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Starting a book
In InDesign, a book is a special type of file that displays as a panel, much like a library. The Book panel displays the documents you add to the book and provides quick access to most book-related functions. In this section, you will create a book file, add documents (chapters), and specify the page numbering for the chapters.
Creating a book file
Before starting a book, it’s a good idea to collect all of the InDesign documents for the book into a single folder for the project. This folder is also a good place to store all the fonts, graphic files, libraries, preflight profiles, color profiles, and other files required for completing the publication.
In this exercise, the InDesign documents are already stored in the lesson folder. You will create a new book file and store it in the lesson folder.
- Choose File > New > Book.
- In the New Book dialog box, type HowTos.indb in the Save As box. Click Save to store the file in the Lesson_12 folder. The new Book panel appears.
- Position the Book panel in the center of your screen.
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Adding documents to a book file
The Book panel displays a link to each document in the book—it does not literally contain the documents. You can add documents one at a time, as they become available, or all at once. If you start with a few documents and add more documents later, you can always change the order of the documents and update the page numbering, styles, table of contents, and more as necessary. In this exercise, you will add all four book chapters at once.
- Choose Add Document from the Book panel menu.
- In the Add Documents dialog box, select all four InDesign files in the Lesson_12 folder. You can select a range of continuous files by Shift-clicking the first file and the last file.
- Click Open to display the documents in the Book panel. If the Save As dialog box displays for each document, click Save.
- Choose Save Book from the Book panel menu.
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Specifying page numbering across the book
A challenging aspect of working with multi-document publications is tracking page numbers across individual files. InDesign’s book feature can automate this for you, numbering pages in a book from start to finish across multiple documents. You can override the page numbering as necessary by changing the numbering options for a document or creating a new section within a document.
In this part of the lesson, you will specify page numbering options to ensure continuous, up-to-date page numbers as chapters are added or rearranged.
- Notice the page numbering shown next to each chapter in the Book panel.
- Choose Book Page Numbering Options from the Book panel menu.
- In the Book Page Numbering Options dialog box, select Continue On Next Odd Page in the Page Order section.
- Select Insert Blank Page to ensure that each chapter ends on a left-facing page. If a chapter ends on a right-facing page, a blank page is automatically added.
- If necessary, select Automatically Update Page & Section Numbers to keep page numbers updated across the book.
- Click OK. Choose Save Book from the Book panel menu.
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Customizing page numbering
At this point, page numbering is set from the first page in the first chapter of the book to the last chapter. The first chapter in the book, containing the table of contents, should use Roman numerals. The second chapter in the book, containing the Getting Started chapter, should start on page 1.
- In the Book panel, click to select the first chapter: 12_00_ID_HowTos_TOC.
- Choose Document Numbering Options from the Book panel menu.
- Under Page Numbering, choose the lowercase Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv) from the Style menu.
- Click OK.
- Choose File > Save and close the document.
- In the Book panel, click to select the second chapter: 12_01_ID_HowTos_GettingStarted.
- Choose Document Numbering Options from the Book panel menu.
- In the Document Numbering Options dialog box, select Start Page Numbering At, and then type 1 in the text box.
- Make sure that Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4) are selected in the Style menu.
- Click OK.
- Choose File > Save and close the document.
- Review the book page numbering now. The first document, containing the table of contents, is now numbered i–iv with the remaining documents starting on page 1 and continuing to page 43. Try dragging the last two chapters up and down in the list to see how the page numbering changes when you rearrange documents in a book file. When you have finished, put the chapters back in the correct order.
This opens the chapter and displays the Document Numbering Options dialog box.
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Typically, front-matter pages, such as the table of contents, are numbered with Roman numerals.
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