CreativePro Webinar Handout: InDesign Long Documents Tips and Tricks

Friday, March 15 at 10 am Pacic

— FREE WEBINAR —

Russell Viers

InDesign Long Documents

Tips and Tricks

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April 5, 2024

InDesign +

Long Documents

Summit

AN ONLINE EVENT

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Super-Long Document Techniques

When every choice can aﬀect thousands of pages,

maximum eﬃciency isn’t a loy goal, it’s a necessity.

What’s the longest document you’ve

created in InDesign? Of course, I’m using

the term “long document” to refer to the

number of pages, not necessarily page

dimension. Yes, a document 10 cm tall by

18 feet wide is pretty dang long, but it’s not

the focus of this article! When I pose that

“longest document” question to audiences,

I often hear “24 pages”.…“200 pages”…

maybe more! I usually like to dene “large

document” as, say, 500 pages or more, but

the truth is that when you’re on a deadline

and the client asks for document-wide

changes, even a 24-page booklet could be

considered (and certainly feel like!) a large

document when it’s not built properly. So

the tips in this article are really relevant for

multi-page documents of any length.

That said, I create a lot of long

documents. I mean LARGE. Really large.

Colossal, at times. A project I did last year

was 20,000 pages…each copy lled ten

bankers boxes (Figure 1, next page). When

you’re creating publications this long, you

really have to pay attention to what you’re

doing, or else you’ll jump out the window as

soon as you have to change a color quickly,

or adapt for more pages, or edit tables, or

make any other kind of global change.

This article isn’t as much “How-To” as it

is a collection of recommendations and

techniques that I have compiled over the

By Russell Viers

Super-Long Document Techniques

Russel Viers oers advice for perfecting your workow when maximum eciency is an absolute necessity.

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years. I’m not going to teach you how to use

InDesign’s many features, but rather how

to use them well. I encourage you to read

Mike Rankin’s “Ten Essential Techniques

for Working With Long Documents” before

tackling this one. And take the time to learn

as many of InDesign’s features as possible

before you tackle that 200-page catalog on

a tight deadline. Because even the simplest

task becomes a weekend-ruiner when

you have to do it once per page…over

200+ pages.

Before You Launch InDesign

A successful long document actually begins

before you ever launch InDesign. The best

thing you can do is make a Plan. And an

essential part of The Plan is to interview your

client or boss and nd out as much as you

can about what they need for this project.

For instance, knowing in advance they want

a dierent dominant color for each section

of a catalog can change the way you decide

to build your document—you’ll probably

want to break each section into a separate

document.

As you’re chatting with them, get a feel

for how they think and work. If they are

decisive and organized, you can make more

permanent decisions than if they are aky

and disorganized. Saying things like “We’re

not sure how many pages this will be…we’ll

be adding and deleting and moving as we

go” is a lot dierent than “We want a 208-

page catalog and here is the breakdown for

sections, common pages, and covers.”

Build Flexibility into Your Document

Regardless of which type of customer

you’re dealing with, the more exible the

Figure 1: Now this is a long document. The boxes on the tables contain four copies of a 20,000 page proposal. On the oor,

there are four more sets. Each “copy” of the document lls ten bankers boxes.

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document, the more you can catch any

curve balls they throw at you. To help

maintain a exible document, I oer a

few rules:

Avoid Multiples: Using multiple returns,

spaces, and tabs is problematic when

wanting to make global changes across a

single document or across many. Don’t do

it. If you want more space after something,

edit the paragraph style or create a new

style that has a larger Space After. If you nd

yourself pressing Tab Tab Tab…stop! Learn

how to control tab stops so you can use just

a single tab.

Use the Fewest Frames Possible: If

you are making separate boxes for your

headlines and your body text, stop. Instead,

learn about the Span Heads feature, and

build this into your paragraph styles. This

will eliminate the need to resize boxes as

headlines are rewritten or you make style

changes that increase or decrease headline

size. Also, when making sidebars, if you are

making a frame for the background and

then another frame for the text, learn how

to use Inset Spacing (Object > Text Frame

Options) so you can make a single frame

which contains everything.

Think Before You Override Anything:

If you are overriding a master page item or

a style, ask yourself: “Can I avoid this?” For

example, a common mistake is to override

a page number frame from the master

page so you can bring it in front of photos.

