: Master pages with elements that are locked! A friend of mine gave me an InDesign file which has A-Master page that has two elements on it, but when I try to copy the whole page, it only

@Ogunnowo857

To me it sounds like the master page objects are in a layer that is locked.



There are couple ways to figure out layer it might be.


If you only have a few locked layers:


Toggle visibility of your layer(s) until you find the correct one.

If you have multiple locked layers:


Click the corner menu in Layers panel Layers panel > Unlock all
layers
Then you should be able to select the objects with or without Cmd+shift and figure out what layer(s) they belong to.
( If you can't select object(s) without Cmd+shift at this point, it means those objects come from another master page. )
You'd then most likely want to undo Cmd+Z and manually unlock the layer(s) you just found.







They could also be locked by using Object > Lock, in which case the object(s) should have a lock icon on the left side of the frame.

In that case you can either click the lock icon, or Object > Unlock all on a spead





Some information about master pages:

Master pages can be based on other master pages, which is handy if you have objects that are supposed to repeat in multiple master pages.

When a master page thumbnail has a letter inside, it means that it is based on that master page.

In the picture below, B-Master is based on A-Master. It's easy to tell from the letter "A" it has in the thumbnail.



You can change it by right-clicking master page in the Pages panel and choosing: Master options for "...". Then in the new window you just change the Based on Master: drop down list.

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