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• • February 24, 2019 at 4:22 pm #114641
    Katherine Kleiman

    Participant

    I have a huge project (>3,000 pages) that was created in 2003 using Indesign (over 100 separate .indd files). At that time, InDesign lacked the interactive features in the newer versions, so the interactivity was added in Acrobat. Extensive bookmarks were created via scripts and add-on tools; internal hyperlinks between multiple PDF files in the same directory were created (over 70,000 links!). Delivery of project to users was via CD-Rom and all PDF files were installed on the local machine to a single directory, which was indexed to allow full-text searching over the entire project. The Acrobat files also used some JavaScript for rollover popups and there are 7 different languages used in the text which require non-standard fonts to be embedded.

    I want to update the whole project to allow interactivity, cloud-based content management, possibly epub format, and ideally DRM. Given the huge amount of work this will require, I want to make sure I’m doing things in the right order and with the most efficient workflow. My guess is that I would start with the InDesign files and added the hyperlinks there, with bookmarks created on export to PDF, but I have no idea if that’s the best way to make this happen.

    As you can guess, I need really expert guidance. Anne-Marie?

    Thanks,
    Kate

  • February 26, 2019 at 3:15 am #114652
    Kai Rübsamen

    Member

    Hi Katherine,

    this sounds all a bit weired and will get complicated. E.g. I did in the past some same projects, but since modern laptops have no cd drives anymore, those linking PDFs are not the way to go. As you can imagine, it is always a good idea, to have all interactivity in InDesign already, but things like rollover popups can only simulated with object states and buttons. I’m not sure, if this behaves like rollovers with JS at the moment.

    What is cloud-based content management? InDesign has no API for that … infact, this is not true, cause you could third party plugins to link e.g. to google docs or connect InDesign with wordpress. DRM is not very common in europe anymore. We use soft DRM instead of hard DRM. If you want to go with epub, everything will be more complicated, cause of the lack of interactivity and page geometry.

    So it seems, that you should inform yourself, what is possible today in 2019 and what cannot be done.

    best
    Kai

  • May 1, 2019 at 7:25 am #116309
    Katherine Kleiman

    Participant

    Thanks for your response and apologies for the delay in answering. The latest versions of InDesign and Acrobat take care of some of the issues. Export to fixed layout epub now retains formatting (including sidebars in the margins) and Kindle Create does a pretty good job of taking the PDFs and converting to Kindle files, but all the files need to be in the same PDF or indd file to allow links between chapters of the document.

    Right now, I’m trying to figure out the best way to manage combining files rather than using separate PDF files in the same directory on a users’ hard drive.

    Currently, each chapter is a separate INDD file and those indd’s have been group into ID books. Page numbering is important and styles are not entirely consistent between books, but can be reconciled. Here’s my first issue:
    1. Do I move individual indd files into one big book? Can I merge separate books into one master book and which would be the best way?
    2. Hyperlinks in the current setup go to different books/indds and with export to PDF, those links break. Is there a script or batch process to convert links to other indd files to the big master file?
    3. Alternatively, do I export all the individual indd files to separate PDFs and then combine to a PDF portfolio or binder?

    This project took two years to build and I don’t want to spend another two years to use current technology. If you’re interested I can send you a few sample chapters so it’s clearer. I used ID publish online to try a section at https://indd.adobe.com/view/eb6dc565-a5c4-4ede-9862-cc154fd8901f

    Any thoughts welcomed.

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