Trying to save a book

[Grundoon Groundhog]

I have seven files that will become a single printed book. I've tried to save them AS a book in InDesign. My first attempt was going beautifully. To establish the styles, I began with the first interior section, then placed the others. I added the front matter, and tried to drag it in front of the first text section. The attached error message then appeared. Now the error occurs whenever I try to place the first section and the program stops responding. Why would this happen? There are no errors in the file. It is very long; over two hundred pages. Should I split it up? Is there another way to combine files? I've considered adding two hundred blank pages and copying and pasting in place but that is ridiculous. Presumably I could make separate PDFs and combine them into one, but that would also be extremely tedious. Why would this happen? How do I prevent it from happening? 

The strokes around the many images are .25. It's possible some are duplicated but why would that be a problem?

Chatting with Adobe's support was worse than useless. The slow responses suggested what I had already done; deleting and reinstalling the program and the computer. Evidently this problem is not solved in their potted responses.

[Scott Falkner]

This is what the Book feature is for. It lets you connect multiple InDeisgn documents into a series of chapters, wheich can then be exported or printed as one file. Make a new Book file from the File menu then add the documents you have in order. I suggest turing off Automatically Update Page & Section Numbers (in the Book panel flyout menu select Book Page Numbering Options….

[Grundoon Groundhog]

How can a book be exported as one file? It seems to be exportable as sections only.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

All book operations are in the context menu ("hamburger" or three-line menu) at upper right on the pane.

For the most part, these operations will act on selected chapters only, and when it comes to Sync and update, you have to select your source/master file and designated/update files very carefully. For export or print, select all chapters. (All chapters you want to export/print, that is.)

[Willi Adelberger]

1. Save each chapter as its own INDD file.
2. Create a new INDB Book file File > New  > InDesign Book
3. Add all INDD files to the book into the book panel.

Take care, when you use images, place them as linked file, do not embed them as this causes often damaged files.

[Grundoon Groundhog]

That is what I did.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Don't use the Book feature for relatively simple books. It's a worthwhile structure when you have many chapters. or large ones, or ones that need to be able to be edited and developed separately. It's just excess hassle and scaffolding when a book is of more or less normal length and size, and largely by one author.

That you have front matter in a single chapter tells me you're splitting it up too much.

Combine all the files in one INDD file and use structural elements like page breaks and sections to manage the book. That will remove an entire layer of unneeded cmplexity and management from the project.

[Grundoon Groundhog]

it was not practical to make one long document; there are several hundred pages.

Other than using the Book feature, how is it possible to combine the files into one document?

[Grundoon Groundhog]

The first chapter is over 200 pages.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

InDesign can handle very long documents, although the possibilities of corrupted files gets greater. Maybe using a Book structure is correct; just know that it simplifies nothing (except enabling chapter-by-chapter shared editing a bit better) and brings a whole host of issues and problems to the project, on top of every other one you'd encounter with a single-file project.

Fundamentally, you want to do as little as possible in and with each component file. Set up the book, order the files, set up the automatic numbering updates... and then open and work on component files ONLY by opening them through the Book list. Any time you edit files outside the Book, there will be sync and update problems to resolve. And try to get your structure locked down as soon as you can; doing things like moving chapter order around will create similar problems that need to be resolved.

In short, you have to manage the whole project at two levels, and do what steps are best in each level, to keep from creating unnecessary work and "fixup" demands.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

The first chapter is over 200 pages.

By Grundoon Groundhog

It would be a problem if you would have A LOT of graphics / images - for plain text - it's nothing.

One important thing - do not relate on SAVE alone - do SAVE AS with a new name at least at the end of the day.

When you do just SAVE - InDesign is preserving Undo History - which, after you close your document - is still there - makes your file bigger and slower and easier to get corrupted - but is inacessible when you open your  document again.

Save As is a housekeeping - gets rid of all this Undo History so next time you open your file - it will open much quicker.

At the end of the week / month - you can of course delete all the copies.

Another bonus of doing Save As - you have copies you can go back to in case something happens.

