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InDesign/InCopy customizing update function to ignore certain changes

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jamesdeweese

Technical User
Aug 17, 2004
2
US
Is there a way to customize the InDesign update settings to recognize only certain types of changes in text files?

That is to say is their a way to lay out one article in multiple places with different specs, and adjust the layout document for fit without prompting an update alert in other documernts or changing the minor, layout-related attributes -- leading, tracking -- of the original document?

We could do it by breaking the links, but then we'd lose the ability to update articles across the board right up to press time.

Let me explain because our situation is somewhat unique:

We publish 16 individual papers -- all of which draw on shared copy as much as individual, neighborhood-specific stories. We are using Adobe InDesign for layout and InCopy for copy management. When we migrated from Quark and NewEditPro, we had hoped we would be able to use the update feature to make up some time by dropping articles into the layout -- somtimes in several papers -- before the editors had time to completely review them. The theory was, we would simply hit update and tweek the layout to make the final version fit. The system, in theory, was also thought of as a way to make last-minute editorial changes that would appear throughout all the papers without having to make changes piecemeal to each flip.

The problem is that when drawing on a single article or file for multiple papers, which is the only way the system will work, page designers across the production room get the update link message when even the most minor changes are made to leading or tracking.

What we need is a way to have the update alert trigger only when substantive changes are made to a story. Or, although a bit more cumbersome, only when changes are made to the text through the copy-management software and not InDesign.

Can this be done? Is the update feature customziable? Is there a plug in?

Any help you can give us would be excellent.

Thanks
 
InCopy, by definition, edits linked files...and the formatting there-in. It sounds to me like what you need is to have your articles linked to an independent XML source, in which case the formatting is independent of the source...and you can use InCopy to edit the XML source files, or a database or whatever. Have you checked with Baseview about NewsEdit for InDesign or are you not going to go that direction? There are other developers out there who know a lot about moving XML in and out of InDesign.
 
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