Don’t. Instead, put the page numbers on a

higher layer on the master page so you’ll

never have to override them. Or maybe

you’re overriding the page number so you

can change it to white when it’s over a

dark photo. Don’t. You can create a second

master page based on the rst one but

with white numbers. Before you override

a style of any type (paragraph, character,

object, etc.), ask yourself: “Do I need a new

style for this or is this really okay?” The

fewer overrides in your document, the

more exible you’ll be when you need to

make changes.

Minimize Forced Line Breaks: Pressing

Shift+Return/Enter is a common solution

to forcing text onto the next line, but still

keeping it in the same paragraph. I get

it…I’ve done it myself. But try to minimize

it. I saw a le recently where 90 percent

of the forced line breaks could have been

avoided just by turning o hyphenation in

the paragraph styles. Similarly, forced line

breaks can often be avoided with a simple

change in the Indents and Spacing pane of

the Paragraph Styles dialog box.

If you ﬁnd yourself pressing

Tab Tab Tab…stop!

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Don’t Resize Frames…Change the

Indents: As long as we’re talking about

indents, learn how to use them to position

text in frames vs. moving frames around. For

example, if you have a catalog with a bunch

of products all lined up, and the client

requests that you move the copy under the

photos to be more centered, don’t move or

resize the frames: instead, indent the left

side to move it over. That way, if the client

changes his mind, you simply remove the

indent and things are back the way they

were. (I had this exact thing happen recently

on a project, and all I had to do was clear

the override on the style, and it was xed

on all of the spreads…in minutes instead

of hours.)

Start With a Template

As I said earlier, I’m hoping you come

into this with some InDesign knowledge.

However, in case you’re new to InDesign, I

want to point you in the right direction to

get you started.

First, build a template that will be your

starter le for all documents you create

for your project. This template le should

include a few key ingredients. Note I wrote

“le” as singular. You should have one

le that is your template, and it should

comprise all you need for all the documents

you ultimately create for that project:

» Styles (Paragraph, Character, Object,

Table, Cell and Table of Contents)

» Swatches you’ll be using, including an

Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ase) le to be

used with Photoshop and Illustrator

» Master Pages

» Layers

» Preferences

You’ll want to have a template so

complete that you can email that le to a

collaborator and she’ll be able to open it

and go to town on a section. And when she

returns it to you for inclusion in the project,

it will match the les you’ve been working

on yourself.

If there is anything in the list above that

you haven’t mastered, I suggest you do

some reading on how these functions can

help you on this project. Each one of them is

critical when it comes to long documents.

The Book

Dierent InDesign users have dierent

thresholds at which they decide to break

One template ﬁle should

contain all you need for

all the documents in your

project.

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their project into multiple InDesign

documents—some say if it’s over 50

pages you should split it, while others are

comfortable with putting hundreds of

pages in a single document. As I said earlier,

sometimes the needs of the publication are

such that you want to split it into smaller

documents. But when you do split up your

publication, use the Book feature (File >

New > Book). This creates a panel where

you can “load” all the InDesign documents in

your project (Figure 2).

In my experience, if you master the Book

feature, you’ll be well on your way to saving

lots of time working with long documents.

In the Book panel menu, you’ll nd a

feature called Synchronize Options, which

lists the document items that can be

synchronized (Figure 3). This is a great study

guide: if there is any feature on that list you

don’t know…learn it:

» Conditional Text Settings

» Numbered Lists

» Cross-reference Formats

» Text Variables

» Master Pages

» Trap Presets (okay, you can skip this one)

» Table Styles

» Cell Styles

» Object Styles

» TOC Styles

» Character Styles

» Paragraph Styles

» Swatches

I can’t teach you how to use each of these

in just one article, but I can give you some

Figure 2: Breaking long documents into chapter-sized les

and managing them with the Book panel is a common

practice that works well in many cases.

Figure 3: The Synchronize

Options dialog box gives

you a handy list of items to

study and master in a long

document workow.

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insight into how I think about them. I’ll start

at the top and work through.

