How to Quickly Insert Pages from One InDesign Document into Another

[Steve-Montreal]

Hello

I have two InDesign documents. 

A first (A) of 300 different pages and a second (B) of 1 page.

I want to insert the second document (B) after each of the 300 pages, for a total of 600 pages.

That is: A1-B-A2-B-A3-B-A4-B…. Up to….A299-B-A300-B

What would be the quickest method?

THANKS


<Title renamed by MOD>

[Steve Werner]

Write a script, or get someone to write a script. There is no built-in feature in InDesign to do it.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Create PDFs of each file. Check out PDFsam Basic, a free open-source program. It can do an alternative mix of the pages. 

https://pdfsam.org/

[Willi Adelberger]

Put all INDD files into a book INDB and export from there all you need. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Put all INDD files into a book INDB and export from there all you need. 

By @Willi Adelberger

How this will mix pages from both files? 

[rob day]

Hi @Eugene Tyson , Think you need pages[i] not pages[0]

insertDoc.pages[i].duplicate(LocationOptions.AFTER, mainDoc.pages[addPageLocation]);

Also if the docs are facing pages the allow shuffle prefs will matter, and you might need to consider the masterspreads contents.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@rob day

But doc "B" is the one page document, and this single page should be inserted after every page in the doc "A"?

[rob day]

Thanks missed that.

If the doc is facing the shuffle prefs still need to be checked, and does B have masterpage items?

[rob day]

With a facing page document without setting shuffle prefs I get this before and after:

With this:

var mainDoc = app.activeDocument; // Assuming this is Document A
//make sure to allow shuffling
mainDoc.spreads.everyItem().allowPageShuffle = true;
mainDoc.documentPreferences.properties = {allowPageShuffle:true};

var insertDoc = app.documents.itemByName("B.indd"); // Open Document B separately

//bring any masterpageitems?
var mpi = insertDoc.pages[0].masterPageItems;
for (var i = 0; i < mpi.length; i++){
    mpi[i].override(insertDoc.pages[0])
};   


var addPageLocation = 0;  
var docLength = mainDoc.pages.length;  // Start with the original length of Document A
var p 
for (var i = 0; i < docLength; i++) {

    // Duplicate the page from Document B to Document A after each page
    p = insertDoc.pages[0].duplicate(LocationOptions.AFTER, mainDoc.pages[addPageLocation]);
    //remove the insert page’s section?
    p.appliedSection.remove()

    // Update the page location to skip over the newly added page from Document B
    addPageLocation += 2;
}

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Sometimes I think that scripters only know script-based solutions. 😁 I was able to combine two 1000-page documents with an alternative mix using PDFsam Basic in less than a minute.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Yeah. But it depends on what you need - just print - or edit something afterwards... 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

True enough!

[Eugene Tyson]

Great you mentioned this. 

And I've done something similar in the past but not sure how or remember when or what I used. 

I think someone have me a script up use in acrobat. 

Since you have this option I thought I'd try offer the way I may have approached it before. 

It's a good suggestion, along with the book file. 

I think there is many ways to do it. And great we all come together to share experience

[Eugene Tyson]

Try it out on a duplicate set of files - I'm not the best scripter

Found a script here that looks like what you want

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57545582/indesign-script-to-add-a-page-to-every-given-page

Haven't tested it properly but I suspect this might work better with a tweak 

var mainDoc = app.activeDocument; // Assuming this is Document A
var insertDoc = app.documents.itemByName("B.indd"); // Open Document B separately

var addPageLocation = 0;  
var docLength = mainDoc.pages.length;  // Start with the original length of Document A

for (var i = 0; i < docLength; i++) {

    // Duplicate the page from Document B to Document A after each page
    insertDoc.pages[0].duplicate(LocationOptions.AFTER, mainDoc.pages[addPageLocation]);

    // Update the page location to skip over the newly added page from Document B
    addPageLocation += 2;
}

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Eugene Tyson

It should work - I'm on my phone so can't test your code.

But just in case, in situations like this - it's better to iterate backward. 

[FRIdNGE]

Correction:

    var myPage = insertDoc.pages[0].duplicate(LocationOptions.AFTER, mainDoc.pages[addPageLocation]);
    myPage.appliedSection.remove();

(^/)  The Jedi

[Deborah29490204ubo0]

Hey Steve, this is WAY after the fact, but maybe this will help someone else. You can select pages from one document and then in the page hamburger, select move pages.  Select the open document that you want to move the pages to and follow the prompt. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Deborah29490204ubo0

I'm sorry, but have you read opening post in full?  

Steve wants to mix pages - after each page of the Document A - one and only page from Document B should be inserted.

Doing this manually - 300x times - rather isn't a solution...