Placing .indd pages with InDesign CS3
I recently discovered that InDesign CS3 has extended a feature present in the CS2 version. In the previous version of ID, you would place a PDF and choose the pages you wanted to place. When placed, a link to the file was created and it was treated just like any other image (meaning you couldn’t edit the PDF contents within InDesign). This feature has been expanded upon greatly with the latest incarnation of ID by allowing the placing of other InDesign files (.indd). This works better than the PDF placement because now, with the addition of importing multiple images at once, you can place multiple pages without going to the File>Place (or Cmd+D) over and over.
This feature would be useful anytime a larger project is divided into smaller parts and separated into multiple ID files. I recently have been working at a promotional products company who creates a yearly catalog. The catalog is divided into multiple sections (folders of files) and each section is split into even more InDesign files. Each section is then printed and bound separately. To expedite printing, you could create one master ID file for each section with the entire section laid out in one file. What’s great about this feature is that when any placed ID file is modified, the master layout with the placed pages will automatically update the linked file, just like an image. When viewing the Links panel, all pages and images are listed. You can choose “Edit Original” on any pages or image linked to a placed page. It’s pretty slick when you start using it.
A word of caution, since ID must load all the pages you want to place into memory, the initial Place command can seem slow (this could have been unique to my machine or the company’s network so your milage may vary). Once the loaded cursor appears though, you can drop, drop drop until all chosen pages are placed in the new document. Also like images, the pages come in at 100% so no scaling or box creation is necessary.
If you found this tip useful, post a comment telling other readers how you implemented it and whether or not it increased or decreased the production process.