From the course: InDesign Secrets
170 Batch convert InDesign files to IDML and other formats - InDesign Tutorial
From the course: InDesign Secrets
170 Batch convert InDesign files to IDML and other formats
- You have a bunch of InDesign documents and you need to convert or export them all to some other format. For example, maybe you want to export them all as PDF, or maybe they're all InDesign CC files and you need to convert them to IDMLs, so that CS4, CS5 or CS6 users can open them. Well, if you work by the hour you can just skip this tip because it's gonna save you way too much time! But for the rest of us, those who hate sitting in front of the computer doing the same thing over and over again, you have to get a free script called Batch Convert, written by Peter Kahrel. You can find it here at indesignsecrets.com/free. Just look in the Free Scripts section. You can click on that link to go to Peter Kahrel's website, and then download it from there. There's also a link here on this page that explains how to install scripts, in case you don't know how, or look here in the lynda.com Online Training Library for our InDesign Secrets movie that will show you. Now once that script is installed, you'll find it inside your Scripts panel, which you can find by going to the Window menu, choosing Utilities, and then choosing Scripts. When you installed this script, you put it either in the Application folder or the User folder. I put mine in the User folder so I can find it here by clicking on this triangle and looking inside. There it is, batch_convert I'll open up that folder, and I can see the script here, batch_convert.jsxbin Now we'll go ahead and run that script by double-clicking on it. First I need to tell it what folder to process. I'll click on this Folder button, and I'll select my Lots of Documents folder. By default, that's gonna put the result, whatever it converts or exports, into that same folder. But you could change that if you want to. I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail about all the options in this dialog box. There's documentation on Peter's site. But the main thing is you wanna point out what kind of documents it should be looking for, in this case InDesign documents, and what kind of documents you want them to convert into or export as. In this case we're going to choose IDML, but you can see there's lots of different formats you could choose from. Also, it's a really good idea to turn on the "Ignore errors" checkbox, otherwise if there are missing links or modified links, it's gonna constantly remind you of that, so turn that on. Okay, let's do the conversion. I'll click OK and InDesign jumps into action here, exporting those documents one at a time. When it's done, if there were any errors, it would tell me with a little alert. But in this case that dialog box just disappears, so I know I'm done. Let's switch back to the Desktop here, and you can see there's an IDML document for each one of those InDesign files. I don't know if this is 10 times faster than I could do it manually, or 50 times faster, but I know for sure it saves me a lot of time.
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Contents
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229 Batch converting ID files to current version with the Book panel6m 9s
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230 Getting around InDesign limitations6m 46s
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231 Creating better callout lines with effects and object styles5m 47s
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232 Swapping column and row information in tables6m 9s
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233 Making bigger text link targets4m 52s
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161 Keeping page numbers on top of master items3m 55s
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162 Adding automatic currency symbols in a table cell or before text3m 50s
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163 Make a pop-up footnote for your ebook3m 48s
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164 Deleting tabs at the beginning of paragraphs and applying a paragraph style3m 10s
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165 Five InDesign Presentation tips6m 28s
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111 Packaging images on the pasteboard3m 32s
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112 Automatically updating figure references for books6m 9s
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113 Adding Tool Tips to your form fields in InDesign3m 21s
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114 Setting poetry, flush left, center on longest line3m 54s
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115 Use bookmarks to navigate long documents in production4m 57s
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107 Using the same keyboard shortcut for two different commands with the Context feature5m 22s
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108 Making a text highlighter3m 33s
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109 Updating an interactive PDF without losing work done in Acrobat5m 30s
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110 Adding custom text at the beginning of each line automatically4m
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089 Three great Object Styles for any designer8m 1s
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090 Choosing alpha channel image transparency2m 25s
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091 Adding and reading metadata for InDesign files3m 25s
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092 Adding ALT tags to your images6m 59s
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093 How to Place & Link a text frame's text but not its formatting7m 4s
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094 Setting the baseline position of a caption2m 39s
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051 Five things that should be in every new file5m 19s
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052 Forcing EPUB page breaks with invisible objects6m 21s
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053 Understanding component information6m 39s
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054 Creating running heads using section markers4m 16s
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055 Making a font with InDesign using the IndyFont script5m 20s
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056 Finding where that color is used7m 17s
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047 Specifying an exact amount of space between objects5m 17s
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048 Fixing last lines that are too short8m 16s
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049 Creating web graphics from your InDesign artwork7m 20s
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050 Using “No Language” to suppress unwanted hyphenation, spell-checking, and smart quotes2m 48s
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037 Updating a linked table without losing formatting5m 18s
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038 Creating electronic sticky notes4m 49s
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039 Moving master page items to the top layer for visibility2m 48s
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040 Five guide tricks that will impress your coworkers6m 18s
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041 Letting InDesign add the diacritics4m 21s
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042 Using single-cell table cells for custom paragraph formatting6m 2s
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027 Creating running heads using variables5m 1s
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028 Live Caption tips and tricks8m 3s
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029 Making professional drop caps10m 37s
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030 Making two-state buttons in interactive documents5m 5s
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031 Moving pages from one document to another3m 15s
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032 Wrapping bulleted text around a curve5m 58s
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007 Selecting through and into objects using cmd-click and Select Above/Below5m 46s
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008 Some great tips and tricks for the Swatches panel9m 40s
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009 Saving down for backward compatibility with INX and IDML5m 54s
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010 Using the INX and IDML formats to fix problems4m 46s
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