Each you choose New from the File menu in Adobe InDesign, you may have noticed the option to create a new book without ever knowing exactly what a book is. Well, in fact, books are a really useful feature: they allow you to take a series of related InDesign document and process them as a single entity called a book. All documents in the book can then share the same resources such as paragraph and character styles, swatches, master pages, sections and page numbering.
Once you've created a book, by choosing File-New-Book, the Book panel is displayed. It contains a panel menu with all the options necessary for managing a book. The first task is to add some documents to the book: from the Book panel menu, choose "Add Document" and select the documents you want to be treated as part of the book. The book panel will now act as a launch pad for each of the documents it contains: simply double-click a document to open it.
When the book file is saved, the book becomes a separate entity to the documents it contains and the documents in a book do not have to reside in the same location as the book or as each other. To save a book, choose Save Book in the Book panel menu.
Next, you need to specify which of the documents in the book will be treated as the style source. The document elected as the style source will be used as the master document in the process known as synchronisation whereby InDesign replaces the styles and colour swatches of all documents in the book with those in the style source document.
To set page numbering across the whole book, choose Book Page Numbering Options in the Book panel menu. The default is "Automatically Update Page & Section Numbers": this will cause InDesign to number pages in the documents within the book according to the order in which they are listed in the Book panel.
Books are a great tool for division of labour since the fact that a document is part of a book does not stop it from being a regular InDesign document. If a book contains five documents, five different people can work on each of those documents and then, at the end, the whole book can be preflighted, printed and output as PDF as a single unit.
Both indexes and tables of contents can also be generated for an entire book as well as for a single document. Simply design and create the table of contents or index in the normal way but activate the option "Include Book Documents". - 15634
Once you've created a book, by choosing File-New-Book, the Book panel is displayed. It contains a panel menu with all the options necessary for managing a book. The first task is to add some documents to the book: from the Book panel menu, choose "Add Document" and select the documents you want to be treated as part of the book. The book panel will now act as a launch pad for each of the documents it contains: simply double-click a document to open it.
When the book file is saved, the book becomes a separate entity to the documents it contains and the documents in a book do not have to reside in the same location as the book or as each other. To save a book, choose Save Book in the Book panel menu.
Next, you need to specify which of the documents in the book will be treated as the style source. The document elected as the style source will be used as the master document in the process known as synchronisation whereby InDesign replaces the styles and colour swatches of all documents in the book with those in the style source document.
To set page numbering across the whole book, choose Book Page Numbering Options in the Book panel menu. The default is "Automatically Update Page & Section Numbers": this will cause InDesign to number pages in the documents within the book according to the order in which they are listed in the Book panel.
Books are a great tool for division of labour since the fact that a document is part of a book does not stop it from being a regular InDesign document. If a book contains five documents, five different people can work on each of those documents and then, at the end, the whole book can be preflighted, printed and output as PDF as a single unit.
Both indexes and tables of contents can also be generated for an entire book as well as for a single document. Simply design and create the table of contents or index in the normal way but activate the option "Include Book Documents". - 15634
About the Author:
The The writer of this article is a training consultant with Macresource Computer Solutions, a UK IT training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver training courses in London and throughout the UK.
