Real page numbers and section page numbers

[Joachim_L]

I guess this was asked before, so forgive me for being too lazy to search.

Currently I am working on a manual split into several files, because of the complexity of the vector images inside. In total there would be about 200 pages. Using the section function I can determine the start of the page numbering. Unfortunately the "real" page numbers are still starting from 1. So let's say my document is starting from page 67, and there is some text pointing to page 80. So moving to that page 80 I have to go to the "real" page 14 of the document. Let's say I want to print the document pages 71 to 78, so I have to use "real" pages 5 to 12 in the printer dialogue.

What I mean is, that it would be nice if the "real" page numbers would be equal to the "document" page numbers for easier navigating and printing (like in ID).

[fde101]

How would you handle the case of multiple sections containing the same "document" page number?

If you tried to "go to page 6" and there were three different sections containing a page 6, which one should the app go to?

[Joachim_L]

36 minutes ago, fde101 said:

How would you handle the case of multiple sections containing the same "document" page number?

If you tried to "go to page 6" and there were three different sections containing a page 6, which one should the app go to?

In ID this is handled with a section prefix.

[John49]

I have a different but related problem. I'd like to have separate document page numbers and Section page numbers. For instance, assume I have a 100 page document and I want to add a page number field in the page footer. This number would therefore go from 1 to 100. Now, assume that this document, for the sake of easy explanation, has 10 sections, each of 10 pages. In the document header I want to put the section name and section page number. So, document pages 1 to 10 would be Section 1 pages 1 to 10, document pages 11 to 20 would be Section 2 pages 1 to 10, and so on. 

The problem seems to be that there is only one field designator for page number: the hash symbol #. 

In the appropriate document master, I placed the hash symbol in a text box at the bottom of the document. This, unsurprisingly, worked fine! However, back on the master, I placed <Section Name> # in a text box at the top of the page. Once I created some sections and specified numbering to start from 1 for each one, I saw that the section names and section page numbers were working fine. BUT the page numbers at the bottom of the page were now reflecting the section page numbers at the top rather than the running document page numbers. Also, because I started each section with a Heading 1 style, every entry in my ToC was pointing to Page 1! I didn't create an Index, but I am assuming that the same issue as with the ToC would exist.

There clearly is a field somewhere in Publisher that contains the document page number - this can be seen in the Section Manager panel (see attachment). It would be good to be able to access this together with an "offset" or "Start numbering on Page..." option in case the user wants to skip a couple of leading blank pages before numbering starts. Obviously ToCs and Indexes would need to read this value to avoid the "which of the ten Page 4s do you want" problem!

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, John49 said:

. Once I created some sections and specified numbering to start from 1 for each one, I saw that the section names and section page numbers were working fine. BUT the page numbers at the bottom of the page were now reflecting the section page numbers at the top rather than the running document page numbers.

So you want two sets of page numbers. 

On the bottom you want pages 1 - 100 and on the top you want section + page # in the section?

What I would do is place a text frame on the bottom and then link it to the next page's bottom page number then place a Text file consisting of 1 - 100 each in its own paragraph. Set up a Paragraph Style (Bottom Page Number) with the flow properties set to Start in new Frame. You may need to link the pages even though my simple test says no.

Still and all I do agree with your suggestion.

1 hour ago, John49 said:

Also, because I started each section with a Heading 1 style, every entry in my ToC was pointing to Page 1! I didn't create an Index, but I am assuming that the same issue as with the ToC would exist.

My solution is of no use for fixing this problem.

Perhaps go the other way and jerry rig a Section Text Frame with the pseudo page number Text Frame aligned after it.

[John49]

Old Bruce, thanks for your suggestion - it would indeed be a solution, especially if I applied it to the Section naming and numbering. However, for my document, I consider it to be too much like hard work and could prove a bit awkward to maintain, particularly in the case of adding extra pages to sections throughout the evolution of the document.

For now, I'll just use the standard page numbering in the page footers and the Section naming (but not section page numbering) in the headers. This way, ToCs and Indexes will work fine and the user will at least be able tell what section they are in (if not exactly where in the section) when randomly opening the finished book.

Perhaps the Affinity development team could consider my earlier suggestion, or some other method to allow numbering of section pages differently from the running document page numbering.