Need to create pdf with thumbnail pages from InDesign

Report · Aug 18, 2012

How can I create a pdf with multiple InDesign pages on each sheet (thumbnails)? I have snow leopard, cs6. Thank you.

Report · Aug 18, 2012

Can you elaborate more on what you are looking for ? Are you trying to something like contact sheet.

Report · Aug 18, 2012

Yes, exactly. In the print dialogue box, I can do thumbnails, say 3 x 3 per page. I would like to be able to do the same with a pdf.

Report · Aug 18, 2012

Definitely it adds up to be the feature request but you could try the below workarounds :-

1) Save the each Spread or Page as the individual PDF file then make the contact sheet from the Bridge.

2) Use the Print command in Indesign to make the Postscript file and then make the PDF of the postscript from the Distiller. (this workflow is not recommended)

3) Post the query on the Indesign Scripting forum , may be someone can write the script for this.

I cannot think of other then this may be someone else may have some other interesting suggestion

Report · Aug 19, 2012

I have found my self wishing before a way to do this. The thumbnails from Indesign as a PDF would be very nice to send as an additional comp item to clients sometimes. Haven't messed with it since CS4, but then my attempts to make a PDF of what I could clearly print to my inkjet would not work.

Tom

Report · Aug 20, 2012

You canexport the pages as PDF and then place them on a new ID doc. in the form of a grid.

Like if you want a PDF page that shows 9 ID pages in a 3x3 format,

1. Export ID pages as PDF,

2. Place all the docs. by CTRL-select

3. Now you have the place gun loaded with all the pages, marquie draw and use arrow keys to gridify.

Though it is a work around but the gridify feature should make it convienient. I hope I understood your issue correctly.

Report · Aug 21, 2012

I was going to say the same thing that sagar-khanna said, but I would add that you may need to split the PDF into separate pages first. You can do that with Acrobat using Document>Extract Pages, and tick the box for pages as separate files. I'm not sure if you can do this with a multi-page PDF, but I'd be interested to hear what you need to do to make that happen. When I tried it (setting the import options to place all pages), it didn't allow me to use the gridify feature (I'm using CS5).

Report · Aug 21, 2012

You can check this link about gridify.

http://tinytutorials.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/indesign-cs5-new-feature-grid-mode-gridify/

Report · Aug 21, 2012

One problem with using gridify when placing extracted pages is the page sequence is wrong. For instance, a 20 page document is placed in the sequence 1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 2, 20, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

The problem seems to be that Acrobat exports the pages as 1-20 when it needs to be 01-20, in other words there needs to be the same number of digits for each number in the sequence. I tried experimenting with the prefix options when exporting from Acrobat (Document > Split Document) but couldn't find anything that worked.

As a workaround you could use a utility to rename the extracted pages sequentially before placing. (I made a workflow in Automator, which comes with Mac OS X).

Report · Aug 21, 2012

ja3754 wrote:
As a workaround you could use a utility to rename the extracted pages sequentially…

Bridge can do that. Go to Tools>Batch Rename. There is also a freeware program called R-Name, but I think it's Mac only.

Report · Aug 21, 2012

Thanks everyone. There are definitely some good options here. I've been able to export to a ps file from InDesign intermittently. That is the fastest way, when it's working. It's odd though, it sometimes gives me the thumbnail option, other times, it doesn't.

Report · Nov 15, 2012

In the past, one could set a thumbnail to PRINT, choosing PDF as the Printer, then using the Printer button at the bottom, SAVE AS PDF. et voila!

an emailable downsized layout.

NOW, since CS4 (or5?), SAVE AS PDF IS NOT SUPPORTED in that dialog box.

PLEASE FIX THAT, and all will all be happy.

until the latest update, one workaround was to PRINT to pdf: it would save to the printer dialog box, but not print. From there, douuble click on it, to open as a pdf, it will be HUGE. Way too large to send. THEN, take a screen capture of each pdf page of the Downsized layout pdf, and place those into an indesign document. lots easier than pasting individual pages into a thumbnail layout.

which, since the latest update is where things stand again. the Print as PDF no longer appears in the print dialog box. sigh.

PLEASE... we need to be able to save Downsized layouts as sendable-sized pdfs!

Report · Aug 21, 2012

sagar-khanna wrote:
You can check this link about gridify.
http://tinytutorials.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/indesign-cs5-new-feature -grid-mode-gridify/

I know how to gridify, but I can't seem to gridify a multi-page PDF without first splitting it up into individual PDFs.

