Assemble InDesign files as sections of a final technical document

Question

We need to build a series of technical documents (e.g. user manuals, etc.), each of them composed by many different sections. As some sections are often common for different documents we would like to create them as separate InDesign files and then assemble them into the final document.

I'd like to know if this can be done in InDesign and how and if it is the right tool for this purpose or other platforms are more suitable.

Thanks

Willi Adelberger · Accepted Answer

Yes InDesign is the right tool for that.

Create separate INDD files for each section and put them into an INDB book file. If you use a document in several book files you might to update all numbers (page, chapter, etc.) before any output, but this is only a single command found in the book panel menu.

Another tool to use the same content in several documents is to use either linked content or to export a story in an InCopy document (you don't need to use InCopy for that) and place this story anywhere you need it. If you make changes in one document (check out, edit, check in), you need only to update this story in all other documents where you have placed it.

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