Conditional Text Settings

Often we have to make multiple versions

of documents. A few years ago I worked

on a 200-page document that had four

versions. After talking with the authors,

I realized only about ten percent of the

book was going to change from version to

version. I’m sure you’ve been in one of those

situations where you have to make the same

correction multiple times for each version

because you made separate documents.

Instead, we made one document, but

with four conditional text states, which

allowed us to toggle the various versions on

and o. Correct once…all four xed!

But remember: punctuation is also

included in conditions, so make sure you

test as you go. You don’t want to be at

deadline and have it not work. If done

correctly, however, you’ll save hours of

editing and proong time.

Numbered Lists

I love the numbered lists feature. On the

surface, it might seem rather basic: “Yeah…

I’ve done numbered lists…big deal.” But the

numbered list feature is bigger than just

numbered lists.

Picture a 3000-page document that has

graphics throughout, each of which requires

a gure number. Most proposals, textbooks,

and user manuals have this sort of thing.

If you manually enter those numbers and

try to keep them in order, you are killing

yourself. What do you do when they add

or delete a graphic on page 12? Do you go

through and manually renumber? Stop it!

Create a paragraph style for the gure

captions with the numbering option turned

on. Since you’re numbering from one frame

to the next (and the frames probably aren’t

threaded together), you will need to make

a List. I name mine something clever like

“Figures.” Then, as you apply that style

to paragraphs, InDesign will look for the

previous usage in the document, note the

number, and add one. If you add or delete

or move a graphic on page 23 (or wherever),

all subsequent graphics, through the entire

document, will update! (Figure 4, next page)

However, there’s one bug you should

know about: InDesign numbers graphics

Book Traﬃc Control

A lot of people think the InDesign documents added to the Book are ADDED to the

Book…moved, changed, something. They are not. The Book is rather innocuous. It

merely lists the existing InDesign documents, and acts as an interpreter between them

so there is some communication. An analogy I oen use is that an Air Traﬃc Control

tower doesn’t contain the airplanes. Those are out there where they are, being what

they are…the tower merely gives some direction so they end up in the right place.

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on the same page in the order they were

created, not their position. So if you have

gure 71 on the same page as gure 72,

for example, and you switch them around

on the page, they will probably still be the

same number. You have to trick InDesign by

cutting gure 71—which makes 72 become

71—and then pasting what was 71 back on

the page, and it will become 72. What if your

client wants the document tables numbered

Table 1, 2, 3, etc., and the document gures

numbered Figure 1, 2, 3, etc.? How would

InDesign know which is which? Numbered

Lists to the rescue again. Of course, now

you’ll need two paragraph styles, one for the

Tables and one for the Figures. And each will

have its own List, named accordingly.

Cross Reference Formats

Let’s stick with that 3000-page document

with Figures and Tables that we were just

talking about, just for a bit longer.

So now your customer says, “I want my

authors to call out the gures in the body

text, with the word Figure, the number, and

the title of the graphic.” Again, manually

managing this would be time-consuming

and risky. Instead, you can make a cross-

reference in the body that targets the

paragraph style for the Figure and then

pulls the text out automatically. So if either

the number or the title changes, it will

be an automatic x once you update the

cross-references.

However, remember you’re not limited to

the list of “Format” options available in the

New Cross-Reference dialog box. You can

make your own! If you do this, save it as a

custom Cross Reference Format (or edit an

existing one); then synchronize this across

all the documents in your Book panel.

Keeping Your Template Up to Date

A Template ﬁle (.indt) cannot be included in the Book. (I wish it could!) So I always

create an InDesign document (.indd) with the same name as the Template and

add that to the Book. That way, as I’m synchronizing documents that are already

“live,” the Template document is getting the same changes. Then I save the .indd

as an .indt, overwriting the old Template with the changes. That way, the next time

the template is used to create a new section, it will already match all the other

documents already in action.

Figure 4: A custom list allows you to continue gure

numbering across separate text frames—and update the

numbers quickly when gures are added, removed, or

rearranged.

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Text Variables

Text variables are like duct tape…so useful.

Well, actually they’re not like duct tape at all.

I mean, sure, they’re useful and exible, but

they’re not sticky or gray or on a roll or…

well…it’s just a bad simile and I apologize.

Editor, I think it’s better if you just delete this

whole paragraph.

