Setting book files as non-continuous numbering?

[Peter Sofronas]

So, I brought a couple hundred files into a book for the sole purpose of synchronizing styles. I don't intend to have these files as part of the book permanently. I don't even planning on keeping the book file.

Usually, when I do this, I turn off automatic page numbering before I add my files because I want each file to keep its own numbering.

Well, in my haste to do it this time, I forgot to turn off automatic page numbering and now all my files have page numbers that continue into each other.

Is there a fast way to set the page numbers back to the way they were (starting at page 1 and continuing to the end of the file). One would think it would be in the book page numbering options, but I don't see it. I'd hate to have to manually fix the pages one at a time for all the files.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Peter

[Scott Falkner]

I think you will have to manually fix the page numbering. If you have automatic backups (like Time Machine on MacOS) you can recover the most recent versions from before you synced to the Book file.

[Peter Sofronas]

Thank you for the suggestion. That hadn't even occurred to me.

Thankfully I do have a backup and will restore the files that way, but I still wonder if there would have been any alternative.

[jane-e · Accepted solution]

Because you do this on a regular basis, you could turn off automatic numbering from the beginning of any document that is likely to have this workflow. Either change your defaults or start all new documents from a custom template that starts page numbering with 1.

This will help for next time, not this time, though...