Magazine Planning in Adobe

[.random..]

Hi everyone,

I’ve brought this up once before, but the topic didn’t really gain traction, so I’d like to revisit it — especially from the perspective of a publishing house that’s been working in print production for many years.

For a long time, our editorial workflow was based on the PlanSystem editorial system, which we adopted after moving away from WoodWing. This setup allowed us to manage the layout planning of magazines and documents in a centralized way. However, to maintain this workflow, we’ve actually held off upgrading to the latest versions of Adobe Creative Cloud.

To this day, I haven’t found a simple way in InDesign (or elsewhere in the Adobe suite) to assemble and organize multiple documents into a coherent, magazine-style layout — where you can view the entire issue in sequential order and rearrange pages organically on the fly. We need to be able to manage editorial content together with incoming ads from clients (as PDFs) and make layout decisions interactively.

Ideally, I imagine something like Bridge being extended to support cloud-based layout planning — where you could create a "project," define the number of pages in the magazine, assign layouts or PDFs to specific spreads from different folders or team members, and see the entire issue come together in one place. A kind of lightweight, native editorial planning system within the Adobe ecosystem.

At the moment, WoodWing is the only serious option, but it’s overengineered and too expensive/complex for many smaller or mid-sized publishers. That leaves us trying clunky workarounds like nesting multiple InDesign files into one master document (to simulate the magazine structure), and coordinating editorial changes via InCopy — which works to a degree, but let’s be honest: it’s messy, fragile, and feels completely improvised.

InDesign’s Book feature could theoretically help, but in practice, it handles styles and cross-document syncing in unpredictable ways. I honestly don’t know anyone using it in a collaborative team environment without running into serious problems.

I strongly believe that a proper editorial system belongs in the Adobe ecosystem. The lack of one is a serious gap — and planning a magazine without it is unnecessarily slow and error-prone in today’s workflow reality.

What do you think? Is there any chance Adobe is considering building something like this into Creative Cloud?

Thanks for listening.

Daniel

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I think, what I've created a few years ago for Stanley Eastern Europe, could be called a mini version of what you're looking for... 

Each product was a separate INDD file - placed on the "pages" viewed online as JPEG. 

One person had access to the layout and could move products around - and add non-products. 

Each translator - 8 languages - had access to his language only and could edit only his texts - through WYSIWYG online text editor - and updated previews of the products were uploaded to the website periodically.

After the deadline for the translators - layout was finalised and INDD document of the final chapter of the catalog have been exported for further processing - mainly to slightly re-arrange photos. 

So, in the end - translator = team member, product = article / ad?

And because of the way products has been internally created - relations between title / photo / description / table / icons / etc. - resizing/scaling JPEG preview of the product online - taller or shorter - through a website - resulted in the parts of the object being moved and not just distorted.

Of course, products has been created from a database and using templates.

It was quite a "simple" solution - WYSIWYG text editor can be replaced with InCopy or WORD.

And it was Windows based solution and for obvious reasons - not free. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I don't disagree that the Adobe suite should have something like a visual project manager with a shareable interface. "Magazine" is perhaps too narrow and specific but perhaps serves as the model for a high-complexity project.

Until then, we have whiteboards. 😄

[Eugene Tyson]

This is a really interesting topic. I tend to think that Adobe is aware of the gap in editorial workflow tools especially for magazine planning but historically they’ve been more focused on the creative side of things rather than the nuts and bolts of content management and project planning.

On one hand, Adobe has slowly added collaboration features (like integration with InCopy, cloud libraries and reviews etc) that hint at a desire to support more team-based workflows. Yet on the other hand, a fully integrated, drag‑and‑drop editorial system that lets you manage multiple documents, ad placements and editorial changes in real time seems like a whole different beast. It’s a niche that many publishers solve with third‑party systems like WoodWing or GoPublish, which are overengineered for smaller teams but necessary for larger operations.

I suspect Adobe might eventually offer something more robust if there’s enough market demand, but for now, they seem content (no pun intended) to focus on what they do best high‑quality design and creative production – leaving the heavy lifting of editorial planning to specialised vendors or custom workflows (perhaps via plugins).

In the meantime, if your team is feeling the pain, I can imagine a plugin or a script that allows a combination of the Book feature with some creative magic could potentially bridge the gap. It’s not a perfect solution, but until Adobe makes a move, it’s probably the best workaround available.

I've had experience in some online platforms that allow editing of InDesign documents, and I worked with a company that was able to create a solution to take a print catalogue to online content, which was wonderful. 

But the thing is adobe to my knowledge has no support for this. 

