InDesign makes page numbering easy with it’s “Current Page Number” character (From the “Type” menu select Type>Insert Special Characters>Markers>Current Page Number), but it automatically sets itself based on the document page number. What if you have a cover and an inside front cover page to start your document and you want to make the document page 3 to read as page 1?

Numbering and Section Options in InDesign

In the Pages Panel (Window>Pages if it’s not open), you’ll see a thumbnail preview of the pages in your document. Notice that page 1 has a black down-pointing arrow above it…

the Pages Panel

…this arrow indicates the beginning of a Section. All InDesign documents are broken down into at least one section. Unless you indicate otherwise, the entire document will be considered one section with the first document page representing page 1. This is why the section indicator arrow sits over the first page.

In order to change the page numbering, you need to create a new Section of the document. To do this, first select the page that you want to be your new page 1, then go to the options menu in the upper right corner of the Pages Panel and select “Numbering and Section Options.” The following dialogue box will appear:

Click the radio button in front of “Start Page Numbering at…” and set the field to whatever number you want (probably “1″).

Section Prefix

The Section Prefix is added to each page number for identification purposes. The best example I can think of is for printing. Say you want to print from the cover to the 4th page of your new section. You would specify the range as “1-Sec1:4.”

“Sec1:” is the default prefix, but you can change it to something less cumbersome.

Style

If you want preface indicators (”i, ii, iii”) or roman numerals, you would indicate that with this setting.

Once you’ve determined your settings click “okay.”

There will be a new, second black down arrow over your active page in the Pages Panel and the numbering below the pages should also have changed to reflect your new page numbering settings (it’s probably a one).

Now, all “Current Page Number” markers that you insert into the document will reset themselves to reflect the pagination of the Section.

A Couple of Things to Remember

As I mentioned above, your section prefix will now be added to every page number in the new section. Although it doesn’t appear as such in the Pages Panel, it will be reflected in the current page number indicator in the lower left corner of the document editing window. If you need to print, remember that you have to include this prefix in order to correctly indicate a page number in the new section.

Also, (and I’ve run into this a lot) note that the page number of the last page in your document as it appears in the Page Panel will no longer be the same as the page count of the document. The correct page count is in the lower left corner of the Pages Panel. In the above illustrations it’s the area that says “8 pages in 5 spreads.”