December 12 2006 • 2:37 PM
By:
Michael Murphy
The InDesigner – Episode 33: Long Documents, Part 1 – Book Basics
After a long wait, here’s a long episode about working with long documents in InDesign. This first installment in a three-part series covers the the Book palette and how to use it to manage, update and output multiple files that make up a single book. Thrown in for good measure are a few quick methods for using section markers and Find/Change to quickly modify chapter numbers and names on title pages and folios.
Download it now or watch it in your browser:
The InDesigner – Episode 33 (39 MB, 19:45 minutes)
Thanks for this episode and I can’t wait for more. I always wanted to play a little wth those book options but actually i never had an oportunity – no documents long enough
. So thank You for Your efford, I’ll try to be a good student of Your’s.
PS. excuse my English – it sucks, i know. Working on it hard, thought.
I have to chime in here, as I’ve been lurking for a while. This was excellent, many thanks. I don’t get the chance to use this book option as much as I’d like either, but these webcasts overall are just chock full of info, I’ve enjoyed them all.
One word for episode 33:
Wow!
Michael has gone far beyond the mere indexing that was asked for. I need indexing for a cookbook I’ve been tasked to put together. Looks like the Book feature will pay off as well.
I agree with the people above. And I got curious about one thing: when you did that monstrous job with the two-hundred-and-something-page magazine, did you use the book feature?
First…thanks to all above for the feedback.
To Alexandre, specifically: My answer to this question is so long that it exceeded the comment limit for the site, so I created a whole post here — http://indesignsecrets.com/beyond-the-book-basics-episode.php — to answer your question.
Michael, I can only say thank you at this time. You’ve illustrated above anything else that Indesign is a great program with lots of usefull features. Looking forward to the next episode!
[...] Continuing the Long Documents series with the same book files used in Episode 33, this installment covers how to create an automated, dynamic Table of Contents for an InDesign book. Along the way, I emphasize the unique and critical relationship between an InDesign Table of Contents and Paragraph Styles, without which none of this would be possible. [...]
Hey, GREAT show! I was just checking out podcast 31, and tried to use flush space to create even spacing between words in a line of justified text, but am finding that it does not work. Instead, it just creates a small space, and leave the text justified.
What am I doing wrong? Thanks
M — is your text just justified, or is it “fully justfied?” That’s the key with the flush space. The trick I showed in that episode only works if the text is set to “full justify.” Hover over the alignment icons in the Control palette and let the tool tips guide you to the correct option. If that doesn’t fix it, let me know and I’ll dig deeper.
Hi, thanks for the great podcast!
I used the book feature once in the past. What I found totally annoying was that you could synchronize styles, swatches and all that, but there is actually no way I can make InDesign share or synchronize master pages, or even base a master page in a child document on a more general master page in the style source documents.
Are you aware of any solutions or workarounds for this, or do I really have to sync all documents manually?
My question to you is, what is the main advantage of creating a book instead of having it all in the one document? I presume you can automate TOC’s in a single doc, you can find/change paragraph styles in a single doc, you can automate pages too….so…unless you need to add and remove whole chapters, why go to all this hassle?
Andrew — Books are not always worked on all at one time by the same person. Having a collection of documents instead of just one allows an editor, contributor or other collaborator to work on one part of the book while you work on another.
Also, putting an entire book in one document just plain scares me. Documents can get corrupted, damaged, or accidentally deleted…and the more you work with a file, the bigger it tends to get. Losing one chapter is a lot less devastating than losing an entire project.
If you’re doing a 16- or 24-page brochure with a TOC and Index, then by all means do it in a single document. But if your project is bigger than that, and requires more than one person t work on it, setting up an InDesign book (which I wouldn’t characterize as a “hassle”), is more efficient.
Hello,
I would also love to hear an answer to Peter’s question which is how to synchronize master page elements, and also, included with that, how to set up the book chapter template.
Oops! I missed that part of Peter’s question. Thanks, Jen. The answer is, there’s no workaround for synchronizing master pages across a book in CS2 or earlier. But the option to synchronize masters has been added to the Book features of CS3, which is a very welcome and long overdue addition.
As for setting up the book chapter template, that’s not really a part of the long document features. Rather, it falls under the topic of “document construction” and brings in with it such things as Master Pages, Numbering & Section Options, and — with the release of CS3 — Text Variables for running headers and footers.
This will be the subject of a future videocast. Keep watching!
I have a question, when setting up my book, I bring all my documents in. But they do not number correctly, the page ranges on the side, just rang 1-28, 1-32, 1-32……. when they should 1-28, 29-40…… If you get what I am saying, how do I get them to auto number, they are set up to auto number, each chapter, I can manually change the start page for each chapter then it work but I would rather use auto number. What am I forgetting.
