When you add content to a master page in your document, those items will appear on any pages that have that master page assigned.
But you can't select master items on document pages.
What if you do need to edit these items on specific document pages?
Let's take a look.
With InDesign CC open, open this file from the practice files for this tutorial to follow along.
Initially, InDesign CC shows you Page 1 of the document in the Document window.
To see all of the document pages and master pages in this file, you can use the Pages panel.
If this panel isn't visible, choose Window, Pages to display the panel.
And you'll see a thumbnail for each page in the document.
Let's begin by examining the master page in this file.
To see the master page, double click the A-Master icon to display the A-Master page in the Document window.
Note that this master page contains two items: a red rectangle at the top and a yellow rectangle at the bottom of the page.
Because an A is displayed on the page 2, 3, and 4 thumbnails in the Pages panel, we know that the A-Master page is applied to pages 2 through 4 of this document.
To turn to Page 3 of the document, double click the Page 3 thumbnail in the Pages panel.
Now I think this page would look better if the header rectangle is black and the yellow rectangle were red.
To change the colors, we first need to select the rectangles with the Selection tool.
Select the Selection tool in the Tools panel and then click on the yellow rectangle.
But this doesn't work, does it?
Note the faint dotted border on the yellow rectangle.
This indicates that it's a master page item.
And master page items can't normally be selected on document pages.
This is usually a good thing because it means you aren't going to accidentally move or delete them.
And the whole point of master page items is to help you be consistent from page to page.
But thankfully if you do want to delete or change master page items on a document page, you can override or unlock them.
To do so, click the Menu icon in the corner of the Pages panel to access the Panel menu.
And then choose Override All Master Page Items.
Because Page 3 is selected in the Pages panel, all the master page items on that page are overridden and can now be selected.
So, click to select the rectangle at the top of the page.
And change the color to black using the Fill drop-down in the Properties panel.
Then select the rectangle at the bottom of the page and change the color to red using the Fill drop-down.
Turn to Page 2 by double clicking the Page 2 thumbnail in the Pages panel.
This will display Page 2 in the Document window.
On this page, I want to remove the footer rectangle entirely, but leave the header rectangle untouched.
So, I don't need to override all of the master page items, only the footer rectangle.
You can easily override individual master items on a document page.
To do this on a Mac, hold down the Command and Shift keys, and click on the yellow rectangle.
On Windows, hold down the Control and Shift keys, and click on the yellow rectangle.
This will override just this item.
Then to delete the rectangle, choose Edit, Cut...
Let's turn to Page 3 again.
To do so, double click on the Page 3 thumbnail in the Pages panel.
This will display Page 3 in the Document window.
Now I've changed my mind about this page.
I want to put the header and footer rectangles on Page 3 back the way they were as they are on the master page.
To do this, you can re-apply the master page to the document page.
To do so in the Pages panel, drag the A-Master thumbnail onto the Page 3 thumbnail.
Release the mouse button when you see the black outline surrounding the page thumbnail.
This will restore the master page rectangles on Page 3 to the colors they were previously and lock them again.
Let's do the same thing for Page 2.
First, double click on the Page 2 thumbnail to display Page 2 in the Document window. then drag the A-Master thumbnail onto the Page 2 thumbnail releasing the mouse when you see the black outline.
This will restore the rectangle at the bottom of the page.
Master pages give us a way to add consistent elements like headers, footers, and page numbers to our documents.
But for those times when you want certain pages to be different, now you know that you can override items on individual document pages.
