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First some background info:

I work for a medium sized publisher, which works with licenses from external companies. We receive english InDesign files, and translate them into our native language.

We work with some of the biggest publishers in the world, but also smaller ones. That means we get a lot of different files based on the workflow and procedures of that company.

Here's the problem. Some of the files we receive are sent to us spread by spread. Basically that means we get 82 seperate files, which we manually have to merge together to one document. We have well over 300 publishes per year, so it is a lot of work for us.

Then to the real question:

Is there a way to automatically merge a series of documents, in order, to one InDesign file? Using a script or any other way. We have no issues with paying for someone to make such a script, so if you or someone you know has the experience – let me know.

I appreciate all help I can get!

Thanks.

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  • They send you documents split up into individual single-spread InDesign files?! What kind of insane work flow would even produce that? That sounds absolutely mind-bogglingly counter-productive. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 7 '17 at 13:21
  • Yes, you have no idea.. And when we pay for a licence, don't expect the fonts to be included, and oh yeah that's right you most likely have to pay for the licensing to the images as well... #logic. – Mats Edvin Aarø Aug 7 '17 at 13:27
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    If you’re translating and re-publishing a book, it makes sense that you’d have to pay for a new licence for the images—images are usually licenced only for the specific version (sometimes even print run) mentioned in the licence. If you’re licencing the text or even the layout from the original publisher or designer, it also makes sense that the fonts are not included; that would violate their licence. But if you’re licencing the text and layout, you should be able to expect some kind of reasonably sane method of transfer—not single-spread ID files! – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 7 '17 at 13:31
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Yes, there is this script by Simon Wiscombe that should do exactly what you want.

To run the script, in InDesign go to Windows > Utilities > Scripts to open the Scripts panel. There, right click on the User folder and Reveal in Finder/Explorer. Drag the script there. Now it shows up in your Scripts panel and you can just double click it to use it. If you have to use it frequently you can assign a dedicated keyboard shortcut to it.

If you have more specific needs (if often happens when using scripts for such tasks or rather: once you automate one step, you realize that many more steps could be automated) your best option would be to hire someone for this. There are a few people here that have the experience, including me, so if the above script won't work for you, let us know.

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  • I tried that, but it just merged everything into the same page.. I'll try to figure something out, or else I'm gonna contact you. Thank you very much! – Mats Edvin Aarø Aug 7 '17 at 13:30
  • The original blog post where the script was posted is available here. He mentions in the comments that having facing pages could be the reason for this bug. Perhaps you can try disabling facing pages in the target document—might help. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 7 '17 at 13:36
  • Janus, problem is we're working with publications – we rely on having facing pages to properly render a picture on how it's gonna look like.. – Mats Edvin Aarø Aug 22 '17 at 7:33
  • @mdomino is there any way that I can get in touch with you? – Mats Edvin Aarø Aug 22 '17 at 7:33
  • @MatsEdvinAarø Yes, there is no PMing on Stackexchange, but I just added my webpage to my profile. There on the info page you will find my email. – mdomino Aug 22 '17 at 8:32

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