FR More flexibility for page templates

I have been trying to import page templates from some projects and add them to existing page templates. I wonder whether the problem is they were First page templates category, and the set only supports one of this kind, so the imported pages replaced the existing ones. I still have to test the behavior with custom pages…
Reading the documentation, I have the feeling it’s not possible to add one page template to an existing set, but only replace the whole set. Am I wrong?
I would love to be able to import as many Custom pages as needed, to make First pages become Custom ones. That is the flexibility I refer to in the title. I hope I’m clear…

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Exported page template sets are simply doricolib files. You can copy all the relevant info for the templates you want into a doricolib file in your DefaultLibraryAdditions folder. I started manually managing my page templates this way to avoid all the duplicated paragraph styles I was getting with importing sets.

Dear Todd,
I don’t think I want to mess with doricolib files, especially because what I am trying to do is “fusion” different files that are the different numbers of a famous opéra comique. I have fourty files, I’d like to have four (one per act).
Some files have up to seven different page templates — that is the method I found to get rid of every override. I think I’m faster recreating those than tweaking with doricolib files. But it would be way faster to be able to import the already created ones!

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I have used different Page Templates each with its own First page, but I don’t recall trying to combine firsts from different sets on the same layout.

EDIT: Just tried: a given layout can only access templates from one Set, but I have created sets with an altered “First Page” (with Page Numbers added) and a custom “First Page without Page Numbers” Template to apply manually to the very first page of the document.

I totally understand not wanting to mess around with doricolib files, but if you’re curious, you can take your “main” page template set, and then copy and paste any other exported templates under extraPageDefinitions. Just give them each a unique ID and name. That way you can add them individually if you want. It will end up looking something like this:

A page template set can only contain one First template, and one Default template. You can’t have two “First” page templates in the same set.

You can transfer (by which I mean export and import) page template sets between projects, and then once page template sets are in the same project, you can transfer individual page templates between sets in that project.

I’m not sure off the top of my head whether it’s possible to import a First page template from one set, into another set but as a Custom page template, but I can see how that could be useful. If it’s not possible, you could try creating a new custom page template in the original set, based on the First page template you’re wanting to re-use, and then try importing that into another set? And then just double-check it doesn’t retain any text frame links to the original (ie checking that when you edit the contents of any shared text frames in one, those edits aren’t mirrored on the other).

@Lillie_Harris , do you have a link for how to do that? I tried to figure that out before and ended up thinking I had misread that it was possible.

Sure, here’s the full set:

  1. Export “new” page template set from project A
  2. Import “new” page template set into project B
  3. Import one particular page template from the “new” page template set into an “old” page template set in project B
  4. Use the imported page template on specific pages in layouts that use the “old” page template set

Thanks. So it should be possible to import all those custom pages I have with dialogs, without me having to redo all the work. I will report back when it’s done. But I will have to redo my First pages (as Custom ones as well).
In any case, I think my request to be able to change a First or a Default as a Custom page template still stands :wink:

I wish there were a way to duplicate a Page Template and then “unlink” specific frames from the parent Template.

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As promised, I report back : importing Custom page templates works perfectly, so the real request would be to be able to tweak a First or Default into a Custom one — or duplicate those to a Custom one :pray:

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@Lillie_Harris
Is there a similar way to transfer Page Layouts from project to project?

When I try to transfer a Landscape Page Template from one project to another, it comes across at a portrait format on a standard page. Apparently the landscape parameters are bound up in the Layout ratehr than the Page Template.

Page templates fit themselves to the page size and orientation of whichever layout they happen to be in: that’s part of the in-built flexibility (and why frames can be locked/unlocked relative to the 4 page margins).

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