Report · Feb 01, 2013

Hi all. This is my first ever post anywhere on forums, so bear with me if I fail... I think what you are looking for is located in the following place:

You go to the FILE menu, select PRINT, in the PRINT window you have various options in the tabs GENERAL, SETUP, MARKS AND BLEEDS, etc... At the bottom of the tab SETUP you can check mark something called "Thumbnails" and here select the number of thumbnails you want, 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5 up to 7x7. This will print a contact sheet that looks as follows.

There are also other option to print the thumbnails in speads, single pages, etc...

Good luck!

Report · Feb 01, 2013

Thanks for your input, printed thumbnails are a wonderful feature, but what i need is a Thumbnail version as a PDF ~ something of modest size than can be sent be sent via email.

and as of the latest update i am back to exporting pages (or spreads) as JPGs, and flowing them via 'update links' into a premade, mock-thumbnail INDD template. (This is a monthly publication, so i am lucky to have the same set up every time.) The jpgs will selfnumber, and if prefaced the same way each version, update nicely ~ this is convoluted, but works.

Definitely not as painless as being able to Print Thumbnails as a PDF, though.

Report · Nov 27, 2021

Open you PDF in Acrobat, Print to PDF, choose Multi page layout with many options - There you go.

Report · Oct 14, 2017

Thanks KalNato! That's what I was looking for. I knew it was there somewhere!

Report · Mar 08, 2013

I really miss the ability to do this. It was great when I was sharing prelim layouts while working on my magazine. I have been printing them out as thumbnail sheets and then scanning them back into my computer and sending out a pdf that way. Kind of a horrible, round about way of doing it, but it works for lack of a better way.

Report · Mar 08, 2013

Another option for doing thumbnails is to use the "N Up Consecutive" setting of IDImposer. You can have whatever number of rows and columns per output page that you want. It creates a new InDesign document, which you can then write out to a small-ish PDF file using the "Smallest File Size" preset of Export to PDF. Elapsed time: likely less than a minute.

Restriction:

There is no option to create a thumbnails doc consisting of Reader Spreads. Output is page-by-page.

(You can, however, do a Printer Spreads thumbnails doc, by running IDImposer twice -- first, to do the Saddle Stitch order layout, then use N Up Consecutive to produce the thumbnails.)

Cheers,

Stephen, author of IDImposer

http://idimposer.com

Report · Mar 11, 2013

You can also place the whole indd file in another file. No need to produce a pdf before. No need to exchange an intermediate pdf if changes come up.

You can export the final pdf. No need to use print or postscript.

Report · Jul 31, 2013

Go with #13 above. But first, install a 'pdf printer' (I use Cute PDF Writer on Win7/8) It installs and shows up as a printer, which you select as the printing device in the print dialog box, and you get a pdf file out of it. It exists for MAC, too. It installs ghostscript as a postscript driver, and uses that to make a pdf file. I'm pretty sure I installed the free version.

Report · Jul 31, 2013

Doug#^*)!456 wrote:
Go with #13 above. But first, install a 'pdf printer' (I use Cute PDF Writer on Win7/8) It installs and shows up as a printer, which you select as the printing device in the print dialog box, and you get a pdf file out of it. It exists for MAC, too. It installs ghostscript as a postscript driver, and uses that to make a pdf file. I'm pretty sure I installed the free version.

I disagree! If someone works with professional software he should use only professional software to create PDFs. First place in creating PDFs is always to export a PDF from InDesign, second would be Adobe PDF ppd and Distiller or Printer.

Report · Jan 09, 2014

I agree that this should be a feature InDesign. PDF is the way to communicate to custumers. It is 2014 after all.

Happy New Year by the way!

I am using the same workaround as Doug and it works great. If you are using Mac download PDFwriter

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfwriterformac/

and generate the contact sheet with thumbnails via the Print dialog.

Tah dah!

Report · Jan 09, 2014

Wognum wrote:
I agree that this should be a feature InDesign. PDF is the way to communicate to custumers. It is 2014 after all.
Happy New Year by the way!
I am using the same workaround as Doug and it works great. If you are using Mac download PDFwriter
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfwriterformac/
and generate the contact sheet with thumbnails via the Print dialog.
Tah dah!

Nonsense!!!!!!

Don't use anything else to create a PDF from InDesign than InDesign and with some exceptions (like booklet function) the Print/Distiller functionality. But don't use a 3rd party low quality program to create PDFs.

Report · Jan 09, 2014

Oh, what have I missed?

It's just for generating contact sheets as pdf with one click. A feature that InDesign lacks. Do you have a better/simpler solution?