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Inspiring
December 20, 2023
Question

How do I import and replace parent pages?

  • December 20, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 781 views

Hello. I have several long Indesign files to eventually compile into a book. I altered margins, guides and running headers in the 'A' Main Body parent page of one of the files. I'd like to use that 'A' parent page across the rest of the files. I tried applying it to the other files, but it creates an extra  'E' parent page instead. I then tried a couple of things, including applying that 'E' parent page to all pages, but it places that information atop what's already there rather than replacing what's there. I also tried dragging 'E' on top of  'A' in the parent section of pages, and it does something similar. How do I import the parent page 'A' so that it simply replaces the current parent page 'A' and applies its settings to all 'A'-based pages?

Thank you

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1 reply

James Gifford—NitroPress
Brainiac
December 20, 2023

I'd wrap them in a Book and use the sync feature with your "A" chapter set as the style reference.

Inspiring
December 20, 2023

Interesting idea. Is there a way to then unwrap them and have the style remain in each file?

James Gifford—NitroPress
Brainiac
December 20, 2023

Thank you, James. I appreciate the help. I'll try one or both of those. After your first post, you also got me thinking of perhaps choosing one of the files, making a copy of it, and adding the pages from the rest to that file, and then splitting it into individual files again. But probably not the best way to go about it.


Far too complicated, when (even temporary) use of the Book feature will do it all automagically for you.

 

Consider, also, just keeping the book in one INDD file. The only real reason to use separate chapter files is to allow independent development of each chapter (as by separate author/editors) or to allow modular assembly of a final book from a selection of chapter files. Otherwise, it's just a rather complex and ponderous layer on top of the structure, adding very little over what you can do with a single-file project.