Expert: Roy Wilhelm - 10/12/2009

Question
Hi Roy,

I have been working as a graphic designer for about 15 years now and wondered if some of my computer knowledge is becoming outdated. I am currently working on a 24-page catalog. Each page has quite a bit of text on it as well as several Photoshop eps's and/or tiffs. All of the images are high res. Whenever I've worked on catalogs in the past, I have divided up the pages making two separate working files. Should I still be doing this, or do most people out there just have one single complete file including the cover, all of the pages and the back cover.

Any ideas?

Answer
Hi Susie,

I am assuming you've divided the pages to reduce file size. I still know a lot of people who work this way. I worked for a magazine that kept separate documents for each section of the magazine. Doing so allowed different people to work on their assigned sections. (We didn't use a publishing system like K4 or InCopy).

24 pages is, in my opinion, a very small InDesign document. If it were me, I'd keep the catalog all in one document.

For more info on reducing the file size of InDesign documents, check out this link:
http://indesignsecrets.com/why-is-my-file-size-so-huge.php

I hope this was helpful!

Roy