Is there a timeline to get this fixed? I am stunned that this is missing from CC - it was in the older versions of CS. Books is a critical function of InDesign.

This is a real pain and surely an easy fix.

I hope this small feature can be implemented. Working with multiple books and files for hours everyday, it is frustrating for the book panel to disappear or relocate to another monitor when files are closed. It must be manually displayed and then dragged back to main InDesign windows/panel.

Sucks for years ....

I would also like this to be fixed. It is very annoying.

Sucky user interaction design when a book panel looks like any other panel, but works completely differently. And you have to save it every time. Correction: you have to save and answer a prompt to overwrite the file every time. What a pain.

Yes, please! I'm migrating my workflow from Framemaker, and am quite surprised at InDesign's primitive behavior in this regard. It's a time-waster.

Same issue. When I open a book file, the book panel opens as it should. If I open one of the embedded documents, the book panel closes, and I can not get it to reopen without closing InDesign completely and reopening the book file directly. I've tried docking it to a panel and saving the workspace, but that had no effect.

I can confirm that I too have the bug with a disappearing books panel. If I dock the panel and save a new workspace, it is not remembered upon relaunch. If I dock it and then choose a different workspace for some reason, the books panel disappears altogether and you cannot get it back without relaunching InDesign.

I typically just open a book file from the file menu or in a Finder window, which places the panel dead center in my InDesign workspace. This is is mildly annoying too, having to move it into a corner or dock it each time.

Same here. I dock the book panel, close all the indd files and the book panel is gone. When I reopen the book file, the panel is nowhere to be found.

That's InDesign 15.1.3 on Mac.

This bugs me too! InDesign could eliminate a lot of monkey work for us if they'd listen to their customers.
I wrote this simple script. It works - but it opens a specific book. I also assigned a keyboard shortcut to it. (I still have to dock the panel once the book opens; but at least the script does 90% of the monkey work for me.)

// create a new file object
var bookFileObject = new File("/D/bookName.indb"); // full path (path + file name)
// open book
var bookFile = app.open(bookFileObject);

got version id 16.0. still same issue. why don´t you work on this annoying problem?

Still no fix? I can't launch the .Indb it from the "home" panel. I have to quit the program and open the .indb document first. It won't open from the "home" panel. It closes if I go back to the go the "home" panel to open another document outside the book.

The Book panel use to fall behind the application so I've gotten used to docking it or simply retrieve it using the Window drop-down menu.

It's very annoying indeed. Just worked on my first project using a book and thought I'm doing something wrong.. Apparently not.

I have the same problem with the book panel. Once it disappears, I go to reopen it but it won't reopen because InDesign thinks it's still open. It's really annoying since I work on all of my companies Catalogs and Brochures. There should be an option in the Window menu for the book panel so it can be turned on and off from there like all the other ones.

Hi together,
the InDesign Book Panel should be a panel like every other panel of InDesign.
It should be possible to store it with a custom workspace etc.pp.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( ACP )

I have encountered this bug and it's very annoying. My experience is, once I place the books panel into one of my docks, it disappears at random and I can not get it back by choosing it from the windows drop down menu, or by choosing file>open because it thinks it's already open, but it's not visible. I can only re-open the book panel by quitting the program and re-launching. I can only get the panel to remain open if I don't place it into one of the docks. This is cumbersome and not a good work flow. This is a bug and should be fixed. Please fix it.

That would be very time-saving for me too!