Hi there!I create large book files for conference proceedings (the page range varies between 200 - 850 pages depending on the conference type). I am looking to mitigate the amount of time spent revising individual files, the TOC, and relinking images once they are added to a book file.Explanation of my current process:I am having authors add there content (text and images) to an InDesign template and then having them send me a packaged InDesign file. This is meant to ensure they use the correct layout and font styles. As expected, some authors aren’t in tune with InDesign and are either copy and pasting incorrectly or changing settings in the template file. When I receive the files, I also open and review/edit each file. By the end of my review all font styles, figures, etc. are linked properly.Then I create the book file. In the book file I add my interior cover, front matter and the separate author ID files. Once I complete another round of font style and figure link review, I create a TOC in the front matter. What needs to change:For some reason there is always a few persistent papers that won’t update the correct font styles for Titles, Author Names, and Affiliation Name. I then will go through the problem papers and try to add the font styles again (making sure to save the changes) yet they won’t update when I reload the TOC. This causes a lot of manual revising of the TOC (ideally I would like to mitigate this process somehow). I welcome any comments or advice about making my process smoother! This is coming from someone who wants understands I might just have to deal with the reality that receiving these files will also mean in depth revisions (I can only hope!)

Participant

Question

Tips and Advice on a large book file project with multiple authors

Forum|Forum|1 day ago
April 29, 2026
3 replies
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Hi there!

I create large book files for conference proceedings (the page range varies between 200 - 850 pages depending on the conference type). I am looking to mitigate the amount of time spent revising individual files, the TOC, and relinking images once they are added to a book file.

Explanation of my current process:

I am having authors add there content (text and images) to an InDesign template and then having them send me a packaged InDesign file. This is meant to ensure they use the correct layout and font styles. As expected, some authors aren’t in tune with InDesign and are either copy and pasting incorrectly or changing settings in the template file.

When I receive the files, I also open and review/edit each file. By the end of my review all font styles, figures, etc. are linked properly.

Then I create the book file. In the book file I add my interior cover, front matter and the separate author ID files. Once I complete another round of font style and figure link review, I create a TOC in the front matter.

What needs to change:

For some reason there is always a few persistent papers that won’t update the correct font styles for Titles, Author Names, and Affiliation Name. I then will go through the problem papers and try to add the font styles again (making sure to save the changes) yet they won’t update when I reload the TOC. This causes a lot of manual revising of the TOC (ideally I would like to mitigate this process somehow).

I welcome any comments or advice about making my process smoother! This is coming from someone who wants understands I might just have to deal with the reality that receiving these files will also mean in depth revisions (I can only hope!)

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Hi Julia,

You say: “there is always a few persistent papers that won’t update the correct font (paragraph) styles”. That generally points to an override. It might be that the Character Style is stuck ON and is consistently changing the look of what you expect the paragraph style to look like. It could also be directly-applied attributes that are overriding it.

https://trainingonsite.com/213-indesign-typesetting-attributes-hierarchy.html

But the ToC dialog box only collects strings of text based on the name of the paragraph style, and is not related to how it looks. Also, the ToC dialog box needs another different paragraph style in order to create the look of the ToC that it updates. Can you expand your explanation of what the ToC generator is not doing?

Mike Witherell

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Font styles or type styles is fine--it incorporates both Paragraph and Character styles.

I would add your new documents to your book, select them in the book, and use the synchronize feature to make sure the styles were not changed from your originals. You set a “master” document in the book (the one with the good styles) and sync it to your new file. (This will not remove overrides, aka, manual formatting.)

To remove overrides, you can:

Select all the text and click the button at the bottom of the Paragraph styles panel.

This will not remove properly applied Character styles. To remove character styles, select the text and make sure the Character styles panel is set to None.

Another option is to use the ClearStyleOverrides script.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Style overrides should not prevent the text from appearing in the TOC, however. I would need to see the documents to figure out why the text is not being added to the TOC.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

julia_pubmanagerAuthor

Participant

Thank you, Dave, this seems helpful! I will try your suggestion and see if it resolves the issue.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Need more info on the papers (are these separate documents?) that won’t update to the correct styles…

How are you incorporating the correct styles?

Are you removing manual formatting and possibly the character styles?

Are the style names _exactly_ the same as what the TOC is looking for?

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

julia_pubmanagerAuthor

Participant

Yes, they are separate documents that eventually are packaged into one book file.

I realize I used the term ‘font styles’ when I actually meant ‘paragraph styles’, sorry about that!
The styles are preset in the template, I only make changes if the authors somehow changed the preset styles in their document.
I don’t know how to remove manual formatting. When I edit the document I am matching the style to what the TOC is looking for. The documents that do have correct styles (those I didn’t need to edit) do show up in the TOC and I make sure to use the same character/font styles as the correct documents.
- Maybe I am doing something wrong in this phase?
Lastly, yes the styles are the exact ones for the TOC. Since they are present I am applying the styles that are in the preset list.I added a screenshot below of the style list for reference.

Does that make sense? Thank you!

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