Is there a way to share pages between two books?

Thanks again everyone for all of the advice.  I am trying the 'Book' approach as that seems to be the easiest way. 

To prepare for using the book mode, my thought was to

- Save a copy of the single InDesign document I have been using for each 'section' I will plan to use
- Open each document one by one and delete the pages that will not be relevant for that section.  For example, for the acknowledgement common file - I would delete all pages except for the 3 that make up acknowledgements
- Using the book feature, I would create one 'book' for each distinct variation and drag and drop the common files in place and integrate the unique content for book

So this seemed all good and fine, but I am having a nightmare of a time deleting pages.   I am doing exactly what is shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WirsnqXTfn4&ab_channel=Pixel%26BracketInDesignTutorials

But it seems when I try to select a page for deletion, that page does not actually delete and instead, a different, unselected page is deleted.  I have tried using the page panel - delete page and delete spread, and I have tried the dialog to specify a single page or range.   

As a quick example, my book is 275 pages long.   I made an 'acknowledgments' document, intending to delete the pages before and after the acknowledgment.   I would expect that if I select all of the pages before the acknowledgements and then delete, the acknowledgements would become page 1 and the pages after acknowledgements would remain intact.

What actually happens is that several black pages are inserted before acknowledgements and there are 2-3 pages that I selected for deletion that still remain.  The next few pages after acknowledgements seem to be mixed together for some reason.

I will have to figure out something but I will try the Book function for my original post.  

If you have to share content between books or other documents, even if they have different font concepts and page sizes is to share InCopy content:

1. To be able to do that the text styles have to have the same names, even they have a complete different appearance.
2. Select the content and export as InCopy stories. You need not to work with InCopy. You can only export whole stories and images.
3. Place these stories and images in any other document (or in any other place in the same document.)
4. The content is now linked. To edit it you have to check out and you have to update it where it is placed, after it was checked in again. This ist similar to updating links of an image that was outside InDesign edited. When an INDD file is opened, it will detect changes automatically.

For this workflow avoid any manual formatting or line breaking. Use styles.

Thanks, everyone for all the great options! I will have to review over the course of the weekend and will circle back if I have more questions.  

There is another alternative you might consider: conditional text. That is, you put all the text in one book file, then code the differential parts with conditional text markers. You can then turn those sections on and off with toggles in the Conditional Text menu.

Since all you seem to need are the extra parts for the special edition, tag all of those SPECIAL, and switch them off for exporting the regular book to PDF (or EPUB, if you're going that direction).

Conditional text takes a little care and fussing to set up right but I use it frequently for dual-format (print and Kindle) books and it works very well. And with only one book file, the overhead and management and coordination problems get a lot smaller.

Like the other folks here, I can add that multiple books and modular publication creation can create multiple versions from the same documentation seamlessly.

I build custom training documentation for my intermediate and advanced courses, most of which are generated from 1-4 page lessons on specific features of various computer graphics programs, including Adobe software. They're intrinsic, in that each lesson module stands alone with no transitional information dependent on other modules.

When I talk to a client, I learn what they are currently doing and what they want to do with the software. Since my modules address specific tasks, I can target which ones would best meet the client's needs, then quickly snap them together like a young child's car model — you know, the ones for kids 3-6 with no glue required. I do an outline, assemble the modules into my custom training workbooks using InDesign's Book functions, then build the table of contents, index and cover. I then add those document files to the Book panel, run a PDF and ship it out for reproduction.

Now I rarely get away with building a complete book without creating custom content, but in instances where I have I've built custom-tailored 80-100 page workbooks in two workdays. And for the ones I can't, I use the same modular task/lesson model for the custom lessons and add them to my inventory for future documentation.

It really works slick, and InDesign's Book functions are what makes it easily possible.

Hope this helps,

Randy

I'd lean towards Barb's solution. Placing ID files in ID files has its place (uh, pun sort of intended), but the correct way to share content between multiple works, IMVHO, is by including component files in different Books.

Just as YouTube has lots of good how-tos, but is not necessarily an exhaustive, nor entirely professional source of InDesign info. 🙂

Like @Barb Binder already said - INDD file can be part of multiple Books / INDB files - and INDD file "have no idea" that it is a part of a Book so you need to remember to update page numbers, etc. 

It's quite easy to place one InDesign document's pages into a second InDesign document. They can be placed just like an image or a PDF. It shouldn't be hard to place all of the Acknowledgements, Inner Pages, and Notes pages into the Special Edition. When I've had to do this kind of work, I have worked with designs where it was easy to crop the source document page number out of the way (by making the frame in the target a bit smaller), as I couldn't just pick the source document's page content and leave the page numbering out.