I have a big textbook project that I have been working on for over five years and plan to continue updating on a regular basis. The goal is a free, online PDF ebook, but which people can print if they wish. (Maybe porting it to a website via IN5, but that's a project for the future.) I'm doing it all by myself. In my spare time, but with lots of content reviewer/contributors.
I have divided the textbook into four volumes, each with several chapters. Originally, I had it in four one-volume .indd files, but ran into performance problems (like, InDesign totally locking up: see https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/three-documents-freezing/m-p/14362906#M558068).
I have since gotten good advice like:
- "Save As" every night before I turn off my computer, to get rid of the cruft – InDesign doesn't seem to have "garbage collection" like some programs – since this is a long-term program, and I have not one, not two but three different means of backing up my files, two of which happen every night, I simply first "Save a Copy" and save it over the previous [filename]-copy.indd and then "Save As" and save over [filename].indd. Cuts file size by getting rid of undo data and other cruft. Gives me easy access to yesterday's version if I accidentally delete something, and I can still call on my online backups from five years ago if I need to.
- Dividing each volume into separate chapter files, each part of a volume's Book Panel (Adobe's helpfile says it's a book file, but I interact more with it as a Book Panel, so that's what I'm going to call it). Irrespective of the performance issues and lockups, I have found some things I like about having separate .indd files for each chapter. Before, I was producing both individual chapter PDFs and entire-volume PDFs from the giant .indd volume file. It was a pain, I found that producing either individual chapter PDFs or a whole-volume PDF from a volume Book Panel seems to work fairly well. Indeed, considerably easier than what I was doing before: from the Book Panel, I can select all of the chapters (but not the AppSAR Chapter Template.indd; see below) and quickly :
- Export a whole-volume PDF (much, much faster than when I was trying to do it from a single .indd file, even before the volumes got so big that they locked up InDesign).
- Synchronize the cross-references between the chapters right before I export the PDFs (cuts overhead during editing the previous, large, one-volume .indd files).
- I was hoping that, in a Book Panel, that in [Hamburger Menu] > "Export Selected Documents to PDF…" would offer the ability to export all of the chapters as separate one-chapter PDFs, but alas, all it seems able to do is to export them all as a mass of separate individual-page or individual-spread PDFs. Hmph. If there is a way to do this that I can do so, please let me know. Still, I can easily save each chapter one-by-one from the Book Panel.
Right now, for each multi-chapter volume, I have a Book Panel ("book" in InDesignese but not a book in plain English usage so I will keep calling it a Book Panel). For each of these four volume-specific Book Panels, I have designated the same .indd file, titled AppSAR Chapter Template.indd, as the Style Master. (AppSAR is short for Appalachian Search and Rescue, the name of the textbook.) That's right, I'm using the same Style Master for all four volume Book Panels. Nobody told my I couldn't, so I did it to help keep all of the styles consistent through all four of the volumes. Seems to be working OK so far. I can make a change to AppSAR Chapter Template, then use each of the four volume Book Panels to sync those changes ("cascading") to all of the chapters within each volume's Book Panel.
One of the main things I'm using the Book Panel for is to sync styles, particularly Paragraph Styles, between all of the chapter. One issue I've run into with doing things this ways is when I tried to rename a style folder in AppSAR-Chapter-Template.indd and then sync it to the various chapters. Don't do it. It doesn't work.
There is one other issue with syncing my (many) Paragraph Styles between the various chapters: the ordering of the styles. In the Paragraph Styles Panel of AppSAR-Chapter-Template.indd, I carefully arranged all the Paragraph Styles so that the most commonly-used ones are near the top, and styles that are used together are grouped together. All well and fine.
When you sync Paragraph Styles using the Book Panel, it indeed syncs all of the Paragraph Styles. What it doesn't do is sync that ordering of them that I laboriously did in AppSAR-Chapter-Template.indd. Back when I had only four big volume files, not 16 individual chapter files, it wasn't hard to keep the order synced between those four .indd files. But now, with 16 different .indd files, it's labor-intensive to get the Paragraph Styles in the same order in each of those files. And as I said at the outset, I expect to be editing these files weekly or sometimes daily in the preparation of new drafts, so it makes my work easier when the Paragraph Styles are in the same order. If anyone has figured out how to sync the order of styles, please let me know! If not, vote for the feature request https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/40754158-st.... And for exporting individual chapters as PDFs from the Book Panel, there is already a feture request that you can vote for: https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/38548021-ex....
Here is a listing of my Paragraph Styles, which I use both for my textbook and for my class handouts. I use Word for the class handouts so that I can use EndNote to prepare (often extensive lists of) citations and import into InDesign; thus, the EndNote Bibiliographies style. I don't use that in my textbook, as I put references in simple footnotes. That way I can (a) avoid the extensive reformatting required by importing a Word file that has superscripts for citation references and italics for species. (InDesign's import puts the text in superscript or italics but never bothers to turn them off) and (b) edit text and do page layout at the same time in InDesign.
