Hi Aldo

I’m not sure what would be the limiting factor here, because of course 600 pages of text will likely have very different handling than one which has a load of embedded and linked images/files, which will be different from one with a simple master frame vs one with complex layout.

I don’t really see a disadvantage in working with Indesign book files and breaking a document down into separate chapter files. (I don’t know anything about in5 though.) I never get any kind of machine slowdown working on indd files up to 70-80 pages (~10-50MB files depending on content), which might be one consideration of handling much larger documents, but Indesign does sometimes decide that it doesn’t like something and I get into a crash loop every time I try to do a particular edit. File recovery seems to be very good, so I rarely *lose* work, but it is incredibly annoying and wastes time while I try to figure out what is causing the crash (almost always it is an edit that causes some kind of content reflow that it can’t handle).

So, I guess personally I would say it’s useful to work with separate chapters simply so that the chance is reduced of any one particular part of the book having a problem that could corrupt the whole thing.

Nick

Hi Jeff

If your images are anchored in a paragraph, can you use a paragraph style to add a paragraph rule above or below (you would need to use a second style for either the first or last para that you don’t want the rule in), and then use an object style to position the image using the reference point to make it sit under or above the rule? You have to watch the behaviour of the images at the top and/or bottom of each column, but that’s a general Indesign thing.

Often the quickest way is to use a table for formatting/layout as Godfried suggested.

Nick

You can use link shorteners like bit.ly to get around dead links, so the QR code is of the bit.ly link and therefore stays the same but you can update the target of the short link in the future if necessary. Obviously make sure that the shortened link doesn’t expire.

We use QR codes on our books for post-publication updates and other online resources, but the link is to a static URL on our own website and then that either redirects to a landing page on our site or to a target page elsewhere on the web.

Nick

Hi Sam

I’m using the latest version (17.3) on Mac, and am not seeing this behaviour. I work pretty much exclusively with books on ID and the first thing I normally do when I open the book file is dock it into one of the panels. I wonder if one of the differences in my setup is that I have the (General) preference for “Show Home Screen when no documents are open” unchecked, so when the last document is closed it just stays in the regular interface – I know that if ID goes back to the Home Screen then yes the book panel will be hidden. I’m not a fan of the Home Screen for any of the Adobe apps, and if I want to go to it from the blank interface it’s just a button press away.

The thing which is very definitely an issue is that the book panel once docked cannot be saved as part of a workspace, so after closing the last book and on every quit of ID, the next book opened is in a floating window again. It drives me insane!

Nick

Hi Pat

I’m a book publisher and come across this all the time. It’s not a bug as such, just an undesirable behaviour.

David is right in saying that the image can’t fit at the bottom of the page. What’s happening is that the ‘music left’ object style has “Keep within top/bottom column boundaries” checked in the Anchored object options. An object that is anchored such that it sits below the baseline of the paragraph it is anchored in does not affect the vertical space of the paragraph – if the object has no text wrap, it will overlap anything below it. Applying text wrap will push following paragraphs down if necessary, but it doesn’t change the vertical size of the paragraph where the object is anchored. This is the key thing, because it means as you get towards the end of a frame, as long as the paragraph itself fits in the frame then an anchored object extending below beyond the column end does not force it to the next one. Indesign does give the option to keep within boundaries as above and this is generally good for tops of frames but not so much for the bottoms.

There is a workaround using a table, which is straightforward provided you don’t need text to flow around the graphic. Because tables sit in a paragraph, you can use a paragraph style for positioning, keep options and spacing (and span if you’re working with columns), then create a 1×1 table in the paragraph to contain the graphic (thus it is “anchored” and flows with the text). After you create the table, select the cell and go to Table > Convert Cell to Graphic Cell, then place or paste the content into the cell. You can specify an exact row height in combination with frame fitting options if you want consistent sizes. Bart Van de Wiele did an excellent tutorial on this site that I highly recommend even though it is based on graphics within a larger table, search for Indesign How-To: Place Images in a Table Cell (also on YouTube on InDesignSecrets channel).

I don’t generally like using tables for layout, but sometimes they are a useful substitute for an object frame.

Hope that’s of some help.

Nick