robinp Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 Is it possible to copy pages from one Publisher file to another? I wanted to drag and drop the pages from the pages panel to a tab of another open file but that doesn't seem to work. Neither does selecting them and copying and pasting. Any ideas? Is it just impossible at the moment? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac_heibu Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 No, this isn’t actually possible. Think of the problem, which may arise, if on this page are text frames, which are part of a longer chain of frames on other pages … The simplest way: Select all and copy the elements onto the other page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robinp Posted February 6, 2019 Author Share Posted February 6, 2019 6 minutes ago, mac_heibu said: No, this isn’t actually possible. Think of the problem, which may arise, if on this page are text frames, which are part of a longer chain of frames on other pages … The simplest way: Select all and copy the elements onto the other page. Hi, thanks, yes I appreciate that certain aspects of a layout may not make it across such as the example you give but I'm pretty sure the drag and drop approach works in InDesign. I also don't see why it would be any better copying and pasting than dragging and dropping / inserting whole pages and spreads? We rarely use text flowing beyond a spread. Our documents are so visual and based around a composition across a spread rather than the whole document that flowing text among many pages just causes more problems than it solves. I can totally see that would be different for someone laying out a novel or something. I guess it goes in as a feature request. Ariana M 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fde101 Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 35 minutes ago, mac_heibu said: Think of the problem, which may arise, if on this page are text frames, which are part of a longer chain of frames on other pages … Then the software should obviously split the chain for the copy. ronnyb 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac_heibu Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 First of all: It is not a „bug“ (–> wrong forum) Drag and drop of pages into a new document is not an option in Indesign (even in the latest version). Text pipes are not the only difficulty with D&D. There are many, including master page elements (detached and linked ones), TOCs, color space issues, format issues, page-and spread setup issues, and, and and … If drag and drop for pages well be provided, be sure, that there will be tons of support requests … Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robinp Posted February 6, 2019 Author Share Posted February 6, 2019 52 minutes ago, mac_heibu said: First of all: It is not a „bug“ (–> wrong forum) Drag and drop of pages into a new document is not an option in Indesign (even in the latest version). Text pipes are not the only difficulty with D&D. There are many, including master page elements (detached and linked ones), TOCs, color space issues, format issues, page-and spread setup issues, and, and and … If drag and drop for pages well be provided, be sure, that there will be tons of support requests … I’ll check tomorrow but I’m pretty sure drag and drop is in InDesign. Maybe not a bug but it is pretty defective to have no way to incorporate numerous pages from one doc to another. WhiteX 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac_heibu Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 As I said: Drag an Drop. InDesign hasn‘t this feature — for good reasons, I think. robinp 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robinp Posted February 6, 2019 Author Share Posted February 6, 2019 6 minutes ago, mac_heibu said: As I said: Drag an Drop. InDesign hasn‘t this feature — for good reasons, I think. I’m sorry but I think you are over stating your knowledge. https://indesignsecrets.com/watch_listen/how-to-move-pages-from-one-document-to-another I have done it numerous times before but your certainty made me question it. Sorry to say it but you are simply wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Move Along People Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 - robinp 1 Move Along people,nothing to see here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac_heibu Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 First of all: @robinp, you are right. InDesign has this option. I forgot about this, because I never used it – and will never use it in future. (I remember vaguely now, we had some controversial discussions about this subject during InDesign’s prerelease process.) As an instructor for print design students („Ausbilder für Mediengestalter“) I never propagated this feature to my students. The reason: It is really hazardous and risky to apply such a feature without having deep knowledge about the (side)effects of this feature and the application in whole: Only two small examples out of a long, long list: Paragraph styles, character styles, graphic styles of the dragged page will change, if the destination document has equally named styles. This may or may not be intended, but it is a serious source of issues. Especially, if you think of options, which aren’t visible at first glance (paragraph language, hyphenation settings, overprinting/knock out black, …, …) Slight format difference (for example slightly different dimensions of the specification of jewel case inlay cards according to the needs of different printing companies) may not be noticed while copying the page and will cause justification issues in print. If you copy page elements and paste them onto a different page of a different document, you normally are more aware of these changes in comparison to simply drag the thumbnail of a whole page into a document, without even necessarily seeing every single page element. Therefore – for somebody, who teaches and is used to structured working with styles, masters guides, and tries to avoid error-prone lay outing where ever possible, I personally won’t recommend using a drag & drop command for pages. You may reply, that this is no issue in your individual case, but don’t forget all these „non-professional“ or unexperienced users, who certainly will apply such a command – with crucial consequences. Only my very personal opinion, no intention to convince somebody else at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robinp Posted February 7, 2019 Author Share Posted February 7, 2019 44 minutes ago, mac_heibu said: Therefore – for somebody, who teaches and is used to structured working with styles, masters guides, and tries to avoid error-prone lay outing where ever possible, I personally won’t recommend using a drag & drop command for pages. You may reply, that this is no issue in your individual case, but don’t forget all these „non-professional“ or unexperienced users, who certainly will apply such a command – with crucial consequences. I don't think we should shy away from advanced features that some people might come a-cropper with. It's a similar discussion to the debate about linked vs embedded images. A team working on preparing a document would and should prefer linked. An individual throwing together a club newsletter in their spare time might prefer embedded because it requires less rigour. To take your point further, if I were bringing a load of pages from one document to another and it changed subtly because the text styles in the document the pages were brought into were slightly different, I would generally want them to update to reflect style of the working document. If the changes were so minor I didn't notice that would not be a problem. If they were major such that they were noticeable then I could fix it. I can't see how this is any different from copying and pasting text between different apps / files; sometimes the style goes wonky and you then sort it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robinp Posted February 7, 2019 Author Share Posted February 7, 2019 15 hours ago, haakoo said: Simply save as an APub file and drag/drop or place it in the other project. Thanks, that sounds like a good work around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Move Along People Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 - Move Along people,nothing to see here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteX Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 Ok, it is quite hard to believe, you can not copy pages from other documents. This is quite frustrating. I switched from Designer to Publisher to do Brand Guides, that needs to include all the logo versions for a brand system, and that's a lot of work to copy the different elements instead of just moving copying the pages themselves.... @serif Please make this possible. Branding, Identity Design, UI/UX Design. | https://whitex.design Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulEC Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 Depending on the contents of the page you want to re-use, you could group all the elements on the page and save it in the Assets Tab, then just drag it onto a page in another publication. Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz : 32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrettm30 Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 We're getting there: the current 1.8.0 betas are working on the ability to import pages from other documents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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