Here is my list of current favorites, in case you're interested. I made this by (a) sorting the paragraph styles in my Chapter Template .indd file, and (b) using Snagit's Scrolling Capture (had to scroll slowly) and then Grab Text functions to get the list into a form I could paste into my MS Word Style Guide Keith.docx file for easy reference.
[Basic Paragraph]
Hl
H2
H2 Subhead
H 2 Sidehead
H2 Sub-Subhead
H3 Knot URL
H3
H3 Sub-Subhead
H3 Subhead
H4
Field Subhead Left
Field Subhead Centered
FirstPara
Body
Bullet
Bullet with Space After
Bullet 2
Bullet 2 with Space After
Bullet 3
Bullet 3 with Space after
Bullet in Margin
Blockquote
Blockquote Bullet
Blockquote Bullet with space after
Blockquote no space after
Blockquote Bullet 2
Pull Quote
Sidebar Heading
Sidebar Subheading
Sidebar Text
Sidebar Footnote Text
Sidebar Text Single-Spaced
Sidebar Text Bullet 1
Sidebar Text Bullet 2
Sidebar Text First Line Indent
Sidebar Text Important Point
Sidebar Text Indent 1
Sidebar Text Indent 2
Important Point Heading
Important Points Title
Important Points Title for frame
Important Point
Important Point indented
Important Point indented 2
Caption
Caption 2
Caption attribution
Caption Left-justified
Caption Left-justified No Number
Caption Subhead Centered
Caption Subhead Left Bullet
Caption-in-Graphic
Change History Heading
Definition Heading
Definition Definition
Definition Phonetic
Definition Term
Marginal Text
Marginal Heading
Marginal Text Bullet
Marginal Text Bullet 1
Marginal Text Bullet 2
Table Heading
Table Subhead
Table Text
Table Text bullet
Table Text R justified
Card Bullet
> Styles you shouldn’t need to apply
Here are some of the characteristics of the most important styles, along with a couple of tricks:
- [Basic Paragraph]:
- Basic Character Formats:
- 10/12 Minion Pro
- Ligatures checked
- Indents and Spacing:
- Alignment: Left Justify
- Space before and after: none.
- Align to Grid: All Lines
- Hyphenation:
- Words with at Least: 5 letters (default is 5), After First: 3 letters (default is 2), Before Last: 3 letters (default is 2), Hyphen Limit: 2 (default is 3), Hyphenation Zone: 3p0 (default is 3p0)
- Turn off Hyphenate Capitalized Words, Hyphenate Last Word, Hyphenate Across Column
- see http://www.functionfox.com/articles/article84.aspx
- Justification:
- Leave everything as default.
- OpenType Features:
- Figures: change to Proportional Oldstyle
- H1:
- General: Next Style: FirstPara
- Basic Character Formats: Scala Sans, Bold, 16/24, Tracking: +75, Case: SmallCaps (NOT Opentype SmallCaps), Ligatures only
- Indents and Spacing: Alignment: Center, 2p0 Before and 1p0 After (have enough before and after to line up with a 12-point grid), Balance Ragged Lines checked
- Paragraph Rules: Kludge/Trick: unlike the late and slightly lamented Xerox Ventura Publisher, InDesign doesn’t have a paragraph style checkbox for “add in space above when at top.” So: Rule Above, Rule On, 0 point plain, 3p0 offset (had to set “keep in frame” to keep Paragraph Rule Above from going outside the frame)
- Keep Options: Keep with next 3 lines
- Span Columns: Paragraph Layout: Span Columns, Span All
- Character Color: C=0, M=100, Y=100, K=0, 90% tint
- H2
- General: Next Style: FirstPara
- Basic Character Formats: Scala Sans, Bold, 12/12, Tracking: +75, Case: SmallCaps (NOT Opentype SmallCaps), Ligatures only
- Indents and Spacing: Alignment: Center, 2p0 Before and 1p0 After (have enough before and after to line up with a 12-point grid), Balance Ragged Lines
- Paragraph Rules: none.
