Planning Ahead for Using Boilerplates

Pehaps a folder (or folders) of snippets (and a snippet can be an entire page of objects) would be easier to manage. You could just drag the the ones you need out of Bridge or Mini-Bridge onto your pages, then edit as necessary.

You can also try "Template" , prepare the template and then use it depending on your RFP , esay to maintain and customizable as well.

What I'm thinking is that I will create Masters for each page I might use (one for each product they might want, company description, cover page). Then when I get a new RFP, I'll copy the main file, delete the masters I'm not going to need and tweak the masters I will need.

 

I'm noticing my file is getting quite large though and I'm wondering if this is the best way.

I don't think there's anything wrong with this approach. Test and see if opening a copy of your template and Save As -ing drops the file size back down. It should, unless there's something weird.

Which approach to use depends a lot on how you like to work, and all sorts of incidentals about your workflow.

John Hawkinson wrote:

 

What I'm thinking is that I will create Masters for each page I might use (one for each product they might want, company description, cover page). Then when I get a new RFP, I'll copy the main file, delete the masters I'm not going to need and tweak the masters I will need.

 

I'm noticing my file is getting quite large though and I'm wondering if this is the best way.

I don't think there's anything wrong with this approach. Test and see if opening a copy of your template and Save As -ing drops the file size back down. It should, unless there's something weird.

 

Which approach to use depends a lot on how you like to work, and all sorts of incidentals about your workflow.

The size may be due to your file containing embedded graphics (graphics that aren't linked to their sources on a drive, outside the file.) \\

* Consider linking graphics to reduce the file size.

* You may want to consider using conditional text to show and hide content.

* You may also want to consider using cross-references from the document you're building for a new RFP, to stored boilerplate paragraphs in one or more separate documents. Cross-references only bring in text, not graphics or tables, so this might not suit for all uses. Also, some folks report problems with the reliability of cross-file cross-references. One workaround is to convert the cross-references to text before finaliing the document.

* You may also want to consider using Data Merge with a Data Source file that contains references to boilerplate stored in text and graphics files that are saved on disk. You can edit a generated merged document like any other InDesign document, so you can add personalized content manually.

Search Google for terms like "InDesign cross-reference tutorial," "InDesign data merge tutorial," "InDesign linking graphic files tutorial," without quotes for details on these topics.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

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Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices