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CS5: Print thumbnails, 7×7 per page limitation + master labels

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    • #56099

      I'm testing InDesign CS5 and I have two questions regarding the “Thumbnails” option of the Print window.

      1. Is there a way to define a greater number of thumbs per page?

      I'm working on a 500+ pages book and I'd like to be able to print more than 7×7 thumbs per page in order to discuss the book content with my client. I could print a PDF and then place the pages of thumbs into a new InDesign document but…

      2. A colour label can be define for each Master, finally!, allowing for an easier overview of documents. In this logic, when I print Thumbnails, is there a way to see the label colour on each thumb. Ideally, at the end of the last page of thumbs, I'd like a listing (like a caption) summarizing each colour label next to the Master page name and code with a count of pages.

      Thanks in advance for your guidance. If these options aren't available at all, I'll fill in a Feature Request on Adobe's website.

    • #56100

      You are always welcome to submit your requests to Adobe, but …

      1. More than 7 x 7 thumbnails per page — are you serious? And that's to “discuss the book content with my client” — who's your client? The king of Liliput and Blefescu? What page size can you possibly print this on to have something even remotely readable?

      2. Apparently, the colors are just for use in the interface. Still, perhaps there is something in that idea. But your summary thing is far too specific to be of general use. Fortunately, the page label colors are exposed to the Scripting model, so it's quite possible to write a script to do these calculations for you.

    • #56106

      1. What I mean by working on the content of the book is more about how many pages per section, getting an overview of the whole. My client in this case is an institution with a collection of very rare books, I'll have a look if I find Lilliputians behind the shelves. The page size I'm printing my thumbnails on is A3. The thumb size is big enough to read a section name and page number.

      2. Being able to apply colours to the Masters is something I've asked Quark for years and recently suggested in an InDesign wishlist to Adobe. I'm still amazed that this function wasn't part of a previous version. When you work on a 200 pages documents, it has to be visual to help you get an easy view of the structure of your document. To me the Print thumbnails option is in the same category, so I was expecting the labels to be displayed.
      As for scripting, I've done a bit in Python when working on typefaces in FontLab Studio but I'm not familiar with InDesign scripting at all, unfortunately. I should have a look and thanks for pointing out this option.

    • #56107

      FontLab & Python: cool! That makes a good start.

      You chould check out Javascript — it's not a hard language to learn, although the InDesign interface can be bewildering at first (and second, and third) looks … It can take a while before you get the mental 'click'.

      The color label property for masterspreads is called “pageColor”, but its actual value depends on its type (as is the case with lots of properties in InDesign). With that, I dare not suggest a script from memory — I'll have a go when I'm at my CS5 (trial) system.

    • #56109

      Yes, Python is at least a start.

      Thank you for your tips and if you have a go that would be great of course! I'll keep an eye on this post and let you know if I write something myself. Till then, have a nice day.

    • #56122

      This is what I came up with, for the moment. It gathers ranges of Master names and inserts them on a page of their own at the end of your current document. No color labels so far, because there is no immediate connection between UIColors (Salmon, Gold) and RGB colors, so these would have to be converted one by one. Still, it's a start.

      (I didn't realize when writing the script, but the very final [None] entry is, of course, the page the script adds.)

      endPage = app.activeDocument.pages.add(LocationOptions.AT_END);
      endPage.appliedMaster = null;
      someFrame = endPage.textFrames.add ({geometricBounds:[endPage.bounds[0]+endPage.marginPreferences.top, endPage.bounds[1]+endPage.marginPreferences.left, endPage.bounds[2]-endPage.marginPreferences.bottom, endPage.bounds[3]-endPage.marginPreferences.right]});

      text = [];
      currentPage = 0;
      nextPage = currentPage;
      while (nextPage < app.activeDocument.pages.length)
      {
      currentMaster = app.activeDocument.pages[currentPage].appliedMaster;
      while (nextPage < app.activeDocument.pages.length)
      {
      if (app.activeDocument.pages[nextPage].appliedMaster != currentMaster)
      break;
      nextPage++;
      }
      if (currentMaster == null)
      name = “[None]”;
      else
      name = currentMaster.name;
      if (currentPage == nextPage-1)
      text.push (“P.: “+app.activeDocument.pages[currentPage].name+”: “+name);
      else
      text.push (“Pp: “+app.activeDocument.pages[currentPage].name+”-“+app.activeDocument.pages[nextPage-1].name+”: “+name);
      currentPage = nextPage;
      }

      someFrame.contents = text.join(“r”);

    • #56123
      Roland
      Member

      If you can't do it directly from InDesign, maybe you could export to a PDF and print from Acrobat using “Page Scaling” set to “Multiple pages per sheet” setting, defining the rows and columns yourself?

    • #56124

      Jongware: Thank you for this start, I'll give it a go soon.

      Roland: Thanks, I haven't noticed this option before. That way I won't have to import my thumbnails pages PDFs back in Indesign to print more thumbnails per page, one step less. Funnily enough, the option I'm asking for in InDesign is there in Acrobat, you can set a custom “Page per sheet” and it goes above 17 x 17.

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