Publisher Vers 2; deleting pages completly messes up long document.

[Andi_CostaRica]

Hello!

I have a book document with about 160 pages and would like to make a copy of this document to experiment with different formatting. 

To do this, I want to delete most of the pages beforehand. I only need a few pages as a playground, but I want to keep all the basic settings of the original document (page size, paragraph and character formats, etc.).

However, as soon as I delete multiple pages, the entire document falls apart.

For example, if I delete pages 10-90, it seems that not all of the front 80 pages are deleted, but only a portion of them. At the end of the document, however, many pages are missing. The last text frame shows an text overflow and the last 30 pages are no longer displayed. 

Somehow the page delete command seems not to have deleted all the pages that are at the beginning of the book (why I don't know), but instead chopped off the back.

1/ Are there any hints or reports on what to look for when deleting pages? 

2/ How can I reinsert the 'invisble' overflow pages with the linked text frames at the end of the document?

Thank you

[MikeTO]

Hi Andy. I assume your pages have text frames that are linked from page to page.

If your document was 100 pages and every page's frame was linked from and to the others, deleting pages 20-29 wouldn't delete the text from pages 20-29, but just 10 pages of text frames. The text would just be reflowed in the remaining text frames and would overflow at the end of page 90, the new last page.

To delete the text of pages from the middle of a book in which the frames are linked, you'll need to break the story, the text in the frames. To do this requires copy and paste.

1. Place the text cursor at the end of the last text frame before the page you want to delete.
2. Use the keyboard shortcut for Select Story End (Cmd+End or Ctrl+End on Window, if you don't have an End key you'll need to redefine this shortcut first)
3. Cut the selected text.
4. Click on the Text Flow Out control of the frame before the break to unlink it from the page you want to delete.
5. Paste the text into the frame on the page you want to delete.
6. Repeat this at the end of the last frame you want to delete.
7. When you are done you will have three stories instead of one, three series of linked text frames. Now you can delete the pages with story #2, the middle section.

This is a bit complicated so it may take time to figure it out.

Good luck!

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Andi_CostaRica said:

To do this, I want to delete most of the pages beforehand. I only need a few pages as a playground, but I want to keep all the basic settings of the original document (page size, paragraph and character formats, etc.).

Start a new document of the proper page dimensions, and then use Document > Add Pages from File to add a few pages from your original document to the new one. Any Master pages needed by those pages, and all Text Styles, will be copied.

[Andi_CostaRica]

@MikeTO and @walt.farrell

Wow, thank you so much for your quick responses. Both answers really help.

My mistake was that I deleted whole double pages in the Pages panel. In my case it would have been better to select the text parts in the text frame (Document View) and then delete them.

But as it looks it can get quite complicated if you have to delete large page areas, or possibly worse, rearrange them.

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeTO]

3 hours ago, Andi_CostaRica said:

But as it looks it can get quite complicated if you have to delete large page areas, or possibly worse, rearrange them.

For whatever reason I gave you the hard instructions. There's an easier way if it's all one story, one series of linked frames.

1. Place the text cursor at the top of the frame on the first page you want to delete.
2. Scroll to the last page you want to delete. Shift+click at the end of the frame on that page.
3. Press Delete or Backspace - all of the text and pinned images on those pages will be deleted.
4. There will now be an equivalent number of blank pages at the end of the document. Delete the blank pages.