Navigating Pages

Getting from page to page is pretty important and useful. So, of course, there are lots of ways to do it.

The Pages Panel

One way to get around your document is via the Pages panel.

First, make the panel more useful by using the Pages panel menu to choose View Pages > Horizontally. This makes for a far more efficient use of space in this panel. If your document has facing pages (spreads), you might also want to go to View > Fit Spread in Window (⌘-option-0/Ctrl-Alt-0—that’s a zero, by the way). Now, to navigate from spread to spread, double-click on page numbers in the Pages panel. To view a single page, double-click on a page icon (oddly, you may have to do that twice). What happens if you single-click? A possibly precarious situation arises!

To avoid the mistake illustrated above, double-check that you’ve successfully double-clicked by looking at the Pages panel and noting if the page icons and corresponding numbers are both highlighted. Fortunately, there are two other methods that are worth mentioning.

At the bottom left of the Document Window is a small field displaying the current page number. To its right is a menu from which you can choose a page to edit (including master pages). Nearby, there are also buttons for going to the Next or Previous Page, or the Next or Previous Spread if you’ve chosen Fit Spread in Window from the View menu.

If I know the number (or master page prefix) of the page I want, I use the shortcut ⌘-J/Ctrl-J (or, less quick, Layout > Go To Page…). A dialog box opens with its lone field highlighted so I can type a number and hit return/Enter. That field is also a menu from which I can choose a page. Typing a letter accesses a master page if its prefix is or starts with that letter. This is my favorite method as it’s very fast and reliable.