Reply To: One file OR several files?

(urgh.. wrote this off the top of my head, sorry for any errors or confusion)

Ok just think that you have your 10 chapters done, and all of a sudden they decide they want Chapter 10 to be Chapter 1, and they want Chapter 4 to be Chapter 2 and Chapter 6 to be Chapter 3 and so on.

1. Argh, really messy, especially if all in one file.
2. Easy enough to change the chapters around if they are individual files though and arranged with a Book, but you stil have to manually adjust the Chapter headings to change Chapter 10 to Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 to Chapter 2 and so on.
3. But if you use Chapter Number Variable (Text>Insert Variable) this becomes far easier, as you move the pages around, InDesign keeps track of the Chapters, if you choose the Document Numbering Options to “Continue from Previous Document in Book”.

How to setup:

1. Start a new Book (File>New Book)
2. Start two new files (name them something descriptive (not the chapter #) so something like Careers and the other one call Hobbies)
3. Add both files to the Book.
4. On Both of them go to Type>Insert Variable>Chapter Number
5. Select a document in the Book and go to “Document Numbering options” in the Book Panel Menu
6. Select for the Chapter Numbering and choose Continue Numbering from Previous Document in Book

Now you can move around your Chapters in the Book. You won't see the change straight away – you have to choose to Update Chapter and Paragraph Numbers from the fly menu. (if you don't see a change straight away refresh your page, zoom in or something)

You can now move your chapters around and the Chapter number updates automaticaly.

Bullets and Numbering:

With using Chapter Numbers and letting InDesign update from the Previous document you can also include the Chapter Number in the Numbering for your text – by selecting Chapter Number from the drop down in the Bullets and Numbering Options

Now, if you wanted the Chapter Number to appear in Figures, say if you had all Chapter 1 figures named

1.1, 1.2 etc. and all Chapter 2 figures named 2.1, 2.2 etc.

So you might have something like this

^H.^#.^t