Meagan –
This may seem like an obvious question, but have you chosen Book Page Numbering Options from the Book panel menu and checked the “Automatically Update Page & Section Numbers” checkbox? Even if auto numbering is on in the individual documents, you need this checked to sequentially number the chapters in the book automatically.
Thank you so much for all of your help. I’m working on my high school’s literary magazine and its very helpful to have resources such as this to turn to when my sponsor isn’t available. Keep up the excellent work!
I am formatting a 60 page book and am excited to use ID to do it. I want to watch your “long document” videos but I keep getting a screen saying they are not available. Are they located somewhere else on the server? Thanks
@Jim: I can see them fine. It might have been a temporary server problem, or perhaps a firewall restriction on your side?
We haven’t used book feature yet. If you delete master pages from your document will it create a problem?
[...] to create a book in InDesign, along with a Table of Contents and Index using this Podcast by him: Long Documents . It’s a 4 part tutorial, and if you’re ever stuck, it’s very helpful. [...]
I don’t know if this has been covered before , but I can’t seem to find out if there is a way to view the ENTIRE book file (without printing it). The Book file opens each chapter as needed, but if I wanted to see how the book flowed, can I do that easily?
@Terrance: Deselect everything in the book panel and choose export to PDF from the book panel menu. The PDF file would show flow.
Thanks David,
That method still takes some time, especially with big docs with lots of images, but I think I can get used to it.
@Meagan: You might check this blog post for one potential answer:
http://indesignsecrets.com/book-panel-shows-wrong-page-number-fixed.php
Before seeing your video on long documents, I had worked for a whole day trying to get my template correct for my first book using InDesign as a layout. Thank you so much, I now know some of the things that I was doing wrong and I’m not so frustrated.
Do you have any other videos directed toward specifically the lay out of a book and it’s cover? I would appreciate any information that could be forwarded since this will be a series of at least six books and I don’t want to dread the process of the layout.
Thank you so much,
DJ Holmes
Your video was very helpful, although I have CS4. But thank you for making such a confusing process so… well, less confusing!
However, I have a question; I hope this is the right place to post it.
After I get my book set up, suppose I decide I want to move Chapter 8 in front of Chapter 2. Does that mean I have to manually rename all my individual chapter files?
Thanks!
@Rontiara: not really, as the file name does not appear anywhere inside the documents or in the PDF you get when exporting as a book.
You can simply drag your Ch 8 file in the book panel to the new location, and ID will adjust the page numbering in all other documents. If you used automatic chapter numbering, it even updates those as well!
So InDesign does not mind; but it might be confusing for your co-workers — or for yourself, 6 months from now!
[...] and on the web. By the end of the process, I was ready to send flowers to the guy who made these videocasts about InDesign–they were a [...]
I’m excited to find your podcasts on books and long documents, but these were made using Cs2. We are on CS4 and about to move to CS5. Is the information still good? I really need the help — I’ve not done a book in InDesign before and am an anxious and willing student…
Excellent!
Very clear and easy to understand.
Thank you for a superb job, well done!
I am at the beginning of a large project with a very short production time. Your videos are most helpful. Thank you. Mike Hortens
Thanks for a wonderful, robust and easy to understand explanation. You will make my life so much easier and I am going to view your TOC video next. GREAT JOB!
Is there any backup document available if you cannot access the mp4 videos?? My employer won’t let me open or view it.
Thanks for the helpful tutorial. I have a very large file (150+ pages, with more than 2300 linked images and 20+ master spreads) that I use to create an annual product catalog. Is this something that you’d recommend breaking into different documents and creating a book file ?
Thanks again.
@Caralyn: You could see if this page would work: http://www.theindesigner.com/blog/2006/12
@Beth: If it were just text, I would keep it in one document. But due to all those images, I would recommend breaking that up into smaller files.
Excellent video. Thank you.
I haven’t been able to find the other two in this series, though. I need the indexing information!
[...] file for your TOC, and add that TOC file to your book. For instructions on using the Book Panel, check out this video by Michael [...]
I can’t get the video casts to play. I have updated my windows media player for mp4 files with no luck. Help?
Fantastic tuto.
Thanks a lot
Dear Michael Murphy, thank you for sharing this video with us, actually it helped me a lot, for I did had some difficulties to find e. g. how to print all pages of one book into a PDF-file.
Still I do look forward to find more of your advice, since I plan to make it an Ebook as well, but I do have many photos in it, where the text is highlighted within a photo. And the first results in making it an ebook turned out that the text showed up kind of wired, depending on which size I choose.
That’s something I really don’t want to have since it ruins my design.
Ok but thank you so much, best and kind regards from a German artist, Christine