- Keep Options: Keep with next 3 lines
- Span Columns: Paragraph Layout: Span Columns, Span All
- Character Color: C=0, M=100, Y=100, K=0, 80% tint
- H3
- General: Next Style
- Basic Character Formats: Minion Pro, Bold, 10/12, Tracking: +75, Case: SmallCaps (NOT Opentype SmallCaps), Ligatures only
- Indents and Spacing: 1p0 Before and After (have enough before and after to line up with a 12-point grid.), Balance Ragged Lines
- Span Columns: Paragraph Layout: Single Column
- Character Color: black 60% tint
- (Do NOT manually put first phrase of next FirstPara paragraph in SmallCaps character style)
- H4
- General: Next Style: FirstPara
- Basic Character Formats: Minion Pro, Bold Italic, 10/12, Tracking: +75, Case: normal, Ligatures only
- Indents and Spacing: 1p0 Before and After (have enough before and after to line up with a 12-point grid.), Balance Ragged Lines
- Span Columns: Paragraph Layout: Single Column
- Character Color: black 60% tint
- (Do NOT manually put first phrase of next FirstPara paragraph in SmallCaps character style)
- Body and FirstPara and Bullet: do NOT specify a font size in the InDesign style. Based on [Basic Paragraph]. If want to change the point size of all body text, change the [Basic Paragraph] font size ONLY, this will change it for Body and FirstPara and Bullet. If needed, Edit Style > General > Revert to Base.
- Body: indent first line by one M (10 pts)
- FirstPara {Alt-P}: don’t indent first line at all. Manually put first phrase of FirstPara paragraph in SmallCaps character style but only for each chapter.
- Blockquote (not BlockQuote)
- Italic, standard inherited text font, same as the main text’s 10/12. (Note Bringhurst recommends either indenting the paragraph or italics but not both, but I like both better, at least when using Minion which has a very readable italic.)
- Indents and Spacing:
- Alignment: Left Justify
- L indent: 0p6, R indent: 0p6
- First Line Indent: 0p0
- Space Before: 1p0, Space After: 1p0
- Align to Grid: All Lines
- Pull Quote
- Italic, standard inherited text font, 11/12
- Indents and Spacing:
- Alignment: Centered
- L indent: 0, R indent: 0
- First Line Indent: 0p0
- Space Before: 1p0, Space After: 1p0
- Align to Grid: All Lines
- Paragraph Rules:
- Rule Above/Below both On
- 1p solid (text color)
- Width: Column
- Offset: 1p0 above, 0p5 below (needed to look proper)
- No margins
- Character Color: C=0 Y=100 M=100 K=0 Tint =80%
- Smallcaps: Basic Character Formats > Case > use standard Small Caps rather than OpenType All Small Caps, see http://indesignsecrets.com/small-caps-vs-opentype-all-small-caps.php
- Bullet:
- General: Next Style: Same; Shortcut: Shift+ Ctrl+Alt+Num8
- Basic Character Formats: Minion Pro, Regular, 10/12, Ligatures only
- As an exception to “space before better than space after”: Indents and Spacing: 1p0 After, (only); but also Space Between Paragraphs Using Same Style: 0p0.)
- YES, for AppSAR but not Emergency Medicine Grand rounds (SAR Topics I’m editing in InDesign, Emergency Medicine Grand Rounds I have to import from Word to get the EndNotes to work, and would lose track of where the bullets go to paste them in): To get hanging bullets or numbers, need to have [thin space][bullet or number][standard space][beginning of the paragraph text] and kern the thin space to -680 to get it into the margin; can go into the copy editor and copy INCLUDING the carriage return at the end of the paragraph, and then paste the thin space and the kerning copies with it. Can cut in the Story Editor and then paste in the standard view.
- Have to scroll up and down to get the bullet or number to appear. But it prints fine.
- Bullet with Space After:
- Based on: Bullet
- General: Next Style: Same; Shortcut: Shift+ Ctrl+Alt+Num8
- Basic Character Formats: Minion Pro, Regular, 10/12, Ligatures only
- As an exception to “space before better than space after”: Indents and Spacing: 1p0 After, (only); but also Space Between Paragraphs Using Same Style: 0p0.)
- YES, for AppSAR but not Emergency Medicine Grand rounds (SAR Topics I’m editing in InDesign, Emergency Medicine Grand Rounds I have to import from Word to get the EndNotes to work, and would lose track of where the bullets go to paste them in): To get hanging bullets or numbers, need to have [thin space][bullet or number][standard space][beginning of the paragraph text] and kern the thin space to -680 to get it into the margin; can go into the copy editor and copy INCLUDING the carriage return at the end of the paragraph, and then paste the thin space and the kerning copies with it. Can cut in the Story Editor and then paste in the standard view.
- Have to scroll up and down to get the bullet or number to appear. But it prints fine.
- Bullet in Margin (Not the same as Marginal Bullet!): Kludge/Trick: Same as FirstPara except aligned left rather than left justified, to prevent the marginal bullet spacing from getting crazy. To create a line with a bullet in the margin, which can then be saved in a “Stuff to Copy” .indd file, do the following
- Format the line with the Bullet in Margin paragraph style.
- Enter a space, your bullet character, another space, then your text
- Place the cursor before the bullet character with nothing selected
- Character Panel > Kerning (V/A on left) > -800 (or at least that was about right for what I was doing)
- I made a list of lines with Bullet in Margin with these bullets in the margin. That way I can copy and paste a bunch of lines with the styles and with the bullets rather going through these magical hand-passes every time.
