Author | Jackie

Master Pages are an essential part of a well-designed digital planner template, or any Affinity Publisher or desktop publishing document.

You may have come across this concept before in presentation or design software. If not, today’s post will give you an overview of what they are and how they work.

Once the concept of Master Pages makes sense, you’ve made a huge leap forward in your understanding of Affinity Publisher.

What are Master Pages?

Page-level Templates

Master Pages are page-level templates. And, when you apply a template to a page, it stays connected. If you change the Master, you change all the pages that master has been applied to. In seconds!

Digital Planner documents are big documents. Once you have created all your pages, if you don’t use a Master Page foundation, your document can quickly become unruly and frustrating to edit.

If, for example, you were designing a daily digital planner, you would be looking at 400+ pages without even adding specialised sections to the planner. Just the monthly, weekly and daily pages alone would produce a document of this size.

A Master Page structure is essential for digital planner design.

Changing Master Page Layouts

If you decide you want to change the weekly or daily page layouts, without Master Pages you are looking at a lot of frustrating copying and pasting! Not an enjoyable way to create a planner.

There is also document checking - a vital part of making a good quality planner. With your page layouts and hyperlinks in place, you don’t want to be making changes to individual pages. If you use Master Pages, this isn’t a problem. 

Make a change to the Master → check the Master Page → and in effect, you’ve checked every page that Master has been applied to just by designing and proofing a single page.

Trust me, when you start designing digital planners, the checking phase is vital and time consuming. Rather check changes on one page and be done.

For Example

I could have a virtually finished dated daily planner. All hyperlinks are in place and have been checked. I then decide to change the heading on one of the tables on the daily pages. All I need to do is:

• change the Daily Layout Master Page
• proofread the change to make sure it is correct
• the change will then appear, as if by magic, on all the daily pages in the document instantly! 

Believe me, once you understand Master Pages, you will love them!

Affinity Pubisher Templates - from Make Your Own Digital Planner Course

Where do you find them?

Pages Panel

Master Pages live in the same panel as your document pages, the Pages Panel. If you are looking at the default layout, you will see the Pages Panel docked on the left-hand side of the screen.

Window Panel

If you’ve customised your Studio workspace, you can open the Pages Panel from the Window menu: Window – Pages

Reset Studio

If you want to return to the default layout, you can Reset the Studio: Window – Studio – Reset Studio

Affinity Publisher Guide

You can find out more about Master Pages and other essential tools for a digital planner designer in the free Guide.

Grab the Guide - The Best Affinity Publisher Tools for Digital Planner Design

How do you use them?

Designing Master Pages

You create the content on a Master Page the same way you create content on any page.

Use tables, text, and shapes to create your page layouts. Once these pages are designed, you can start to apply them to other pages.

Applying Master Pages

You connect a Master Page to a document Page by applying it. A Master can be applied by:

• dragging and dropping the Master onto the page in the main workspace
• dragging the Master onto a page in the Pages Panel, or 
• by applying and choosing which page(s) you want the Master to appear on

One of the features I love about Affinity publisher is you can apply multiple Master Pages to a Page. This gives you great control and flexibility in page layouts.

Using the Apply Master Panel to apply a Weekly Master Page

How to add and delete Master Pages?

Adding a Master Page

You can add a new Master Page by clicking the Add Master icon (a page with a + symbol) at the top of the Pages Panel (Master Panel section). 

The Add Master Panel will opened and you can name your Master Page. You can also right-click inside the Master Page Panel to achieve the same thing.

Deleting a Master Page

Again, there is a Trash Icon at the top of the Pages Panel (Master Panel section) to delete a page. Or, you can right-click inside the Master Page thumbnail you want to delete.

How to Work with Master Pages in Affinity Publisher

The idea of Master Pages sounds more complex than it is. Think of them as simply templates at a page level. And, most importantly, they remain live and editable after they’ve been applied.

You change a Master, you change any number of pages that Master has been applied to instantly.

Make Your Templates Go Further

When working with digital planner templates, Master Pages are powerful and real time savers. They can turn a single template into multiple end products quickly and easily. 

If you want a variation on your digital planner, you simply change the Master Page layout and export. The template has already been checked, so if you keep your edits to the Master Pages, you only have to check your new layout once and you’re done!

You can find out more about the key tools in Affinity Publisher that are perfect for digital planner designers in a free Guide.

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