Force page footer in master to stick to the bottom of pages of different height in Indesign

Question

I'm trying to create a website prototype in Indesign. It consists of multiple pages with different height (home page, article page, archive page etc.).

I created a master page with header and footer on it and set the master page in Liquid Layout palette as Object-based. Footer is supposed to stick to the bottom of every actual page I create based on that master, so I:

• selected all the objects it consists of and grouped them,
• checked the Pin: bottom checkbox in the same palette for this group,
• created multiple individual pages depicting different web pages I want to prototype,
• set them in the Liquid Layout palette to Controlled by master so they'd inherit supposedly the rule of resizing behavior from the master.

Now to the resizing part.

The supposed outcome for this is that when I resize an actual page to which this master is applied the footer should stay pinned to the bottom regardless of what height I set for this individual page. Instead:

• if I resize individual page with Page tool manually (resizing it from one of the sides/corners while pressing Alt), I have the desired result, the footer sticks to the bottom automatically regardless of the height:
  But, ALL pages get resized together to this size, so it's impossible to make pages of different height then;
• if I resize individual page by changing its dimensions (see image, again it requires Page tool to be activated) then the stickiness doesn't apply: page is cropped or enlarged but the sticky footer stays at the same absolute position and thus is either cropped or goes up from the bottom border of the page:

What is the right combination of settings here, and is it possible at all? What do you think?

Answer 1

You could create a new layer specifically for the footer, and place all text content in a frame 100% of the height and 100% of the width. That way, when the page size changes, it will still expand to the corners of the document ... if you have Layout Adjustment turned on. Since the text is set to align: bottom, it should stay put at the bottom.

Lock that layer to make sure it doesn't get in the way.

A bit of a hack, but worth a try.

Answer 2

I don't think it works that way in ID. The liquid layout is ideal for one layout at a time. If for example you created an advertisement that needs to be recreated in different dimensions but even with that you might have a make a few adjustments. What you are trying to do is better served by creating separate master pages for each size/section and then applying accordingly. Hope this helps.