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• • August 27, 2015 at 6:54 am #77609
    ron curington

    Member

    I’ve just wasted 2 weeks working on a book built from multiple .indd files only to have to abandon the approach entirely because there appears to be no way to implement the Sections function across multiple files.

    To further explain…
    I am creating a recipe book. The book was made up of multiple files each recipe an individual file organized into Sections i.e. Appetizers, Breakfast, Dinner, Deserts, etc. I had made separate files for each of the section title pages. In other words there was a single page .indd file named “Breakfast” and another for “Dinner” etc. etc. Each of these files are followed by the various recipe files such “Eggs Benedict” after the “Breakfast” Section title page and so on and so on.

    So after investing all that time and energy it seems applying the whole “Sections” idea to this structure is not something Indesign will actually do.

    I have since made a copy of all those files and then started copying them all into a single .indd file which is of course proving to be an absolute nightmare. Really beginning to consider making this project from Notepad or MS Word. At the very least I think it would be far simpler to manage and organize.

  • August 27, 2015 at 7:39 am #77615
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Hi Ron

    You use sections when you want to split a single document into multiple sections.

    You use the Book feature to manage chapters of a book, and you aren’t required to use sections.

    It seems you are frustrated by your lack of understanding on how to best utilise the program (no offence intended at all as I was once as you are now, making mistakes like this can be costly)

    With the Book Feature you can manage many things for example if you have 20 chapters names like Chapter 1 all the way to Chapter 20.

    With the book feature you can have automatic numbering applied to insert a Chapter no.

    For instance you could have your Book Panel look like this

    Alphabet
    Consonants
    Vowels
    Numbers

    And Alphabet file might start off something like “CHAPTER 1: ALPHABET”

    Next file Consonants starts off with “CHAPTER 2: VOWELS”

    And so on

    Imagine you have 20 chapters. And someone says hey I want Chapter 15 to go first.

    That means that you move the file name that is chapter 15 to the top of the pile in the Book Panel.

    Now you have

    <Chapter 15>
    Alphabet
    Consonants
    Vowels
    Numbers
    <more chapters>

    You’d have to open Alphabet and change it to “CHAPTER 2: ALPHABET” and open Consonants and change that to CHAPTER 3: CONSONANTS and so on for 20 chapters.

    With the Book Panel, you can arrange your files. Within your files you can include things like a Chapter Number marker – which when you move Chapter 15 or any chapter all the numbers automatically update across all documents.

    So Alphabet automatically can change to Chapter 2

    Or if someone wanted Alphabet to come last in the book – move it to the bottom of the file arrangement in the Book Panel and the text in the file will change to “CHAPTER 20: ALPHABET”

    And the rest of the Chapters can automatically renumber themselves.

    This is just one small example of how the Book Panel is useful.

    The most imporatnat thing about the Book feature in InDesign is that once the files are in a book they can be dynamically linked to create TOCs, Indexes, numbered lists, synchronise styles and lots of other features.

  • August 27, 2015 at 9:16 am #77632
    ron curington

    Member

    Yeah I get that but I guess I’m wanting to do something that Indesign simply isn’t suited to.

    So let me ask you; After reading the scenario I outlined above how might I best achieve my goal? Please don’t suggest building the whole thing in a single .indd file. I’ve already taken a stab at that and if that’s my only option I’m closing indesign forever and moving on to MS Word.

    Hmmm… so maybe this idea can work. How about if I make those single page .indd files i.e. “Breakfast” etc chapters and organize the numbering around them. Can I restart the numbering after each title file. Or for that matter can I number those title files differently from the chapter files
    In other words can I number the chapter files 1 – 20 while numbering the title files i.e. “Breakfast”, “Dinner” etc. 1 – 4 applying styles so the title files / names use a bold font and the chapter names / file use a regular font.
    Might this be a way of circumventing forgetting the whole “Section” notion while still achieving essentially the same results?

    In the end I’m trying to find a way to produce the Section concept while using the book approach.

    Let’s say for instance I wanted to create a book like “War and Peace” and I had 1000s of pages with many chapters and I needed to divide those chapters into subdivisions or “Sections” How might I do this? Obviously a single 2000 page .indd file isn’t going to work, and no sane person would even attempt it. I need a way to subdivide my book into section or topics. Something that can be reflected in the TOC.

  • August 27, 2015 at 12:24 pm #77643
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    You can do all that and more.

    I have typeset a 3,200 page book on tax, all different legislation numbering which I automated.

    There were 4 running headers on each page (8 per spread) that change dynamically depending on what was on each page).

    The book was broken up into sections and a InDesign Book was used. Some pages had consecutive numbering, some had special numberings, all automated.

    Honestly, I think you should find a course near you that teaches InDesign – it’s not a product you can pick up and use, and it’s far more powerful than Word.

    Lynda.com is another suggestion for you and you can get a free 1 month trial.

    Honestly, you can do all the things you say you want to do – but explaining it to you I’d have to write an entire book on it.

    The other Idea I have for you is to try to find a local InDesign expert that is willing to teach you face to face. InDesign has Chapters all over the world.

    https://www.indesignusergroup.com/

    I really think you need to do some tutorials, find someone that is near you to teach you a few things face to face, and do a course on InDesign.

    Trust me – it will be the best for you.

  • August 28, 2015 at 5:32 am #77645
    Heather Christian

    Participant

    I think you’re making it more complicated than it needs to be.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you have created a separate .indd file for every recipe and then placed a single-page .indd file at the beginning of each “section” as you’re calling it. What you should have is an InDesign book file with an .indd file for every “section” that is multiple pages long and includes every recipe for that section flowing throughout the file.

    For example:

    My Great Recipe Book.indb — this is your book file
    TOC.indd — this will be a separate .indd file where your Table of Contents and any acknowledgments or preface materials will be included
    01_Breakfast.indd — this would have a title page introducing this section, followed by your Eggs Benedict, French Toast, etc. recipes
    02_Appetizers.indd — this would have a title page introducing this section, followed by your appetizer recipes, etc.
    03_Dinner.indd
    04_Dessert.indd
    …

    You will easily be able to create your TOC after all of the other chapters (which is a more accurate term than “sections” in InDesign, since “section” is a different feature) are completed, as long as you use a consistent paragraph style at the beginning of each chapter to name your chapter, such as “Chapter Title.” You can do a more in-depth TOC if you also use consistent paragraph styles for the names of all of the recipes as well.

    If you want to add further sections between recipes, say you want categories within “Breakfast” for “Eggs” and “Muffins”, you can use another paragraph style to define those and add that line before the first recipe in that category. The section feature doesn’t really import into the TOC, just paragraph styles, so you’ll want to utilize those to define your sections. Section markers are better suited for other things.

    I hope this makes sense!

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