Expert: Glen Demers - 7/28/2009

Question
I need to created a 224-pg book from a supplied Word doc that is 300 pages double-spaced and contains 16 chapters plus front matter. Is it easiest/best to create separate InDesign documents from the Word doc cutting it into chapters and front matter and then combine them into a "book" using the book palette? Or, just auto-flow the text into one combined InDesign file? I realize using master pages for the headers in the later option would be a chore, but maybe it's faster than cutting up Word doc into chapters?

Answer
Hi Chris,

The book option, in my opinion, works best if you have different people working on different sections of a book at the same time and it is assembled just before going to the printer. If you make a change to a master page or a style in one InDesign file you'll have to remember to make that change in every InDesign file linked to the book.

As long as it's one Word doc, I would think the easiest method would be to set up a few master pages (front matter, text etc) and some basic text and paragraph styles and flow the Word file into one InDesign file. Then a change made to a style or master page would occur throughout the entire book with no need to synchronize a lot of different files.

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

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