Is Bridge the right fit? Using Bridge to manage InDesign files/content with tags

Report · Dec 18, 2023

My team uses InDesign to create proposals for our company. We have an InDesign template that we all start with that has commonly used pages and layouts to customize.

We are trying to find a process to streamline the proposal creation, including a way to search for proposal pages by tag or keyword (for example, someone created a page about our DEI initiatives but it's not in our main template. They could search "DEI" and find pages created that are tagged with the DEI tag, select it and bring it into their document).

I have played around in the Bridge a bit but a lot of what I am seeing is targeted towards photography and photo assets so I am struggling to see how it may apply to our needs.

I did notice that if place a file from the bridge into a file, it places as a static image, not an editable design. Is that the only way?

If anyone has experience using Bridge as this sort of proposal content management, I'd love to hear how you do it.

Report · Dec 18, 2023

Hi, @Zoe5FF8, Yes, your initial observations are correct. Bridge was designed mostly as an image viewer and access to Adobe Camera Raw in addition to a pathway into Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and other Adobe applications. While some people do use it as a DAM (Digital Asset Management) application, it was not wholly designed as such. Lightroom Classic is much better for that but LRC can only show image-related files. InDesign files are invisible within LRC.

Your observations on how it deals with InDesign documents is also spot on.

The one special Creative Cloud aspect that Bridge has is that it can help coordinate the Color Settings for all of Adobe applications. (See, File (menu) -> Color Settings….)

I wish I could advise you of where to go to get what you want, but I can save you time as Bridge is not it. Good luck!

Report · Dec 18, 2023

You probably want to look at a real DAM/content management system. Do you use InCopy? Adobe has Experience Manager but its $$$$$$$$$$$$. There are also solutions like Canto Cumulus for multi-user environments.