CreativePro Forum

Return to Forums

• Author
  Posts
• • November 30, 2009 at 8:09 pm #54058
    seaner7633

    Member

    I've noticed a strange behavior in a catalog that I'm working on. The catalog isn't changing much from 2009 to 2010, so I'm lucky enough to be able to use many of the existing pages.

    Rather than do a Save As on the old file (Catalog-09.indd) and risk keeping any file bloating, I'm just creating a blank new file (Catalog-10.indd) with the page count I need, and I'm copying and pasting the contents of each page that I need. I've gone through and constructed the entire catalog. After I finished and saved the new file, I closed the old one.

    Then, when I attempted to perform a simple task (I forget what it was, but it was something basic like trying to go to a different page than the one I was one), InDesign kept on displaying a status bar, saying Opening Catalog-09.indd, and the bar would fully progress, the message would disappear and then reappear, repeating the same thing over and over again for about 15 minutes. Even though it says it's opening the file, it never does.

    It seems like something is linked to the old document, but I've never seen that before. Hopefully this is a very basic thing I can easily fix. The catalog is 176 pages, so it'd be tough to narrow down on what exactly is causing this.

  • December 1, 2009 at 10:55 pm #54071
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    That is very, very weird.

    Do you have a book file open? Perhaps it's that book file that is opening and closing the files?

  • December 2, 2009 at 1:44 pm #54078
    seaner7633

    Member

    Hey David,

    This catalog doesn't use book files. It's just the full 176 pages.

    Is it possible that object, paragraph or character styles could cause this?

    I'm just trying to think of what could have been copied over that still needs access to the old file. Whatever it is, there seemed to be a bunch of them.

    I'm starting the process over again, so I may be able to isolate the problem. The file became corrupt after a crash, or sloppy shutdown by me, and won't open anymore anyways.

    Is 176 pages too ambitious a page count for one file?

  • December 2, 2009 at 2:35 pm #54079
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    I honestly can't think what inside a document could cause that. Sounds very odd.

    But a bigger question is: Why are you trying to copy and paste from the original document? What is wrong with the old, tried-and-true: Save-as-then-work-on-the-duplicate? Save As removes file bloating. I would probably do a save as, then strip out what I don't need anymore, then do another save as and be on my way. You could throw in an export-to-INX/IDML-and-open-that-file in there, but it's rarely necessary.

  • December 2, 2009 at 2:35 pm #54080
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Although… with that “file opening” weirdness you describe, perhaps you should try the INX/IDML route to clear out whatever gunk is stuck in there.

  • December 2, 2009 at 4:40 pm #54084
    seaner7633

    Member

    I'm doing the copy and paste method because although a fair amount of the content on each page isn't changing, the arrangement of the pages are.

    There is a large amount of page juggling, which I think would be hard to keep up with in the document once you start moving pages around. Right now, I have a spreadsheet that tells me that page 74 is last year's page 96, and so on.

    I'll give it a shot though, as well as the INX/IDML export.

  • December 15, 2009 at 5:09 pm #54252
    seaner7633

    Member

    UPDATE:

    I did the Save As method as have the file setup fine now.

    I think I've identified the cause of the Opening old file message. I copied and pasted a spread layout into a new document, so i could give it to someone else to work on. In this new document, I selected all and copied. I got the same deal as before, where it kept telling me it was opening the old document, except this time it was saying it was opening the 2010 file, not the 2009.

    So, seeing as how this was just a single spread, I was able to keep selecting more and more objects and copy them until the message appeared again.

    The cause, it seems, is a cross-reference I have set up in one of the text boxes. I use these throughout the catalog, to reference products on other pages. (ex: See our complete line of bags on page 32.) I set these up last year so that this year, when I shuffle pages, all the references will update themselves.

    Even though it says its it's opening the document, it never does though…. Unless, you go to the Cross Reference panel and try to edit it. At that point, InD does open the referenced file.

    Glad I figured that out. I don't think I set up the cross references wrong. I guess this is just one of those things that'll just have to happen.

• Author
  Posts