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• • March 13, 2015 at 12:42 pm #73936
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    I will be laying out a 6 Chapter Study with Word text and Excel tables to conclude with Front & Back Matter, 450-500 pages, a total of 100 Tables, and a few jpegs or other file type figures/charts using ID CC. The Study will be provided via individual PDFs of each Chapter, the Front/back matter to 10 or so individuals. The Study will also be sent to an outside source for print/binding of about 30 ring-bound books. I struggle with how to produce the Table of Contents for all Chapters, a List of the Tables, and so on if not ID Book. Or, do I create a TOC within each document (Chapter) and then manually merge the various TOCs from each Chapter into one all encompassing TOC? I feel a bit overwhelmed with this project, a newbie to InDesign. I do have access to lynda.com and have viewed the “long documents” segments. Don’t know which way to go – which will be the least problematic for this first large ID project. Also, I am the only one who will be using ID on this project. I am open to suggestions. Thanks

  • March 13, 2015 at 2:16 pm #73939
    Dwayne Harris

    Member

    I’ll be totally honest–I have never used the book feature, TOC feature, or cross-reference feature.

    One reason being that I work on long documents, and our clients insist on one single file with all the text threaded.

    The books range from 400 to 1,200 pages. And they insist on one single file.

    TOC numbers and cross-reference numbers are filled in by the proof reader or the editor.

    Another reason for me (and the company) doing things the old-fashioned way is because books need to be done at rock bottom prices, and deadlines. It’s not uncommon for us to have to get first pass done in two days (sometimes less). And for the TOC, I just usually print out the page, fill in then numbers in pencil by hand, and then type them in.

    Again, because of how much that can be charged per page and book, we don’t have the luxury of using many features that InDesign offers, such as tagging cross reference things, setting up the TOC to put in the numbers automatically, indexing, etc.

    Any extra time I spend on a job means less profit. I am totally serious when I say that every minute counts.

    Since you are new to InDesign, I’d suggest that you do one long document. It could take you a lot of time to figure out many of the features InDesign offers otherwise.

    As an aside–I remember my first InDesign job. This was back when InDesign was new (I think I had ID 1.5). Anyway–one of our clients asked if we used InDesign. Of course, our sales folks said yes–to say otherwise would have been stupid. But–I had been playing with it and teaching myself, so I was somewhat familiar. And–other vendors said “no,” which was not too smart.

    The job was supposed to be a “simple” job.

    Well–it was filled with about 200 images, and was actually very complicated. It was something I could have done in Quark with no problem as I was great with Quark. But it had to be InDesign.

    I got the job done by the deadline (back then our deadlines were a week or two), and then every InDesign job they had after that came to us.

    I ended up teaching my coworkers how to use InDesign before we had a pro come up to train us further.

    Sorry for rambling. I do think since you are new to InDesign that you take it slow and don’t overwhelm yourself. Do a long document.

  • March 15, 2015 at 11:37 pm #73960
    Niels JÌürgen Pedersen

    Participant

    Dwayne – i dont get your point – TOC is very timesaving? By using InDesigns many features, you save a lot of time. The book-feature makes InDesign much faster, because ID don’t have to render all 600 pages, but only 100 or so. TOC works on a book also. So if time spent is the main issue – USE InDesigns features!

    • March 16, 2015 at 7:00 am #73961
      Dwayne Harris

      Member

      The client doesn’t want us to use the book feature. One document only.

  • March 18, 2015 at 3:32 am #74005
    SERGE PAULUS

    Participant

    Hello Kathy,
    did you have a look on the InDesign long documents formation by Mike Rankin on Lynda.com :
    https://www.lynda.com/InCopy-tutorials/Creating-Long-Documents-InDesign-CC/179050-2.html
    it covers your topic. In a word:
    – make a book not a big document (easier to manage, you just have to remember to open your document from the Book window)
    – use a TOC linked/created from the style sheet of your document. Styles are KEY in InDesign, they’ll allow you everything…
    for styles follow this formation :
    https://www.lynda.com/InDesign-CS3-tutorials/one-on-one-style-sheets/585-2.html
    Hope this helps.

  • March 18, 2015 at 7:07 am #74010
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Thank you Dwayne, Niels and Serge for your input. I will make a copy of each Chapter for the Book document in order to get the TOC for this project. Have viewed the Mike Rankin segments. The Boss demands that individual Chapter PDF files be placed on our Website for subscribers to pull down and read/print at their discretion – not one large document. Thanks again for your words of wisdom – very much appreciated.

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