The most common use for text variables

is running headers and footers based on a

paragraph style or character style on the

page (Figure 5). You can have a chapter or

section name automatically show up in your

folio by using a text variable that references

some text formatted with the appropriate

paragraph style. There may even be times

when you want the variable to reference

text that doesn’t appear on a page

anywhere. You can still use a text variable

that looks for a paragraph style, but have

the paragraph sit in a text frame mostly on

the pasteboard, just barely touching the

page. It’s a trick. It works.

To be really ecient with long

documents, you should learn about the

other kinds of variables, too, such as

Modication Date, Custom Text, and one

of my favorites: Last Page Number. This last

one is very useful in many long documents,

when the customer asks you to number

the pages “X of XX.” You know how to get

the current page number: Type > Insert

Special Character > Markers > Current

Page Number. But where is Last Page

Number!? In Text Variables, of course. On

your master page (where you are putting

your page numbers), add the Current Page

Number character, then type the word “of,”

then choose Type > Text Variables > Insert

Variable > Last Page Number.

Unfortunately, this text variable doesn’t

work well with a multi-document Book

panel, because it sees only the last page

number of the current document, not the last

page number of the last document in the

book, which is what you probably want it to

do. So here’s a workaround:

1. Go to the last page of the last document

in the book.

2. Somewhere on that page, put a text

frame with at least one visible character

(I just type “last page”), and apply a new

paragraph style to it. Name the style

something like “Last Page Number.”

3. In the Attributes panel (Window >

Output > Attributes), make the frame

Figure 5: The options for a Running Header text variable

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non-printing, so it won’t show up in your

nal document.

4. On each of the master pages where you

want that “of XX,” insert a cross-reference

to the Last Page Number paragraph style.

That’s right: use a cross-reference instead

of a variable!

This trick can be fragile, but it’s totally

worth the maintenance, as it will update as

you add and delete pages from each of the

documents in the Book.

Okay, back to variables. When it comes to

looking at that Synchronize Options dialog

box, I nd that sometimes I want to sync my

variables, and sometimes I really don’t. It

depends on how I’m using variables:

Plan A, Synchronize: Since you can

synchronize text variables across all (or

just the selected) documents in your book,

you can create variables that will likely

get changed later on—a publish date, for

example. Your customer may think it will

be published on a particular date, and that

needs to be on all pages and in body text

and other places, all formatted dierently…

but you’re pretty sure the date will change

as time marches on. I like using a Custom

Text variable for stu like this because it can

be changed everywhere in one document

by choosing Type > Text Variables > Dene.

Then you can synchronize the book and

all instances are changed in seconds. I just

did this with a phone number on my last

project—took me seconds to change four

40-page catalogs.

Plan B, Don’t Sync: Now picture four

catalogs for the same company, each using

a dierent URL and phone number. You’ve

planned ahead and created a text variable

named URL and one named Phone, and

synchronized them across all four documents

using the book (so all the documents have

the same variable name). But then you

go into each document and change the

denition of the two custom text variables

to be unique in each catalog. So you used

Synchronize to get the variable names “in

sync,” but then you want to turn o the

Text Variables checkbox in the Synchronize

Options dialog box for the life of the project.

Master Pages

Most people don’t realize that InDesign can

synchronize master pages across documents

in a book, because that option is turned o

by default in the Synchronize Options dialog

box. But it can, and it’s awesome for making

huge multi-document projects. But even if

you know that you can do this with master

pages, there is one freaky thing InDesign

Most people don’t realize that

InDesign can synchronize

master pages across documents

in a book… But it can!

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does when you synchronize master pages

that you probably don’t know, and should

know before you experience it and want to

jump out the window.

For this example, let’s say you’ve created

ten master pages, each with text and/

or graphic frames to be used for various

designs throughout your project. Maybe

you’ve lled the graphic frames with gray

so you can see where the pictures are going

to go later, and maybe you’ve even lled

the frames with placeholder text. (I don’t

recommend using placeholder text because

it’s too easy to forget to change it later and

end up with lorem ipsum on press.)

