Indesign page numbers start on page 3

For years I’ve been fighting with this feature only to finally realize that it was actually not that difficult after all.

Overview

In this tutorial, I want to help you understand the logic behind InDesign and how page numbers work.

I’ll teach you how to change the numbering, start from a different number, create sections, and some best practices.

You can jump to other parts of the article by clicking on the links below:

If you use InDesign frequently, you can find other great InDesign tutorials here.

The right place for your page numbers

We talk about layers here.

If you don’t know layers, you should check out this video tutorial from Adobe.

Layers are quite important in InDesign because they help you manage your content and avoid mistakes. They are not mandatory, but it’s better if you know the best practices.

I quote Lukas Engqvist here.

He is a professor and an InDesign expert.

I tell students you will need layers: (bottom to top) Background, images, text, page numbers+header/footers. If you are doing interactive add animations, interactivity, navigation.

Layers w

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