InDesign project - 10,000 words + pictures

If you have never used ID or Quark, this could be a bit difficult to explain.

Yes, you can create books in ID and break your project into "Chapters".

10000 words is not that much for ID. Unless there is a lot of image compositing happening inside ID with transparency from PSDs, it is very responsive. Plus you can turn the images "off" so you only see placeholders and text.

In ID you can place images inside text boxes. I don't usually recommend this, but if you set it up correctly, it can be done. Your images will slide as you update before.

You'd have to have a basic layout (a grid if you will), decide how many columns, etc. Take out a piece of paper and pencil, and just sketch it out. 10 minutes of this will save you hours of jacking with it on the computer.

Once you have this, you can set up your master pages with page numbering and textboxes in place. When you insert a new page, you'll have a starting point. You can then link textboxes from page to page (or on the same page), and you document will flow freely.

Please don't hesitate to ask if you get stuck.

Layout in ID

There is probably too much to cover, but a very rough instruction:

Under "File>New" you have several options: Document, Book and Library. You'd most likely create a new document first. It might contain your TOC, Prologue, Intro, first couple of chapters. Save it.

Then you'd create a new "Book". ID will show a palette with the title of your book with a few icons and the flyout menu. You hit the "+" and select the document you just saved. You will notice it will show the page range.

What's cool, as you add more documents into your book, you can synch, print and export all of those documents with one click.

I probably wouldn't save out each chapter in a new document, but you most certainly can. In an ID document, you can assign sections with section markers that work as chapters. They would allow yout to automatically create a TOC and the page numbering on the TOC would update automatically as your pages shuffle. You can then assign these sections along with auto-page numbering to your master pages - all your new pages would have page numbering/chapter.

There is really too much to cover if you haven't worked with ID. It can become overwhelming and the learning curve is steep if you have not done DTP before. As long as you get a good ID book though, you should be able to do it.

Or perhaps consider Pages and/or (shudder) Word. They might work better if this all confuses you.

Some screenshots. should be self explanatory.

Select a page where you want a new section to start, then in the flyout menu for "Pages", select "Numbering & Section Options". That's really all there is to it. Good luck.