How to Make a Clean Copy of an InDesign Book for Pre-Edit and Post-Edit Versions

[mpkadobe]

I am using a macbook air (m3) with mac OS 14.6 and InDesign 2025. 

I have laid out a long novel as a ID 'book'. It has 6 separate .indd files for the six sections of the book and one .indb file that stiches them all together as a book. The book has been edited and now I want to make a clean copy of the whole thing to a new folder and do the editorial corrections in that new version. That way, I will have the original pre-edit book and a new seperate edited book.

I tried just copying all seven files to a new folder, and giving them all new file names, but found that when I double-clicked the new .indb file, the book panel showed all the old names and any correction I made, were being made to the old files in the old folder.

How can I make a clean copy of the whole book, so I can keep the pre-edit and post-edit versions separate?

<Title renamed by MOD>

[Willi Adelberger · Accepted solution]

In the book psnel menu select “Package book for print”. Choose the folder where you want to have your files.

[Peter Kahrel]

I had the same problem a while ago. The indb file remembers the original paths. To get around this, after you copy the indb and indd files to a new folder, open the copied indb file, remove all documents, and add the documents from the new folder.

[mpkadobe]

After doing the "Package book for print" I found that each of the indd documents had a red error mark in the Book menu but by double clicking the error mark, I could relink each file to the correct one in the new folder. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

If your goal is to have separate, live and editable forms of the project, you're already getting answers based on packaging, which is one approach.

The other, entirely simpler approach is to just archive the project files as a set and move forward with the edits. While I've found it useful, a few times, to be able to go back to a prior version of a project, a book in the editing phase tends to move forward, not back. An archive version for data security should be all you need. Unless you're working with an author likely to say, "Oh, let's just put Chapter 3 back as it was," in which case adjustments of an entirely different kind are called for.

[mpkadobe]

How does one archive a project? I would need to archive all six indd files and the indb file, etc.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

You do make backups of your work, I hope? Especially that for clients etc.?

You can simply copy all the relevant files to a subfolder  — [PROJECT NAME] ARCHIVE 2024 11 07. Then forget them unless you need to revert to a prior version or accidentally lose/damage a working file.

Or create an archive file of those relevant files, named the same way. That both takes less drive space and protects the component files against accidental open/damage, and in most cases you'll never touch them again anyway.

Both should mesh with an overall backup plan, with at least daily installments on current, critical projects.

[mpkadobe]

I started this process by, like you said, making a copy of all the files to a new folder and then renamed them. However, when I opened those new files in ID, I found out the hard way that I was in fact modifying the old indd files in the old folder. The internal links in ID pointed back to the original. So, if I copy the files into a subfolder to archive them, and then at some later date open the archived indb file, I could end up unintentionally modifying the new version.

[Peter Kahrel]

You could just zip them up.

[James beat me to it.]

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I agree with @Peter Kahrel 's approach. It also allows you to keep any track changes in the backup, then clear them out in the work version to start anew. 

[mpkadobe]

The first time I tried the “Package book for print” I thought is was not working. Only afterward realized one must select all the indd files to get them to all transfer. And then, as discussed above, relink the new indb to the new indd files.