9 Replies Latest reply: Mar 31, 2014 6:06 AM by Mike.Campbell RSS

    Templates

    jnesco Community Member

      How do I carry over 1 part of a template design elemnt over to multiple versions of that template?  For example, my template as 10 stock design elements but duplicate versions need to each have a unique number or name.  Thanks!

        • 1. Re: Templates
          P Spier CommunityMVP

          Can you clarify? I have no idea waht you mean.

          • 2. Re: Templates
            jnesco Community Member

            Peter, thanks for the response.  Here is the scenerio. We produce audiobooks and design covers and CD labels.  We have a template for the CD label that has basic info like title, copyright info, company info, etc.  Most audiobooks have mutliple CDs (up to 30).  And each version we create is ultimately output in PDF form.  So I am trying to create a scenerio where we would carry over all of the information from the template over to each additional cd and have a single elemnt like the disc number change.  Right now we take the template, duplicate it 30 times and then physically change the number for each copy (i.e. disc 1, disc 2, disc 3, etc.)  So is it possible to set up a action where you would enter the cd volume (i.e. this job has 20 discs) and then the template would duplicate itself 20 times with discs labeled 1-20 while retaining all of the other template properties.  Would be nice if they all automatically converted over to PDFs as well.  John

            • 3. Re: Templates
              P Spier CommunityMVP

              Why not all all of the information to a master page, including a frame for the CD number. In that frame add whatever identifier text you need plus a current page number marker special character. 

               

              Add as may pages as you need and they will all look identical except they'll be sequentially numbered.

              • 4. Re: Templates
                Willi Adelberger Community Member

                You could add all files of the same auio book into a book file. (Each of them canstart with page 1 if you want.) Create a master, each document is a chapter, so you can insert a placeholder for that, so the numbering will be automatically. You can synchronize those files including master pages.

                • 5. Re: Templates
                  Mike.Campbell Community Member

                  Hi all-

                   

                  I work with jnesco and wanted to add another wrinkle to this question.

                   

                  An aspect that needs to be taken into account with this question is the way the print files (pdfs) must be formatted to enable our disk printing systems to print them. Each disk label must be an individual file for our disk label printers to be able to handle them. In other words, each disk needs to be disklabel01.pdf, disklabel02.pdf, and so on. I don't think that creating the .pdf from a book file would be able to do that, it would create one document with however many pages the audiobook is number of disks long, please correct me if I'm wrong. It's more a matter of being able to export the .pdf files individually and sequentially than it is to have the .indd files individually.

                   

                  Thanks,

                  -Mike

                  • 6. Re: Templates
                    P Spier CommunityMVP

                    I don't think this is a major issue. Export to one multipage PDF, then extract the pages as single files using Acrobat Pro -- only take a minute or so.

                    • 7. Re: Templates
                      Mike.Campbell Community Member

                      Thanks for your response Peter!

                       

                      So it seems to be six of one, half dozen of another. This is basically our process now, just done in InDesign. Instead of extracting pages from a multipage .pdf, we just repeatedly export from the .indd. In your experience there is no way for InDesign to sequentially export and sequentially name pdfs through automation, at some point in the process, time needs to be taken to name each individual file created?

                      • 8. Re: Templates
                        P Spier CommunityMVP

                        I'm sure by now someone has scripted this, and you can ask over in InDesign Scripting.

                         

                        I will say, though, that my money would be on extracting pages in Acrobat as the fastest solution.

                        • 9. Re: Templates
                          Mike.Campbell Community Member

                          Thanks Peter, I'll ask over there. Might be worth giving your alternative a try as well.