said...

Thank you! I had learned about this new tool in college, but couldn't remember exactly what and how...thanks for helping me out!

Anonymous said...

Thanks! That really helped me out too.

Unknown said...

I was so happy to see this but it doesn't work for me. I tried opening the page as it is and enlarging it with the Page tool-- I can't get to the sizing window to change the size. ??? what am i doing wrong? I have CS5.

Keith Gilbert said...

When you click on a page in your Pages panel with the Page tool, the page Width (w) and Height (h) should appear in the Control panel at the top of the screen. If you don't see the Control panel, choose Window > Control.