Expert: InDesign Pro - 9/4/2007

Question
Scott

Can you tell me the best way to resize a document from A4 to A5 size?  I have
tried the scale tool to reduce the size of objects in the document but when
the text is reduced it then becomes a false size i.e. text that was 9pt now
reads 5.84 which is no longer legible in a printed format.  Is there a quick/
alternative way to proportionally reduce all the text in the document other
than manually adjusting each text box individually?
I would appreciate your help.

Many thanks
Siobhan

Answer
Hi Siobhan,

That's quite a reduction in size. The easiest way to resize your document and keep things intact is to turn on Layout Adjustment before you resize. You might have to manually adjust the type size after, or just add pages. I'd need more details on what the document is. But if you have threaded text frames, the text will reflow as necessary.

I suggest you save a copy of your document and try this on the copy. Under the Layout menu choose Layout Adjustment. That will open the Layout Adjustment dialog box. Once you choose Enable Layout Adjustment at the top, that will give you some more options. In this case, you want to check the first two which will resize the objects on your page. If there's anything you've locked in place, you'll also want to check the last one to ignore the lock. After doing this, go to File > Document Setup and choose your new page size.

Now InDesign moves and resizes the objects to keep them on the page. It isn't perfect, but it could save you a lot of time. I hope this works. Good luck.