Page settings
Page settings, opened from the paper size in the toolbar (A4), holds what applies to the whole document: the paper, the colours and default font, the language, the PDF it becomes, and what is printed on every page.
Page
Page size: A4, A5, A3, Letter, Legal, Tabloid or a custom size. Orientation: portrait or landscape. Margins: one for all four sides, or Per side.
Document
- Colors: the colours the document uses. Change one here and it changes everywhere it is used.
- Default font: the font of text that has none of its own; text whose block sets a font keeps it.
- The Language of the document, which the PDF declares so that screen readers use the right voice, and in which date fields write their dates.
- Text direction: as the document’s language writes, left to right, or right to left.
- Tagged PDF, on by default: the PDF carries its structure and reading order for screen readers. See Accessible and archival PDF.
- Keep the PDF editable, off by default: the PDF carries the document inside it, to open here again without AI; the file gets larger.
- On Pro and Max: Export as PDF/A-3a and Claim PDF/UA-2.
Page decoration
Layers drawn on every page, behind the content: a background, frames and bands, among sixteen presets (Background, Gold Frame, Corporate Blue, Side Accent, Corner Brackets, Soft Paper, Modern Minimal, Ribbon Header, Gradient Border, Executive Dark, Dotted Classic, Sidebar Stripe, Certificate, Top-Bottom Bands, Shadow Card, Diagonal Accent). A watermark (“Draft”, “Confidential”) is set from the page’s right-click menu or the command palette.
Footnotes
Numbering continuous through the document or restarting on each page, the Marks, the Note text size and the Separator line above the notes.
Headers and footers
Start from a preset: None, Page numbers (“Page 1 of 3” in the footer), Title + page numbers, or Section + page numbers. Then click a page’s top or bottom margin to change what is printed there: type text, and insert the page number, the total page count, the current section heading or the document’s title from the buttons above it.
Different first page and Different odd & even pages give those pages their own headers and footers; Section from sets which heading level the section shows. With nothing selected, Properties lists the headers and footers too: Set up… opens them.
A block already on the page, such as a letterhead or a logo, can be printed on every page instead. Select it (for a letterhead, its box: each Esc from its text selects the block around it); then in Properties open More layout and, under Repeat, switch Enabled on and choose the place, from Header left to Footer right, a corner or a side margin. Its row in the Outline has Repeat on every page… in its menu too.
The three places of the top margin (left, center and right) share its width: a wide block in Header center leaves Header left and Header right almost no room. When the document already has a header, put the block in the place that header uses: the block replaces what was there. A place is as tall as the page’s margin, so give the margin room for the block in Margins above.