Something very simple you may want to try: Open your file, and then do a “Save As” — this helps eliminate a lot of the cruft that builds up in a file over time, reduces the file size, and generally should speed things up a little. After that, you may be able to export to INX/IDML and re-import for an even cleaner file.

Another thing you may want to try is selecting the entire table and copying it to a new document, free of any of the other content from your catalog; once you've finished working on it there, copy it back into the proper catalog (or use InDesign's book feature to break the catalog into several INDD files, if possible.)

I've had this happen before, and it can be totally maddening.

Some of the Top 10 Troubleshooting tips from Anne-Marie may be worth applying to the troublesome document: https://www.lynda.com/home/Disp…..lpk2=47762

Additionally, I'd try removing the troublemaker from the book and exporting the book without it — just to make sure that specific doc IS the troublemaker.

I have occasionally found–and this blows my mind and makes no sense–that sometimes a file will export fine by itself but not as part of a Book when the file contains elements that span both pages on a spread. It's a super long shot, but you may want to check for that.

There are some brutal, ugly, and disgusting ways to do this … and probably some really good ways too, but the brutal, ugly, and disgusting ways are much quicker. ;-)

Here is one such way:

First of all, if these old documents are going to go to print (or PDF or whatever format you deliver in) again in the current form, make a good backup of all of them to removable media or however you/your organization handles backups. You should do this anyway, in case you ever need to pull the “clean” documents and use them anywhere, even if it's just to export some PDFs to throw into an annual report or something.

Then, take all the inDesign documents you need to “process” and put them in a folder that everyone knows is the only source for old text.

Open a document, select all the character styles, and delete them. Replace them with no style, but maintain the formatting. Repeat this with paragraph and object and table and cell styles as needed. Visually, the document should look the same, but when paste pieces into new documents, there will be no styles coming for the ride. Which means, of course, you'll need to apply correct styles in the new document.

Repeat this procedure for all the documents, and re-save them.

Of course, if you don't want to do this, you can always simply delete the imported paragraph styles when text is pasted into a new document, and replace with the correct styles. This is less work in the short term but probably more work in the long run.

I second the recommendation for Soxy. It's freakin' awesome. I have a short review/demo of it here: https://dirtywords.tv/2009/episode_007/

If you're dealing with people who's technical competency with InDesign can be described as “poor folk” I think going with a Library is the right idea, and of course, one person can make the library and share it with everyone else … having everyone make their own library to create standardized elements seems like an unwise plan. :-)

You're correct. What I would suggest doing (or, rather, having the CS5-equipped people do):

Make a copy of the CS4 documents you need to poach info from. Open them, then re-save them in CS5 format, clearly named something snappy like “OldDocumentName_ForCS5PillagingOnlySendThisToPressAndBeFired ;-)” — then take all the elements you'll need out of them and save them cleanly in a Library file. Then you only need to access the library, and this will prevent the potential scenario of someone opening a CS4 document “just to grab a table” and accidentally re-saving that file in CS5 format overtop of the CS4 file.

If you generate bookmarks for your PDF file (build a Table of Contents, hide it somewhere in a margin, export to PDF with the Bookmarks option turned on), GoodReader (and I assume other PDF readers) will be able to use those bookmarks. You can sort the Bookmarks alphabetically when you generate them to make a basic index, if that sorting is more convenient.

Or: if you make a fully hyperlinked/cross-referenced index and put it at the front of the file, that would work great, too. 

So I gave into weakness when I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago, because goodness knows when they're actually going to launch them in Canada now. A couple apps that haven't been mentioned in this thread:

* Instapaper: You can sync web articles (or email text) to this service, and they will sync to the Instapaper app so you can read them later. Great for queuing up articles to read over lunch, or on public transit, etc. The Instapaper site itself can also export to Kindle or ePub format, or give you “printable” versions. And, if you share an Instapaper account with some trusted friends/co-workers/other colleagues, it's a great way to share stuff you're reading with each other.

* Air Video: This is a great app for streaming video in a variety of formats from another computer. That computer needs a little server app installed, and you simply tell it what directories to stream to your iPad. If it's in an iPad native format, it will play as-is. If it's not, the Air Video Server app on your computer (Windows or OS X) will convert it on the fly and stream it over. This is awesome for those of us that rip all our TV shows and movies onto a media server — the iPad is truly on-demand video anywhere in my house, with no need to sync stuff via iTunes or encode video into an iTunes-friendly format. (It can stream over the internet, too, but I've yet to test this.)

* Blokus: This board game is just plain awesome. I had been holding off on buying the analog version of the game, but the $5 spent on the digital version has made the real version an essential purchase before my next board-gaming night.

* Marvel Comics: This app makes reading comics just gorgeous and is so intuitive and well-thought out. I look forward to DC Comics coming out with a similar app!