[Grundoon Groundhog]

Yes, I've been Saving As and saving all my old copies (I'm looking forward to trashing them once this is done). Splitting the first long section into two, one of text and one of art, seems to have helped making it a book. But I think you're right, it's irrelevant. It doesn't seem to be possible to save it as one long PDF.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

[...] It doesn't seem to be possible to save it as one long PDF.

By Grundoon Groundhog

You can create one single PDF from a BOOK - just use option from the Book Panel:

[Grundoon Groundhog]

there are about 100 [ages of graphics in the first section alone. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Grundoon Groundhog 

Are you able to locate this object?

If not - can you share your document - on priv of course.

[Grundoon Groundhog]

I don't know what the object in question is. By separating the text and art sections I was able to save the book. But apparently it's not possible to export the entire book as a single PDF. Perhaps Adobe engineers could spend their time more wisely than deleting scroll bars and figure out how to do so.

Interestingly the same error message appeared when I tried to start the first page of the text on page 2 instead of page 1. 

I will send an email reply with the document.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Have you tried saving each chapter file to IDML (it's a Save-As and an Export option), then opening that file and saving again as INDD, under a new name? That process often purges faults and corruption, and with files of this size, subjected to many sessions of editing, that kind of minor corruption and structural faults is common.

Do this to each of your files, being sure to save as a new file name, then pull them into a new Book structure, and see if the export issues are solved.

I have many questions here, such as "if you're saving-as under a new name, how are you re-integrating that file into the Book structure" as well as some technical questions about your many images and how you are managing and inserting them— but those can wait.

Very large projects need meticulous attention to what might be called file hygiene, as the size and number of elements also gets large and the chances for both mistakes and just plain old file glitches multiply. Since you're commited to a Book structure, you may want to split up some of those very large chapter files as well, so that each is more manageable and within reasonable size and element limits.

[Grundoon Groundhog]

Yes, splitting the first long section into two (one of text only and one of images only) helped. 

I've been renaming each version with date and number (Section A.7.8.1, Section 7.8.2 etc.)

The images were dragged into picture boxes for the most part. 

thanks for your advice on cleaning up files; I will try it.

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Grundoon Groundhog:

Hope you are doing well. 😊

I work primarily with long documents and therefore with a lot of InDesign .indb files. They work great for me.

The key to exporting the entire list of InDesign files to a single PDF is to have nothing selected in the book window (click underneath the list) and then choose Export Book to PDF from the book panel menu. Robert has a screenshot showing this.

Can you give that a shot and get back to us with the results?

~Barb 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Barb, it's a little lost in the back-and-forth here, but the problem isn't the technique of printing a whole book, but that attempting to do so generates an odd object error (see first post). We've kind of gone around the mulberry bush on this one but that seems to remain the primary problem.

[Grundoon Groundhog]

Many thanks, Barb. I thought there had to be a way to do it. I have to do some finishing touches and then will do it.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Okay — the goalposts seem to be moving all over the field here, in this post. To clarify, is your problem —

• An object error when you try to export the whole Book;
• Errors or faults when you try to export the whole Book; or
• That the explanations of how to use the Book panel and select all component chapters for export/print haven't been sufficient?

These situations are a good place to search for help and tutorial pages that will take you through a process in a fully step-by-step, explained manner. Here's a fairly good page on how the Book pane/menu/functions works; it may give you better comprehensive answers than this beanbag toss:

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/creating-book-files.html

[Grundoon Groundhog]

I didn't realize where the Save as PDF command was. I've done it now, but the PDF unaccountably adds three blank pages that are not in the original files. Thanks for your help.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I didn't realize where the Save as PDF command was. I've done it now, but the PDF unaccountably adds three blank pages that are not in the original files. Thanks for your help.

By Grundoon Groundhog

You mean Export - not Save? 

Where exactly do you have those extra pages? 

At the end of some chapters - where number of pages was odd - not even? 

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Grundoon Groundhog:

In a book, InDesign can add pages between chapters that are set to double-sided.. For example, if one chapter ends on a right page and you set the next chapter to begin on a right page, InDesign will add a blank left page at the end of the first chapter. Is that what's happening?

~Barb