- Page Number:
- [Basic Paragraph] (Scala Sans OT) + Bold + 70% gray
- Sidebars: 6 point inset margins, 6 point word wrap, tinted with C=0, M=100, Y=100, K=0, 10% tint;
- Major Points boxes have 1-point line around it, C=0, M=100, Y=100, K=0, 80% tint; Major Point box fits entirely in the column.
- Sidebar Heading: Sidebars can be bigger than the margin, have a tinted box, headings are centered and smallcaps, text is left-justified. Sidebar heading is bigger in that it’s 10/12 point, otherwise the same
- based on Sidebar Text, Tracking +75
- Indents and Spacing > Alignment > Center and Space Below > 9.6 pts; balance ragged lines
- Span Columns > Paragraph Layout > Span Columns > All
- Character Color: C=0, M=100, Y=100, K=0, 80% tint
- Sidebar Text:
- Scala Sans, Regular, 8/9.6 pt. (doesn’t align with main document grid, but readable with Scala Sans set with this leading, and gets its own sub-grid).
- Indents and Spacing: Alignment: Left
- Sidebar Text Indent 1:
- based on Sidebar Text
- Indents and Spacing: L indent 1p4, First Line Indent -1p2, tab at 1p4
- Sidebar Text Indent 2:
- Marginal Heading: Marginal is entirely in the margin, justified towards the spine, smallcaps. There is no tinted box. Frame is 8 picas wide, 3 pica margin away from the spine (towards the edge), one pica margin between marginal text and main text.
- based on Marginal Text, Scala Sans Bold
- Indents and Spacing: Balance Ragged Lines
- Hyphenation: Off
- Character Color: C=0, M=100, Y=100, K=0, 80% tint
- Marginal Text:
- Scala Sans, Regular, 8/12 point
- Indents and Spacing: Alignment Toward Spine, Balance Ragged Lines
- Hyphentation: none
- Document Title:
- Emergency Medicine Grand Rounds
- Minion Pro Regular 24/default, Emergency Medicine [or Search and Rescue] in Red character style of C=0, M=100, Y=100, K=0, Grand Rounds [or Topics] in 60% tint of black
- below that, Updated xx xxxx (with 8 pt space below) and then Keith Conover, M.D., FACEP | [Appalachian Search and Rescue Conference for SAR Topics] | Department of Emergency Medicine | University of Pittsburgh manually formatted in Scala Sans Regular 10/12; everything except the first “Emergency Medicine” in 60% tint of black.
- Caption
- Basic Character Formats: Scala Sans Bold, 7/8.4 pt, Centered
- Indents and Spacing: Align to Grid: None
- Caption Subhead Centered: for more explanatory text under Caption
- Basic Character Formats: Scala Sans Bold, 7/8.4 pt, Centered
- Indents and Spacing: Align to Grid: None
-
- Caption 2: for Emergency Medicine Grand Rounds etc.
- Basic Character Formats: Scala Sans Bold, 7/8.4 pt, Centered
- Indents and Spacing: Align to Grid: None
- Caption-in-Graphic
- Caption + 10 pt + Color [paper] + Small Caps
- Apply drop shadow, not to text, but to text FRAME:
- Multiply
- 75% opacity
- Distance: 0p1.414
- Angle 135°
- X offset: 0p1
- Y offset: 0p1
- Size: 0p5
- Object knocks out shadow
- Page Number:
- Scala Sans Bold, 10/12, black 60% tint.
- Back Matter changed to EndNote Bibliography as EndNote insists on this and the style comes across with the Word import into InDesign; this change affects also SAR Topics, which do not actually use EndNote Bibliographies :
- Basic Character Formats: Minon, 6/6.5 pt,
- Indents and Spacing: Space Before: 0p1, Alignent: Left, Align to Grid: None
- Span Columns: Paragraph Layout: Split Column, 2, Inside Gutter 0p6
- Tabs: L aligned tab 0p8 (need to increase if >100 references)
- Footnote Text:
- Make sure Align to Grid is set to “first line only.”
- Left, not Justify Left
- Type > Footnote Options
- Use Footnote Text style
- Use a space and not a tab after the character
- Default characters
- TOC Title
- Style name preferred by InDesign Table of Contents styles (it puts it in there as a default)
- Used only for the Sidebars Table of Contents; for the Chapter and Volume Tables of Contents, I use a hard-coded header block with some extra information in it.
- TOC Title Main: title for hard-coded TOC titles in Chapter and Volume Table of Contents
I am laying out what I've done and discovered in case it helps others. I suspect I'm going to run into some issues as I keep down this path, so any advice welcomed.
Thanks for reading this far!
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