And let’s say you’ve used all these master

pages throughout your project, applying

them to document pages, overriding the

text and graphic frames as you need them,

lling the frames with pictures and real

text. Maybe you’ve even resized frames

and moved them around on the page as

you need. You’ve probably deleted a bunch

that you ended up not using. But then

you decide you need to change the page

number or running header throughout the

book, so you go to the master page in one

of the documents and update it. Then, you

target that document as the “style source” in

the Book panel, and you synchronize master

pages across the whole book.

I hope you kept a backup before you

synced, because when you look at your

documents again, all of those overridden

frames are back, just like your in-laws.

That’s right: synchronizing master pages

duplicates all the objects that were

overridden. It can be a disaster.

You could go delete the items from those

master pages, and re-synchronize, but

that’s pretty harsh—what if you need those

masters again later? Instead, I like to create

a new master page that has nothing on it

(but is based on a master page that has the

running heads and page number and stu

like that). Then I can apply that master page

to those document pages to strip away the

“fpo” frames.

Table and Cell Styles

Just like the other kinds of styles in

InDesign, table and cell styles allow you to

apply formatting easily and consistently,

and then change that formatting quickly

when you need to. These styles become very

powerful when they are applied to linked

Excel spreadsheets. This workow means

other people can edit the spreadsheets

up to the last minute in Excel and, as they

save, you simply update in InDesign and

Synchronizing Layers

If you look at the list of things that can

be synchronized, Layers isn’t on the

list. What if you want to add a new

layer throughout your document?

Make the layer in your style source

document, put something on any

master page, and assign it to the new

layer. Now synchronize master pages,

and InDesign adds the layer to all the

documents in the book.

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the changes appear in the tables magically.

Without table styles, you would constantly

be reformatting the tables or, worse, placing

new ones and reformatting every time there

is a change.

To link a spreadsheet, open the

Preferences dialog box, click the File

Handling pane, and enable “Create Links

When Placing Text and Spreadsheet Files”

(Figure 6). Now when you place an Excel le

(or other formats, like Word documents),

InDesign retains a link to the le on disk. If

you apply your table style, any updates will

still look as you planned.

This is a one-way street: if you make

changes in InDesign to the contents of the

table, those changes will be lost when you

update the link. So if you see a typo, etc.,

get with the author, or open the document

yourself and make it at the source. (Editor’s

note: If you need to be able to edit in both

Excel and InDesign, or Word and InDesign,

see Jamie McKee’s review of Em Software’s

WordsFlow.)

Later, if you no longer want that

workow, you can select the document in

the Links panel and then choose Unlink

from the panel menu; then it will behave

like a normal table, requiring you to make all

changes in the InDesign document.

Object Styles

Okay, this is an important one…maybe the

most important for saving massive amounts

of time: I apply an object style to everything!

Many people only think of applying

object styles when they want to change the

look of a frame or path. But object styles can

do much more than that. Remember that

they can dene and alter almost anything

about a frame, including formatting text in

a frame, insetting text, auto-sizing controls,

xed-width frames, columns and numbers

of columns, vertical alignment, frame tting

options for photos, text wrap, and more.

For example, I was just working on a

200-page document today, and under each

photo I have a gure caption in its own

frame. I created a paragraph style for each

paragraph, of course, but also an object

style named something clever, like “Figure

Caption,” applied to each frame. I’ve dened

Figure 6: When you know the data in a placed spreadsheet will change, select the option to create a live link to it.

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that object style to apply the paragraph

style, inset the text from the top of the

frame, auto-size from the top, and apply

a text wrap. So if my client asked me right

now to drop the text further away from the

graphic, or to put more distance between

the caption and the body copy, I could do

it globally in seconds without touching a

single frame. I would simply change the

options in the object style and synchronize

that change to all the other documents in

the book.

Have you ever had frames tting tightly

against text that runs throughout your

document, and then tried to make a change

to the text using a paragraph style? And

the text changed, as expected, but caused

your text to be overset because the font

was bigger? Had you applied an object style

with Auto Size applied (perhaps Height Only

from the top), the frame would have grown

automatically to accommodate.

Here’s another example: in this same

project, I have applied an object style to

every text frame on the master page. That

object style happens to be dened as a

two-column text frame. That way, when my

client wants to make the gutter wider, I only

need to change the object style settings and

I’m done.

