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Inspiring
November 7, 2024
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How to Make a Clean Copy of an InDesign Book for Pre-Edit and Post-Edit Versions

  • November 7, 2024
  • 3 respuestas
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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?

 

 

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Este tema ha sido cerrado para respuestas.
Mejor respuesta de Willi Adelberger

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

3 respuestas

James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
November 7, 2024

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.

Inspiring
November 7, 2024

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

 

Dave Creamer of IDEAS
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 7, 2024

You could just zip them up.

[James beat me to it.]


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. 

 

 

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
Peter Kahrel
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 7, 2024

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.

Inspiring
November 7, 2024

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. 

Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 7, 2024

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