Chapter 2. Making Pages and Taking Names
The Fundamental Purpose Of A Page Layout Program Is just that: laying out pages. Above all else, the application ought to make it easy for users to get pages to appear where they want them to be, and to get the objects on those pages arranged how they want them arranged. These tasks are the main course, the meat of a page layout program. Everything else is a side dish.If you're hankering for some protein, InDesign's feature set for basic page production is a carnivore's feast. For example, take the concept of a master page. Providing an editable master page in each document is not enough for InDy. It also provides multiple masters, pages that convert to masters, parent/child masters, spread masters for non-facing page documents, overridden master elements, hidden masters, and masters with multiple layers.The same welcome flexibility and power is evident in other layout-centric aspects of InDesign, such as the options it offers for new document creation; combining documents; adding and rearranging pages; duplicating, grouping and aligning objects; margin, column and ruler guides; and using layers to keep things organized.Yet lurking in this roast beast are a number of perplexing issues call them bits of gristle [Editor: Are we about done with the meat thing? Authors: Can't talk. Eating.] that need to be worked around or removed.Designers, man your steak knives!