I hear you asking: “But if it’s on a master

page, why would you need to apply an

object style? Why not go without an object

style and just change the frame on the

master page?!” That might work. But what

if I later copied and pasted one or more of

those frames on the document page…then

it would be divorced from the master page,

and that change wouldn’t follow through.

As long as you use object styles, you’re

safe to do almost anything in a document,

knowing that later edits to the style will

be honored.

Seriously: the more you learn to use the

awesome powers of object styles, the better

o you will be.

Table of Contents (TOC) Styles

Not creating TOC Styles won’t kill you.

Not using TOCs might, however. You just

have to use InDesign’s Table of Contents

(TOC) feature.

I still encounter too many people who

create long documents but who still

manually create their own table of contents.

Stop it! Learn how to make a TOC in

InDesign.

When working with long documents,

don’t wait until the end to make your TOC.

Since TOCs are created based on paragraph

styles, if the style is not applied properly,

the TOC won’t be correct. If you create a

TOC at the beginning and make it part of

I apply an object style to

EVERYTHING!

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the proong process, you’ll be able to catch

missed headings, etc., before it’s too late.

For a TOC to work, you have to be vigilant

in style usage. You could also use a script

named StyLighter to audit all the overridden

styles in your document and quickly nd

text that looks like Heading 1, but is really

some other style just overridden to look like

a heading.

Also, if you are planning to use anchored

objects tied to headings, you should know

that those objects come with the text into

the table of contents! If you want this,

great. But if not, you might want to anchor

the objects to the line below or above the

heading instead.

One last thing on TOCs: they aren’t just

for making a table of contents. I’m often

asked “How do I easily make an index?”

Sure, InDesign has an index feature, but

many times a TOC will actually work better

because it pulls from a paragraph style that

is already applied to text in your document,

instead of having to go through and add

all your index entries manually. This is

especially true of catalogs where you might

have every product name already formatted

using a paragraph style. If you want an index

of all of your products, just create a TOC that

targets that style.

Where TOC styles help you is when

you have multiple TOCs used in the same

document. For example, the catalog above

needs a TOC for section headers, a dierent

one for the product index, and your client

wants you to quickly generate a list of SKUs

and what pages they are on to verify that all

the products are being used in the catalog

as planned. You’ll have three TOC styles.

Similarly, it’s common in nonction books

and proposals for the customer to request a

list of gures. This is a cinch to make when

you have a paragraph style for your gures.

Then, if they want a dierent one for the

book’s tables, and you have a separate

paragraph style for tables, it’s a walk in

the park.

Paragraph and Character Styles

Everyone knows that you have to use

paragraph and character styles in order to

be ecient, right? Always. Always. Always.

Don’t skimp. But here’s one “always” that not

enough InDesign users know: Always have

your paragraph styles based on either the

Basic Paragraph style or some other “basic

style.” (You can read the pros and cons of

using the default Basic Paragraph Style that

ships with InDesign in this blog post.) Of

course, your styles could be based on some

other style that is based on Basic Paragraph,

or another style based on another style

When should you use paragraph

and character styles?

Always! Always! Always!

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based on Basic Paragraph, or ano…you get

the idea. In short…make all roads lead to

whatever your base style is.

Why use a base style? You can’t change

the formatting of No Paragraph Style. But

you can change Basic Paragraph, and this is

going to be very useful should you ever want

to make changes that aect all the styles.

For example, let’s say you have 40

paragraph styles and they’re all based on No

Paragraph Style (the default). When you’re

almost done with your project, you nd

you want to make a change that will aect

all those paragraph styles, like turning o

hyphenation. Ouch. Had you based them

all on a base style, you would need to make

only one edit to that one style, and they all

would have been changed.

I use this technique the most when I

push GREP styles out document wide, like

if my client wants a certain company name

italicized throughout. Simple: just add a

GREP style to the base paragraph style, and

all the others adjust automatically.

When it comes to creating character

styles, try to do as little as necessary. For

example, if you want to create a Nested

Style for a list, where the text is bold up to

the colon, just make the character style be

“Bold.” Don’t choose a font, size, leading, and

so on, unless you really need for that style to

behave that certain way.

In my Character Styles panel, I often

have styles named Blue, Bold, Bold Italics,

Blue Bold, No Break, Superscript, and more.

