Contact Sheets in InDesign

[JShambhu]

I make contact sheets of photographs regulary. Doing them in Indesign is preferred method as they sometimes get added to other layouts so need to be very editable. The Photoshop output is just kind of a pain since it is one big jpg file. 

I discovered the script ImageCatalog in the scripts folder and it does a great job of automating this process including editable file names under the images.

Strangely the images are not in alphabetical order. Any one know why this would be? I dont see anything in the dialouge box. This almost negates the automation as now I have to drag everyting into alpha order. Mulitple page contact sheets become really become a pain.

Maybe there is another way to do automated editable contact sheets?  

[Scott Citron]

I'd just make my own contact sheet template. Here's a good tutorial by Adobe's Patti Sokol.

https://vimeo.com/395793572

[JShambhu]

Ahhh. I forgot about the Caption drop down. Thanks

[angular_thinkerB830]

I've used InDesign for almost 20 years now and didn't realize anything in this video was a feature. Thanks for the share.

[Eugene Tyson]

You could also do a data merge.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-indesigner-episode-43-video/id96779509?i=1000018682576

There's the image catalog script here - https://creativepro.com/downloads/forcedl/imagesToCSV104.jsx

https://creativepro.com/downloads/forcedl/imagesToCSV104.jsx

[JShambhu]

I dont think this works for what I am doing currently but I am bookmarking this video as I could have used it on a more data driven project. So thanks for that!

How do I use the catalog script? Can it be tweaked to put things in alphabetical order? 

Thanks in advance

[brian_p_dts]

I'm not intimately familiar with the catalog script, but I assume there's a getFiles function call for choosing the folder with the images in it? If so, you could sort that array before processing the rest of the script: 

var fileArr = chosenFolder.getFiles();
sortNames(fileArr);
//process fileArr

var sortNames = function(arr) {
    arr.sort(function (a, b) {
      return a.name.localeCompare(b.name);
    });
};

[rob day · Accepted solution]

I’ve written a variation on the catalog script, that you are welcome to try—I added a sorting function similar to Brian’s example so the sorting is alphabetical.

This version lets you set a page size and assigns paragraph and object styles to the labels and images, which make it easier to format the catalog after running the script. I only use it in house on OSX, so I’m not sure if you will run into any bugs.

https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/ade2b284-c8f0-4828-5974-bdce11b7e190

[JShambhu]

This is cool and works like a charm. Thanks for sending

[Roy Arauz]

So glad I found this post, this is exactly what I've been looking for. Thank you!

[Macbooks Pro M1]

Thank you so much! This has been a bit of a bother - so glad for this script in alphabetical order.

[LHess]

@rob day Thanks for the script! Huge help. It works well, except I have image file names that begin with a number and I'd like them to be placed in numeric order. The script places them in this order: 1, 10, 11, 12... up to 19, then 2, 20, 21, 22...  Is there a way to make it place the images in 1, 2, 3 order? Thanks!

[rob day]

Hi @LHess , try adding leading zeros to your 1-9 files.

[Marleen30695761k6zl]

Worked like a charm - thanks for sharing!