Exporting paragraph and table styles from InDesign CS3

[mogfrodo]

Hello everyone!
Does anyone know how to export existing paragraph and table styles from InDesign CS3 documents?

Basically I have a publication broken down into ten different files (i.e. one per section) that need to have consistent paragraph and table styles across the whole publication. Any idea on how to achieve this apart from exporting paragraph and table styles??

FYI I am working in CS3 on a PC, but it would be handy to know how to do this on a Mac too.

THank for your time
Cheers,
Mogfrodo

[Broacher]

You don't export as much as you import, or rather, 'load' your styles in from the 'master' ID file in which you've got the tags completely finalized. Then you get a pop for remapping the styles with options from there.

Of course it's a lot faster/easier if your style names are consistent across documents.

[garricks]

The quickest way to do this is to use the book function.
FILE > NEW > BOOK... will get you a book panel. You add your ten documents into the book panel, figure out which document has the styles that you want to use to synchronize the other nine to. Set that one as the master. Then synchronize.

Make sure you have backup copies of the documents! When things go wrong, they go very wrong.

The help file also has a lot of good information on using the book function.

[urstwile]

^^^that's what I'd do as well.

[garricks]

Oh, and that's not just a one-time synchronization, either. If you decide the chapter headings don't look as good in Palatino Bold 14 point as they would in Helvetica Neue Italic 18 point, just change it in the master document and hit the synchronize button. Updated in the entire book, in seconds!