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Inspiring
May 29, 2018
Question

Indesign book - export only specified pages to PDF

  • May 29, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 4727 views

When exporting a regular InDesign file to PDF I have the option of only exporting a specified page range. However when exporting a full book (or selected documents in an InDesign book) that option is greyed out. My book is 1000+ pages and I only want to export the image pages from this book for proof reading. So what I want is to be able to fill in "Export pages: 3-4, 7-8,20,25-26…" and so on.

Is this possible in indesign?

I found a script by Peter Kahrel (Export individual book documents to PDF | Peter Kahrel ) which perhaps could be tweeked to do what I want but not as it is. This script lets me export certain sections of a book but my image pages are scattered throughout the book and think I would only mess things up if I changed these pages to secitons instead. I have never really worked with sections so I'm not sure.

/Simon

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2 replies

Community Expert
May 29, 2018

That script you found would do the trick there's instructions on using Section Markers - which would be perfect for you

Export individual sections

The selected documents are exported section by section. With Use section markers in the file names checked, the script constructs PDF file names by adding the contents of the document's section marker to the document's name (section markers are set in the Numbering and Section Options dialog in InDesign). If you happen to have several sections with the same name, then the script adds sequential numbers to the PDF file names.

If you opt not to use section markers, or if the section marker contains no text, then the script adds the sections's page range to the name, as in reviews_123-126.pdf.

To have each produced PDF file loaded in Acrobat Reader separately, check check View PDF after exporting.

jane-e
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 29, 2018

Simon,

Here is the Help for Sections:

Learn how to number pages, chapters, and sections in InDesign

If it were me, I would do one or two chapters and test it before doing all of them.

jane-e
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 29, 2018

Hi Simon,

When using a book, the choices out of the box are to export selected chapters or deselect all chapters and export the entire book.

You could manally open each chapter and export pages, then combine them in a new PDF. (Ugh.)

Or if a script doesn't exist you could hire a script writer. There are several on this forum. Since Peter's script is close, you might ask him the price for tweaking it. Or check with others.

~ Jane

Steve Werner
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 29, 2018

The best places to ask about scripts are in the InDesign Scripting forum here:

InDesign Scripting