Go to a page in any book document

Using InDesign's Go to Page dialog you can navigate to some page in the active document, either a document page or a master spread. But if you're working on a book, you often need to navigate to a page in another document. And because InDesign's Go to Page is constrained to the active document, you first have to check in the Book panel which document contains the page you're after, then you have to activate the document (or open it), and finally you can go to the page. All this is tedious. The script described on this page makes working with book files a little easier.

To go to a page, run the script. It shows a window that looks and behaves just like InDesign's Go to Page window (it doesn't have InDesign's widget, but you can use the dropdown):

Enter the number of the page you want to go to. The script first checks if the page is in the active document. If it is, it shows the page. If it isn't, the script checks if the Book panel is open and whether the page is in any of the book documents. If it is, the document is activated or opened if it's not open, and the page is displayed.

Deploy the script as a replacement for InDesign's tool

InDesign's default keyboard shortcut for the Go to Page tool is Ctrl+J. To use the Go to page script as a replacement for InDesign's tool, apply Ctrl+J to the script in the keyboard shortcut editor.

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April 2020: I discovered that a similar script was written and posted by Harbs in 2009: http://in-tools.com/article/scripts-blog/jump-to-page-in-book-script/

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Useful script? Saved you lots of time?

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Version history

25 Sept. 2016: Posted

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Show script (right click, Save Link/Target As to download)

Installing and running scripts

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Editing a script

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