Bug with 2023 InDesign New Book palette

[danielh42350231]

Has anyone had any problem with the 2023 InDesign New Book palette when trying to output a PDF? When I upload the chapters to the palette each one gets scrambled: text boxes and images shift off the page and recto/verso set-ups get rearranged into spreads. I've had a dozen "open cases" for 6 weeks, and 5 different techs from India have "screen shared" to explore the problem. They even downloaded some chapters and tested on their computers at the call center, with the same results. They finally gave up without ever finding a solution! (One backend solution has been to save each chapter as a PDF and then combine those PDFs via Acrobat.)

Thanks,

Daniel

San Antonio

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com · Accepted solution]

Hi @danielh42350231, I think the problem might be connected to the fact that the book panel automatically renumbers your chapter pages as you add chapters. 

Example:

Chapter 1 starts on page 1 and finished on page 9.

If your settings specify that each new chapter will begin on a right hand page (odd number), then the book will add a blank page 10 and start chapter 2 on page 11. That could shift your left/right pagination, reflow the text, and shift text frames and graphic frames all over the place.

Solution:

Control the pagination and layout.

1. First, in Document Setup, check that each chapter is set the same for facing pages or single pages. Don't mix and match within a book.
    
2. Control what happens when the book has more than one chapter. You want to control the pagination, as well as whether a new page will be added (as described above). From the Book Panel's options menu, select Book Page Numbering Options. Specifically, check the appropriate option to continue on the next odd or even page.
    
3. Control the pagination of individual chapters with the Pages Panel. Select the first page thumbnail in the chapter, right-click and select Numbering & Section Options, and maybe check/uncheck Allow Document Pages to Shuffle and Allow Selected Spread to Shuffle. 

Take a look at these Adobe help articles:

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/creating-book-files.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/pages-spreads-1.html

[danielh42350231]

Yes! That's the solution. Thank you. I've sent the attached screen capture to the Call Center with a "closed" case number, so hopefully all those techs who couldn't figure this out will share the info. And hopefully Adobe programmers will fix this awful defect in the New Book output process.

Daniel

San Antonio

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Glad to help.

FYI, I don't think this is a bug with the current version; InDesign's pagination utility via the book panel (and directly in the pages panel) seem to work as they have for 10-15 years. I don't see any changes in it, but maybe another ACP will notice if there's something amiss.