They each tend to be doing just one or

two things. Unfortunately, this method

doesn’t work if you are using fonts that

don’t cooperate. For example, Museo Slab

doesn’t know what “Bold” is. It only knows

100, 300, 500, and 700. So depending on

the fonts you’re using, you may need one

character style that applies “Bold” to fonts

that recognize it, and one that applies “500”

for Museo. This adds a level of complication

I would rather not mess with when using

GREP styles, so I try to avoid font families like

this if I can.

Swatches

Synchronizing color swatches isn’t as slick

as I would like—I want InDesign to read

my mind and do what I want. But since it

doesn’t, we have to trick it a bit.

For one thing, let’s say you delete

unwanted swatches from a document, and

then set that document as your style source

while synchronizing swatches across all

the documents in the Book. InDesign won’t

delete those same swatches from the other

documents in the book. InDesign only adds

and changes swatches when synchronizing;

it won’t delete them. So if you have extra

swatches, you’ll have to manually clean

them up. Bummer.

Also, if you name your swatches by

CMYK values, which is the default, you

Try to have your

character styles do

as little as necessary.

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may nd yourself in trouble if you later

change the CMYK values of a swatch.

Changing the CMYK values may change

the name, but InDesign isn’t smart enough

to realize it’s the same swatch, and it will

add it to all the other documents when you

synchronize… and then you’ll have to go

to each document and make it behave like

you want.

To deal with this naming problem, I do

one of two things. First, if I want to ensure

the colors update across all the documents

no matter what I change them to, I’ll

name my swatches something specic,

like “Blatner Blue,” “Concepción Creme,” or

maybe “Rankin Red”—or even just Color

1, Color 2, Color 3, and so on (Figure 7).

This way, as you apply Blatner Blue to

styles, frames, etc., and then change that

swatch denition in one document, you

can synchronize it across all the others,

and Blatner Blue will chromatically modify

everywhere it’s applied.

On the other hand, if each document

in the book is a dierent section that uses

a unique primary color—say it’s a catalog

and each section is a dierent color—then

I’ll use a dierent technique. Maybe that

color is used in the product name and SKU

paragraph styles and elsewhere. By applying

Color 1 to the paragraph style “Product

Name” but having Color 1 be a dierent

color in each document, you can continue

to synchronize styles across the book, but

not synchronize swatches. This even allows

you to copy/paste from one document to

another and the item will change color to

match the host document. It’s very cool.

Now that you know about Synchronizing

multiple documents simultaneously

using the Book, you might nd this tip

useful: Have all documents open before

you synchronize. That way, if you make a

mistake, you can go to each document and

Undo and x it. Documents not open prior

to synchronization are opened, synced,

saved, and closed behind the scenes by

InDesign and you won’t be able to Undo…

other than resyncing with any necessary

corrections…which can get messy.

Figure 7: By naming swatches, you give yourself the

ability to synchronize them across documents in a book.

You can downoad this group of InDesign Magazine

swatches at InDesignSecrets.

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Adapt

In closing, just remember that even with

the best-laid plan and best template, you’ll

run into situations where you’ll need to

adapt what you’re doing. That said, I can

tell you that since my rst 120-page catalog

in 1987, using PageMaker 1, any time I cut

corners and just used a quick x, I ended up

regretting it.

So take the time to do it right. You have

more time early in the project to prepare

for the worst. At deadline, when everything

is crazy, the last thing you need is to have

your customer ask you to lighten the drop

shadows from all the headers throughout

your 500-page catalog and nd that you

forgot to apply an object style.

Slow down. Be meticulous. Check.

Double-check. Check again as you go. If you

start out right, and keep things right as you

go, global changes at the 11th hour will be

a lot less stressful. Trust me…I’ve been there

too many times.

Russell Viers has taught many major publications and

designers to work faster and improve quality, including

Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal, New York

Times Regional Media Group, American Greetings, Crayola,

and many others. Viers has been actively involved with

digital publishing since the early days, having started with

CompuGraphic typesetting machines in the early ’80s, and

PageMaker 1.0 in 1987. He has also authored several videos

from lynda.com, Peachpit Press, and Total Training. You can

nd more at russellviers.com.

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