Automatically Placing Illustrator CS4 Artboards
A wonderful new feature of Illustrator CS4 is the ability to create multiple artboards. When you place an Illustrator CS4 .ai file it will default to the 1st artboard (page) of the file. If you want to choose a different page you will need to use import options when placing the file.
Manually placing every artboard on every page of an InDesign layout can be a drag. Luckily there is a script to help. The PlaceMultipagePDF script that comes with InDesign will also work on the Illustrator file since Illustrator files have a PDF wrapper surrounding them.
Running the Script
1. Double-click on PlaceMultipagePDF (located in the scripts panel under window > automation > scripts) and it will prompt you to find the pdf (or .ai).
2. Chose the document and which page you want to begin placing the artboards on.
3. Sit back and watch the magic
Observations
• All of the links will be placed in the upper left corner regardless of your reference point.
• I tried using this script to place a multi-page InDesign file inside another InDesign file, but InDesign ended up locking up on me. Maybe with some tweaking of the script it could work with other InDesign files, but for the time being I would only recommend that you use it with PDF and Illustrator CS4 files.
• Even though you are using a script that says “place PlaceMultipagePDF” each artboard will be linked as an individual link to the Illustrator file.
Great tip!
Zanelli’s script is way better than the one which comes with InDesign, though:
http://indesignsecrets.com/zanelli-releases-multipageimporter-for-importing-both-pdf-and-indd-files.php
Dont understand master pages I am new to indesign.
Why cant I just add all of my 36 page spread in the text box options at the beginning?
Also I have tried your suggestion for adding page numbers but all I get is one page number all the other 35 pages are blank at the corners no page numbers added what am I doing wrong
Stanley: this really doesn’t have anything to do with the topic!
Read the online help for master pages: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/InDesign/6.0/WSa285fff53dea4f8617383751001ea8cb3f-7105a.html
– and you might consider buying a beginners’ book; “Real World InDesign CS3″ has been mentioned as one of the best.
Where can I get this script?
@Cortland – You already have this script installed (it comes with InDesign). Go to the window menu and choose Automation > Scripts. Inside the script panel go to Application > Samples > JavaScript and then look for PlaceMultipagePDF.jsx