Can Adobe Bridge be used to view/organize/manage InDesign Files (.INDD?)

Hi David,

Yes and no.

In Bridge you can "see" the thumbnails but the Preview window of an ID file is about the same size as the thumbnail so you can't really see/read the content of a page. So overall it depends on what you need and what you're willing to settle for.

The problem is that ID is a vector image (all the text) and Bridge cannot parse vector images so it turns that thumbnail into a bitmapped image. The only way it appears sharp is to keep it small. You can have it appear full sized in the Preview window but it's a blurry as heck and of no use.

I do use Bridge when making ID documents because it becomes much easier to store all of the same parts of that document in one folder and I use bridge to keep track of all of the component parts (images, word and text files that will go into the document, etc.)

Many years ago there was a thing called Bridge Mini that I loved. It was a Panel that could go into InDesign, Photoshop, etc. and was a link to a folder in Bridge. At that time you could rate all of the images with (say) 5 stars. Then in ID you could search for all 5 star images. Then as you used the image, you could change it's rating to 4 stars which, by the search criteria, would self-remove from view. That way you were not looking at "used" images. But alas, that feature had Flash structure so it went away a long time ago.

Good luck,