Put 1000+ pages in InDesign

February 28, 2010 8:43 AM

How do I make a 1000+ page document in InDesign?

I know how to make 1000+ pages... what I am asking is how do I make those 1000+ pages ready for text? By that I mean, I realize you need to insert a text frame on one page, then insert another text frame on the next page, and then thread the text so it flows, but, am I going to need to do that 1000+ times?? All the results of my googlings always leave out these steps, what seems to me a glaring lack of info.

posted by steppe to computers & internet (15 answers total)

Do you know how to use master pages? You can create a text frame on your Master "A" page and it will show up on all of those pages you add.
posted by Bunglegirl at 8:49 AM on February 28, 2010

Hold down shift when you thread the text, and it will automatically create all the subsequent pages using the master.
posted by stopgap at 9:03 AM on February 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

-I haven't used InDesign since CS 2, but iirc most Adobe software provide some scripting functionality to automate repetitive tasks.

-Are you trying to make a book; I've seen my professors use another product for that purpose: Adobe Framemaker
posted by polymodus at 9:29 AM on February 28, 2010

You could also design your basic page using InDesign and then overlay the text using TeX. TeX will handle the text part just as well or better than InDesign anyways.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:03 AM on February 28, 2010

Here's a suggestion to create the whole document in TeX or LaTeX. It has many advantages for managing huge documents over any layout or word processing applications. If your task is writing the document, not designing it, then LaTeX might be easier (in the long run).
posted by oxit at 11:20 AM on February 28, 2010

Agree that FrameMaker and TeX are better suited for a project that large, but InDesign can do it pretty simply if you use the threaded text feature as above. I knew I had used it before, but had to run through it to remember how it's done. Make your text box(es) on the master page(s) and, if you're using facing pages, link them holding the shift key. Then create your document pages from the master. Place your text into the first box, and shift click linking to the next one. It should automatically flow the entire document into the text boxes on each page. If you're starting from page 1 of a facing pages document, you'll have to do it again from page 2 to 3.

Also, I highly recommend you break the document into sections and use InDesign's book document type to put the sections together into one book. One long InDesign document can get very unwieldy. Start creating each section from a template file to make sure all your document options are consistent, then add them to the book. The book and section options are pretty self-explanatory. You can also generate tables of contents very easily with the book document.
posted by cRamsay at 12:29 PM on February 28, 2010

What you are looking for is a feature called autoflow.
posted by AtomicBee at 3:53 PM on February 28, 2010

cRamsay has it. You don't have to use TeX! Come on, people, have some compassion!
posted by libraryhead at 7:02 PM on February 28, 2010

Do you really want to manage 1000 pages in a single document? You might want to look into InDesign's "Book" feature. (File --> New --> Book.)
posted by nathan_teske at 8:02 PM on February 28, 2010

I'll be trying some of the suggestions for the Book feature, and I hope the suggestion about Master pages works out well. Even if I use the Book feature, each section still structurally has 100+ pages each (unless I break those sections into sections), and what I hope to avoid is manually clicking each spread to thread them.
Thanks everyone, I'll let you know what worked out.

I've looked into TeX, but I need things like 2 column text with 1 column footnotes at the bottom of each page, and there didn't seem to be an easy way to do that, what with all the commands and codes and packages and whatnot. The memoir package has been mentioned alot, but I just haven't looked into it yet.
posted by steppe at 10:26 PM on February 28, 2010

Autoflow does indeed look nice once you have all the text frames on however many pages you have... but the help page is a perfect example of how they leave out the issue of placing text frames on 100+ pages without having to manually insert a text frame and thread it to one following it.
I've given the Master page thing a try. And thus far I can't seem to get it to apply to the first page, or any after, and I still need to manually with the mouse thread each frame. Oh, I am sure it is possible, and I will get it eventually, but maybe looking into TeX won't be so cruel after all.
posted by steppe at 10:59 PM on February 28, 2010

This isn't a scripting problem.

InDesign comes with this function built in - it's just that, like many aspects of InDesign, it's not immediately obvious how to do it. You'll want to set up at least 1, and possibly a few master pages with text frames, and then hold the shift key as you insert your text into the first page that's assigned to the master. You may also want to set up nested masters so that the first page of each chapter looks different - maybe with the chapter number and title in larger characters. Do this for each separate chapter, and then merge them all using the Book feature. MeMail me if you have more questions.
posted by awenner at 3:35 AM on March 1, 2010

Also, I strongly recommend against using *TeX if layout's at all important to you. The strength of TeX and its ilk is that layout decisions have already been made for you, and the opportunity cost of changing anything but the most basic layout aspects far outweighs the benefits of just going with the flow of the package you're using. If you're writing text that comes with layout challenges, you benefit from the fact that your particular publication or discipline has already made all the hard choices for you. That's why you can just concentrate on writing.

But it sounds like you're actually laying out a book here, and that you might not have done this before. Unless every book you're ever going to make in the future will be nothing but a variation on this, save yourself the heartache and go with a WYSIWIG method. (You'll still have hours of heartache on InDesign or Quark, but the skills will be more transferable.)

That's my $0.02 anyway.
posted by awenner at 3:40 AM on March 1, 2010

Thanks for the responses.
I have laid out a book a few times, but believe it or not I used Nisus, and lately Mellel. But, neither can do the 2 col text with 1 col footnote setup, so I have been looking for something else.

Tried the Master page thing again. But I made the mistake of putting in text and then making it a Master Page. I successfully added a second page, and pasted in about 30 pages of text but, all that happened was that the pasted in text went to the bottom of the second page, and every subsequent facing page layout had the text from the first page and a bit, PLUS it was all suddenly uneditable. Man.
posted by steppe at 4:00 AM on March 1, 2010

In LaTeX, ftnright.sty places all the footnotes into the right hand column.

LaTeX raison d'etre is providing the abstraction layer to separate the tasks of layout and authoring. It vaguely sounds like your layout and authoring tasks are already separated by fiat. So you may want that if you'll be redoing this frequently. Don't worry about it if your doing a 1 off.

ConTeXt is the fancy new toy for doing fancy book layouts in TeX. I doubt you need ConTeXt though unless your authoring a textbook with graphs and historical factoids about calculous theorems appearing in colorful boxes all over the place.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:34 PM on March 1, 2010