Assymetrical Margins for Facing Pages?

[Mark Oehlschlager]

Is it currently possible to set up a facing pages document with asymmetrical page margins associated with a Master-page spread?

In InDesign, one can achieve this by selecting the left and right facing master pages individually and then adjusting the page margins.

Something like the following:

 

[Seneca]

41 minutes ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

Is it currently possible to set up a facing pages document with asymmetrical page margins associated with a Master-page spread?

Well, create 2 master pages with asymmetrical margins, say, one with outside margin 30mm, inside 10, then the second master page, outside 10, inside 30 and apply those 2 masters to the left and the right spreads. And you are done.

[Mark Oehlschlager]

Seneca,

Thanks. That appears to be a short term work around. But that assumes manually assigning an A master to every left page, and a B master to every right page, correct?

What I'm looking for is the ability to have a single Master spread with the asymmetrical margins built in. Perhaps this is a feature that comes later.

[Seneca]

55 minutes ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

But that assumes manually assigning an A master to every left page, and a B master to every right page, correct?

Well, you could create a third master page and apply the first 2 master pages to it and then base all your pages on that  3rd master.

[Mark Oehlschlager]

Hmmmm.

So, the two sets of margins show overlapping on Master C? That sounds like a much better workaround. Thanks.

[Mark Oehlschlager]

Seneca,

I just tried creating a Master C, and then applying Masters A and B to it, but only one set of page margins show.

I suppose one could further hack the system by simply drawing stroked frames on the A and B masters to simulate page margins.

EDIT: Actually, the best workaround here is probably to create a single Master A with page margins that represent the combined text blocks, and then to drag out guides on the master that represent the inside left margin and the outside right margin. That's cleaner, and also offers the benefit of having text frames on the actual pages snap to the margins and guides.

[fde101]

When I have a facing pages document this happens automatically...

 

 

 

EDIT: sorry, I just realized you are asking for the opposite of this.

[fde101]

50 minutes ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

I just tried creating a Master C, and then applying Masters A and B to it, but only one set of page margins show.

I don't know if this actually should work this way, but if you create a single-page master "left" and your facing pages spread, set the margins on "left" to be what you want for the left page, then set the margins of the facing pages master to be the opposite of what you set left for, then apply left to the left page of the spread, that seems to work.  There is LOTS of room for improvement here.

[Old Bruce]

5 hours ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

Is it currently possible to set up a facing pages document with asymmetrical page margins associated with a Master-page spread?

In InDesign, one can achieve this by selecting the left and right facing master pages individually and then adjusting the page margins.

Does it have to be margins? Can you not work with guides? And yes this Master Page margins thing is a pain.

[Mark Oehlschlager]

Establishing a grid structure with guides on the Master that can serve both the left and right facing pages is probably the best solution for the time being.

I could also try to set up a new document with facing pages and no margins. Then Create a single page Master B with desired margins (narrow left, wide right). Then Attempt to apply the single page Master B to all of the pages in the facing pages document. (EDIT: This idea did not work. Using a grid composed of guides seems to be the best solution.)

[Wasp11b]

"But that assumes manually assigning an A master to every left page, and a B master to every right page, correct?"

If I set up two single page masters for left and right facing pages, as I think was suggested earlier, and apply whatever margins are required (unlink 'edit all margins together'), then if you right click on either master there is a list where there is an option 'apply Master to pages...' where it allows a master to be assigned to all odd or even pages, or indeed specified pages, so you don't have to go through your document manually assigning a master to each page. Does this do what you want?

Interestingly, if you then look at the spread setup properties for a page assigned left or right masters, the margins do not reflect what is on the master page, although they seem to be displayed correctly on the page. Must be a bug, I suppose.

[Seneca]

9 hours ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

Then Attempt to apply the single page Master B to all of the pages in the facing pages document.

Have a look at the attached. Will that solve your problem?

AsymmetricalMargins.afpub

[Mark Oehlschlager]

Thank you to Seneca and Wasp11b.

Seneca, your sample document works perfectly. Thank you.

Did you make use of the 'Apply Master to "odd/even pages"' command to achieve this?

[Seneca]

4 hours ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

Did you make use of the 'Apply Master to "odd/even pages"' command to achieve this?

This is one way of doing it. You could achieve the same result with a single page master.

[Mark Oehlschlager]

Seneca,

Excellent tutorial video. A simple and elegant solution to the problem.

Cheers.