You can make feature requests here - as it would be a new product I guess you can start here

https://community.adobe.com/t5/creative-cloud-desktop/ct-p/ct-creative-cloud-desktop?page=1&sort=lat...

Let us know if you post it and link to it and we can support you by voting it up - then publicise your request to get more traction etc. 

[.random..]

Thanks so much for your thoughtful reply — I'm genuinely excited to see that someone else out there also believes this would be a valuable and much-needed feature.

I've posted the feature request here:
👉https://community.adobe.com/t5/creative-cloud-desktop-ideas/magazine-planning-in-adobe/idi-p/1522589...

I really don’t think it would be that difficult to integrate this kind of functionality into the Adobe ecosystem.

What we primarily need is the ability to see all InDesign pages or documents as independent visual units, as shown in the example I shared — to be able to rearrange them via drag-and-drop directly in Bridge, insert PDF ads from clients in between, get an overview of the production status of each piece, see who’s working on what, track document history, and ideally have page numbering adjust automatically based on position in the Bridge layout (and propagate that change into the actual InDesign file). We’d also love to export directly from Bridge, and collaborate on a single document with multiple team members, which is already partially possible via InCopy.

The shared libraries in InDesign CC are already a huge step forward — they allow us to store all magazine-related assets (logos, objects, reusable photos, patterns, etc.) in one place in the cloud. That’s incredibly powerful and exactly the kind of direction I think Adobe should continue pursuing.

In short: I think Adobe is on the right track, and cloud-based team workflows are an absolute must for modern editorial work.

Thanks again for your support — it really means a lot!

Daniel

[Eugene Tyson]

I voted for it there. I suggest getting more traction post across various platforms. 

If you're serious about it you could approach a plug-in creator, which I am not and build a solution. 

Plenty of plugins through the ages have been added like mathml recently. 

If you built it and sold it yourself Adobe might sit up and acquire it from you. 

If you're not in that position I totally understand, is a massive financial and personal undertaking.

I think it's a great idea and sorely needed. 

_---+---

Now that I think about it, personal doing magazine layouts I remember having the book file open and created an a0 size document. 

Then placed all the pages from all the files and planned up that way. 

As they were InDesign files I could open and edit the page directly. 

And move pages in the book document and they would update in the plan sheet. 

Kinda inline with what you're talking about. 

Back then I did wish there was a more streamlined way of doing it .

[.random..]

Hi everyone,

I’ve brought this up once before, but the topic didn’t really gain traction, so I’d like to revisit it — especially from the perspective of a publishing house that’s been working in print production for many years.

For a long time, our editorial workflow was based on the PlanSystem editorial system, which we adopted after moving away from WoodWing. This setup allowed us to manage the layout planning of magazines and documents in a centralized way. However, to maintain this workflow, we’ve actually held off upgrading to the latest versions of Adobe Creative Cloud.

To this day, I haven’t found a simple way in InDesign (or elsewhere in the Adobe suite) to assemble and organize multiple documents into a coherent, magazine-style layout — where you can view the entire issue in sequential order and rearrange pages organically on the fly. We need to be able to manage editorial content together with incoming ads from clients (as PDFs) and make layout decisions interactively.

Ideally, I imagine something like Bridge being extended to support cloud-based layout planning — where you could create a "project," define the number of pages in the magazine, assign layouts or PDFs to specific spreads from different folders or team members, and see the entire issue come together in one place. A kind of lightweight, native editorial planning system within the Adobe ecosystem.

At the moment, WoodWing is the only serious option, but it’s overengineered and too expensive/complex for many smaller or mid-sized publishers. That leaves us trying clunky workarounds like nesting multiple InDesign files into one master document (to simulate the magazine structure), and coordinating editorial changes via InCopy — which works to a degree, but let’s be honest: it’s messy, fragile, and feels completely improvised.

InDesign’s Book feature could theoretically help, but in practice, it handles styles and cross-document syncing in unpredictable ways. I honestly don’t know anyone using it in a collaborative team environment without running into serious problems.

I strongly believe that a proper editorial system belongs in the Adobe ecosystem. The lack of one is a serious gap — and planning a magazine without it is unnecessarily slow and error-prone in today’s workflow reality.

What do you think? Is there any chance Adobe is considering building something like this into Creative Cloud?

Thanks for listening.

Daniel

[Colin Flashman]

 This may also be a suggestion for the indesign uservoice site (where the indesign developers look at user submitted bugs and suggestions): https://indesign.uservoice.com/

Only workaround in the meantime is to adjust the pages panel to look like this:

 

that was done using these options: