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Dawn Stiles
Participant
July 28, 2017
Question

export each layer of a InDesign file (with 5 pages) to its own PDF.

  • July 28, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 10173 views

I'm not sure if this is possible...but I am looking for a way (possibly a script?) to export each layer of a InDesign file to its own PDF.

I have a 5 page indesign file and each page has 3 layers, so the exported pdf would have 15 pages. Does anyone know of a way to do this?

[Moved by moderator from InDesign to InDesign Scripting]

.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Loic.Aigon
Loic.Aigon
Legend
July 30, 2017

You may have it as a plugin :

Pour Editeurs [axaio]

jane-e
Community Expert
jane-eCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 28, 2017

Not knowing script, I would personally make five PDFs and combine them using Acrobat Pro. It would take less than five minutes (maybe three).

But a scripter might be able to automate it for you. I can move this to the scripting forum.

D
Dawn StilesAuthor
Participant
July 28, 2017

If you could move this to the scripting forum that would be good, as sometimes  I could have up to 20 layers on 30 pages (600 pdfs)

Many thanks

Jongware
Community Expert
JongwareCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 28, 2017

InDesign cannot combine PDFs or generate more PDF pages than there are in the original document. When exporting one layer at a time you would end up with at least as many separate files as there are layers.

As yours seems a rather strange document (I'm not doubting that you have good reasons to work this way! But as you found out, InDesign doesn't really have a workflow for this): would it be possible to have this hypothetical script add new pages for each layer, copying only what's on it, and then hide that layer? That is, is the contents of every single layer on its own an entire page?

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