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Insert common book section and page numbers adjust automatically

Community Beginner ,
Aug 06, 2021 Aug 06, 2021

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I have a range of installation manuals and some sections of the manuals are common to others, I would like to be able to create a master file for a section, and include it in a number of manuals, but I'm not sure how to do this. The plan is to only have to update the master file and the changes are reflected across the range of manuals. I would also like the page numbers to adjust automatically when the section is inserted as the manuals have varying number of pages. It's probably a big ask, but I thought I'd enquire if it's possible.

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Community Expert , Aug 06, 2021 Aug 06, 2021

This sounds like a job for ID's Book panel feature which lets you combine separate documents into a larger project.

 

You would need to exercise caution, however, as updating page numbering in the book panel updates the numbers in the component files, so you would need separate .indb book files (the collections) for each manual, and you would need to work on one at a time and update the numbering each time the book is opened.

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Community Expert ,
Aug 06, 2021 Aug 06, 2021

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This sounds like a job for ID's Book panel feature which lets you combine separate documents into a larger project.

 

You would need to exercise caution, however, as updating page numbering in the book panel updates the numbers in the component files, so you would need separate .indb book files (the collections) for each manual, and you would need to work on one at a time and update the numbering each time the book is opened.

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Community Beginner ,
Aug 06, 2021 Aug 06, 2021

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Oh, didn't know about Book's, many thanks for the advice, I'll take a look.

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Community Expert ,
Aug 06, 2021 Aug 06, 2021

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Another way would be to place the InDesign pages from the common section into the various manuals. This way, the master file pages will show as linked files, and any changes made to them would cause a modified link indicator in the Links panel, allowing you to update with just a click.

With this method, you would not have page numbers on the master file pages. Instead, put auto page numbers on the pages of each manual, so that the pages containing the placed common pages would each have two elements: the linked page and the page number marker.

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