One of the questions that constantly arises, particularly from migrating QuarkXpress users, is how does one create an island spread in InDesign?

An island spread is three or more pages joined together, rather like the fold-outs that you sometimes see in magazines. In Quark this is very easy to do: you simply drag a page into position on the page layout palette and an additional page is created.

If you try to do this in InDesign, however, it just doesn't work. You drag a page into position in the Pages palette and it will invariably end up appearing at the end of the document. This can be annoying to say the least.

By default Indesign does not allow islands spread to be created in the Quark way. It does this to prevent a common problem that occurs in QuarkXpress: that of the ordering of pages becoming messed up. I've lost count of the number of times that I've seen inexperienced designers or subs totally destroy a document in Quark by turning right-sided pages into left-sided pages, and visa versa.

If you need to create an island spread in InDesign the solution, however, is simple. Simply go to the palette menu of the Pages palette and deselect Allow Pages To Shuffle. Now you can drag in as many pages as you like and place them next to an existing page.



But what if you want to do this and still prevent inexperienced users from messing up your documents? Simply select a spread and choose Keep Spread Together. A simple tip, I know (you out there listening 'Creative Guy'?) but a fairly essential one at that.