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Merging InDesign files

Procedures and Workflows

Last modified: April 17, 2018

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It is sometimes necessary to merge CMYK and TEXT files when InDesign spreads have been duped before the CMYK elements have been locked and the files need to go for americanisation / anglicisation.

The following instructions will demonstrate how to merge these back together, using two Fuse tools. In the following example, we will use the UK CMYK files to be merged with the US TEXT files but you may have to do this the other way round depending on what language your source CMYK files were created in.
Please note that this process requires extra work, time and concentration. To avoid this, it is always recommended to follow the workflow and only dupe for americanisation / anglicisation once the CMYK elements are locked.

Renaming

  1. Before merging, you will need to take onto your Work folder:
    • a copy of the UK CMYK files (no need to copy the links)
    • a copy of the US files containing the newly americanised text.
    Do not do this over the server in case something goes wrong as it will override the existing files. As no-one else should be able to access those files while you are doing this, you should move them to your user folder on the server before you copy them to your Work folder.
  2. As both CMYK & TEXT files need to have exactly the same name and same text layer name for the tool to run, we suggest you run Editionizer from the Fuse menu, on the UK CMYK files (call that folder TO_RENAME for example). Editionizer will rename each file and its text layer automatically to match your US TEXT files. As Editionizer will also ask you to create a separate folder (which should be named CMYK), you can delete the TO_RENAME folder once the tool has run.
  3. You should now end up with a folder called CMYK which contains your renamed UK CMYK files and a folder called TEXT which contains your US TEXT files.
    You can also watch this video which shows you  how to run Editionizer:

 

Merging

  1. Run Layer Merge from the Fuse menu.
  2. It will ask you to select the folder containing the master CMYK files.
  3. Once you have selected that folder, it will then ask you to select the folder containing the TEXT files.
  4. Once you have done that, it will ask you which layer you want to merge (in this case select US). The tool will then perform the merging.
  5. When the merging is done, you will get a notification that the merged files are to be found in the CMYK folder.
  6. Open each spread and ensure that nothing has gone wrong in the merging process by doing a full design/text fit check. Once you are sure that everything is okay, you can now delete the US TEXT folder.
  7. Once checked, the merged US files should be copied back to the book folder replacing the previous versions of the files.
    You can also watch this video which shows you how to run Layer Merge: