Equitable Language: We are replacing non-inclusive language from InDesign 2022 (version 17.0) onwards, to reflect core Adobe values of inclusivity. Any reference to Master page is replaced by Parent page in our Help articles for the English, Danish, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Japanese locales.
A book file is a collection of documents that can share styles, swatches, parent pages, and other items. You can sequentially number pages in booked documents, print selected documents in a book, or export them to PDF. One document can belong to multiple book files.
One of the documents added to a book file is the style source. By default, the style source is the first document in the book, but you can select a new style source at any time. When you synchronize documents in a book, the specified styles and swatches from the style source replace those in other booked documents.
The Book panel appears. The book file is saved with the file name extension .indb.
When you create a book file, it opens in the Book panel. The Book panel is the working area of a book file, where you add, remove, or rearrange documents.
You can drag and drop files onto the Book panel from an Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac OS) window. You can also drag a document from one book to another. Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) to copy the document.
You must convert Adobe PageMaker or QuarkXPress documents before adding them to the book file.
To open a document in a book file, double-click the document name in the Book panel.
Each open book file appears on its own tab in the Book panel. If multiple books are open at the same time, click a tab to bring that book to the front and access its panel menu.
Icons in the Book panel indicate
a document’s current status, such as open , missing
(the
document was moved, renamed, or deleted), modified
(the document
was edited or its page or section numbers changed while the book was
closed), or in use
(if
someone else has the document open in a managed workflow). No icon
appears next to closed documents.
To view the pathname of any document in a book, hold the mouse pointer over the document name until a tooltip appears. Or, choose Document Information from the Book panel menu.
Book files are separate from document files. For example, when you choose the Save Book command, InDesign saves the changes to the book, not the documents in the book.
To save a book under a new name, choose Save Book As in the Book panel menu, specify a location and filename, and click Save.
To save an existing book under the same name, choose
Save Book in the Book panel menu, or click the Save button at
the bottom of the Book panel.
If you are sharing book files over a server, make sure that you have a file management system in place so that you don’t save over each other’s changes accidentally.
Removing the document from the book file doesn’t delete the file on disk; the document is removed only from the book file.
In the books panel, select a document.
From the books panel menu, choose Reveal In Explorer (Windows) or Reveal In Finder (Mac OS).
A browser window opens that displays the selected file.
When you synchronize documents in a book, the items you specify—styles, variables, parent pages, trap presets, cross-reference formats, conditional text settings, numbered lists, and swatches—are copied from the style source to the specified documents in the book, replacing any items that have identical names.
If items in the style source are not found in the documents being synchronized, they are added. Items that are not included in the style source are left as is in the documents being synchronized.
Be sure to select all styles included in the definition of other styles. For example, an object style may contain paragraph and character styles, which in turn include swatches.
Suppose the style source includes a character style in a style group, and the documents being synchronized include this same character style outside the style group. If this option is selected, the character style is moved into the style group in synchronized documents.
If this option is not selected, a second instance of the character style is created in the style group with options that match the style source. The character style outside the style group does not change.
If a document contains multiple styles that have the same name (for example, Character Style 1 in a style group and Character Style 1 outside of a style group), InDesign behaves as if the option is not selected. For best results, create styles with unique names.
You can synchronize the book while documents in the book are closed. InDesign opens the closed documents, makes any changes, and then saves and closes the documents. Documents that are open when you synchronize are changed but not saved.
To make sure that no documents are selected, click the blank gray area below the booked documents—you may need to scroll or resize the Book panel. You can also hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) and click a selected document to deselect it.
Choosing Edit > Undo will undo changes only in documents that are open at the time synchronization occurs.
Parent pages are synchronized in the same way as other items—parent pages with the same name (such as A-Parent) as those in the style source are replaced. Synchronizing parents is useful for documents that use the same design elements, such as running headers and footers. However, if you want to preserve page items on a parent page in documents other than the style source, either don’t synchronize parent pages or create parent pages with different names.
Any parent page items that are overridden on document pages after you synchronize parents for the first time are detached from the parent. Therefore, if you plan on synchronizing parent pages in your book, it’s a good idea to synchronize all the documents in your book at the start of the design process. That way, overridden parent page items will maintain their connection to the parent page and will continue to be updated from modified parent page items in the style source.
It’s also a good idea to synchronize parent pages using only one style source. If you synchronize from a different style source, overridden parent page items may become detached from the parent page. If you need to synchronize using a different style source, deselect the Parent Pages option in the Synchronize Options dialog box before doing so.
You can convert a book file created in a previous version of InDesign by opening and saving it in InDesign CS5. When you synchronize, update numbering, print, package, or export a converted book, the documents it contains are also converted to InDesign CS5 format. You can decide whether you want to overwrite or keep the original document files.
A warning appears if the book file contains documents saved in a previous InDesign format.
If you want the original documents to be overwritten during conversion, select Automatic Document Conversion.
If you want to keep the original documents and save the converted documents with new names, deselect Automatic Document Conversion. (The book list will be updated to include the converted files, not the originals.)
Choose Synchronize Book from the Book panel menu. (See Synchronize book documents.)
Choose Update Numbering > Update All Numbers from the Book panel menu.
Documents are also converted when you print or export the book to Adobe PDF.
You can determine how pages, chapters, and paragraphs are numbered in a book. In a book file, the numbering styles and starting numbers for pages and chapters are determined by each document’s settings in the Numbering & Section Options dialog box or the Document Numbering Options dialog box. You can open one of these dialog boxes by choosing Layout > Numbering & Section Options in the document or by choosing Document Numbering Options in the Book panel menu.
For information on adding page numbering to a document, see Add basic page numbering.
For numbered paragraphs (such as lists of figures), numbering is determined by the numbered list style definition contained by the paragraph style.
The page range appears beside each document name in the Book panel. By default, InDesign updates page and section numbering in the Book panel when you add or remove pages in booked documents, or when you make changes to the book file, such as reordering, adding, or removing documents. If you turn off the setting to automatically update page and section numbers, you can update numbering in a book manually.
If the book is updated and the numbering seems incorrect, the problem may be that absolute numbers are displayed instead of section numbers in General preferences. See Display absolute or section numbering in the Pages panel.
If a document is missing or cannot be opened, the page range is shown as “?” from the place where the missing document should be to the end of the book, indicating that the true page range is unknown. Remove or replace the missing document before you update numbering. If the In Use icon appears, someone using a different computer has opened the document in a managed workflow; the person must close the document before you can update numbering.
If you specify a starting page number in a booked document instead of selecting Automatic Page Numbering, the booked document will begin on the specified page; all subsequent documents in the book will be renumbered accordingly.
You can start document numbering on odd- or even-numbered pages in booked documents.
You can also update only page and section numbers or only chapter and paragraph numbers.
To use sequential paragraph numbering for lists of figures, tables, or other items, you first define a numbered list that is used in a paragraph style. The numbered list you define determines whether paragraph numbering maintains sequential numbering across documents in a book.
To make sure the same numbered list setting is used across all documents in the book, select the Paragraph Styles and Numbered Lists options in the Synchronize Options dialog box, and then synchronize the book.
One advantage of using a book file is that you can use a single command to output—for print, preflight, package, or export to EPUB or PDF—selected booked documents or the entire book.
To output specific documents, select the desired documents.
To output the entire book, make sure no documents are selected.
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