InDesign Shorts: Tip #19 – Using the Multipage PDF Script

InDesign Shorts is a recurring series to help everyone of all levels master the ins and outs of the program and become more efficient designers. Got a burning InDesign question? Drop a comment below or join the LinkedIn group for more.

One of the things I love about InDesign is that I am constantly learning new ways to make my workflow more efficient. Today’s tip is the most useful one I learned last year and it completely blew my mind because it solves one of the most annoying problems I have: adding multipage PDFs to InDesign.

You might remember that I already have a tip for adding multiple pages of a PDF to your InDesign document. That tip is useful for adding a specific range of pages out of a PDF document, but this tip is excellent for adding large documents (like 100+ page safety plans or sample documents).

I’ve been seeing chatter about a magic InDesign script that could do this, but I foolishly thought that it was a script or plugin I had to download and add to my program. It’s NOT. InDesign has a built-in script design to automatically add multipage PDFs to your documents.

Adobe really does think of everything.

To add multipage PDFs to your InDesign document using this script:

  1. Open Window > Utilities > Scripts
  2. Drop down ‘Application’, then drop down ‘Samples’, then dropdown ‘JavaScript’.
  3. Scroll down to the ‘PlaceMultipagePDF.jsx’ and double click.
  4. Locate and open your PDF.
  5. Select your proposal from the ‘Place PDF in’ drop-down menu.
  6. Click ‘OK’ on the script alerts.
  7. Select the page number where InDesign should begin adding your document.
  8. Let the magic happen!