Publisher - advice please on managing a large book project

[CJW]

Hi folks - I have written five large scientific books in InDesign, with about 350 pages apiece and with about 600 assorted linked illustrations each, all with table of contents and fully indexed. Each chapter was a separate InDesign file and I used the InDesign book feature to assemble the content.

I have upgraded to BigSur and given Adobe CS the elbow. I have started to lay out my next book but would welcome advice on the best way to manage the huge project.

I have set up master pages and styles but am wondering how to best use sections? or separate files? maybe to manage the book content and assemble it. I can see no equivalent of an InDesign book feature - so I'm wondering how best to achieve an equivalent functionality (indexing, page numbering and TOC integration).

In each case, I am responsible for producing print-ready PDF files.  Many thanks in advance

[Old Bruce]

50 minutes ago, CJW said:

 I can see no equivalent of an InDesign book feature -

The closest is "Add pages from file" if you right click on the last page in the pages panel. You can add part two with that. Be aware that you'll get your even odd pages messed up in the second part if you have two page spreads and the first part is an od number of pages. There is an automatic new section added when you do this and you'll have to change the page numbering to 'Continue'.

[CJW]

Thanks Bruce - so basically, to keep things manageable, I should create all my chapters as separate files using a common template (to avoid style clashes) and have each already tagged for indexing, before, at the final stage, adding them all together and creating the TOC and index?

I am concerned that in the final throws, I will be managing and editing a huge file of all the pages (unavoidable when you go through the formal review and edit process). It would be daft to continually re-assemble the book each time.  For all InDesign's foibles, the book feature was very useful.  Hopefully something will come out in a new edition before I get to that stage.

[Old Bruce]

You are correct, I haven't yet tried anything with hundreds of linked images.

My main concern for you is the aforementioned shuffling of odd pages to even pages when adding the parts on. I would suggest making a few (test case) documents of five and six pages with images and placing them to see what I am on about.

[CJW]

Yes - the inner margin is larger, so the text frames may be displaced. We shall see. The print ready PDF for my last book was over 800MB