Discussion: InDesign problems and innovations...

[amaarora]

Hi community members,

As users of InDesign and other lay-outing tools, I want to ask you some questions:

• What is new in the world of document layouting? Something innovative? For example: Gridifying based on page dimensions
• What problems are faced in the domain of typography that you think must be solved? For example: #Fontphoria: Adobe MAX 2018 (Sneak Peek) | Adobe Creative Cloud - YouTube
• Any smart solutions or workflows you want in the product that can ease work? For example: replacing all missing glyphs in a document in one click
• Anything out of the box workflows? For example: Automatically applying fonts to a document based on context...
• Anything which you feel sounds cool and amazing and is useful?
• Something which other tools do but not InDesign? For example: Messages in iOS 10: How to Use Emoji Replacement and Prediction - MacRumors

Above are just pointers i can think of right now. Would love to hear more such ideas, hurdles and other opinions... I also found one such innovative idea here: Dynamic baseline related unit of measurement – Adobe InDesign Feedback

FYI: The idea is not define the InDesign roadmap or mention bugs. We have a seperate page for that: Adobe InDesign Feedback .

The sole purpose of asking this here, is to gain understanding and knowledge regarding what concerns are facing our customers and  knowing the innovations they want in the product. (something like InDesign CC 2019 new feature - Content-Aware Fit - YouTube )

Please feel free to express your idea even if it is totally weird at its core

Thanks,

Aman

[Haeme Ulrich]

In my field of activity, the integration of InDesign into multi-channel workflows is very important. This is because print is no longer the most important output channel for most of our customers. So there is less budget for print. Print must become cheaper. By far the most important would be a connection to standard Web CMS such as WordPress and Drupal.

We are also eagerly awaiting InDesign in the cloud

[Chris Ryland]

@Haeme--

We're definitely planning a DocsFlow for WordPress plugin for InDesign, to accelerate web-first publishing.

[Haeme Ulrich]

@Chris

What? Wow, do you need any tester? Please let me/us know. We would have a lot of interested customers.

[Chris Ryland]

Yes, when we're ready to go we'll spread the word far and wide...

[Gusgsm]

Drupal +1

[JamieMcKee]

What problems are faced in the domain of typography that you think must be solved?

User-defined font mapping. For instance, the font Frutiger's italic isn't called "Italic", it's called "56 Italic". InDesign should be smart enough to know...or we should be allowed to map to the italic version of the font. So if I set my "Italic" Character Style to italic and apply it to Times, I get Times Italic, but if I apply it to Frutiger, I don't get pink boxes, I get Frutiger 56 Italic. Same as if I'm using a Semibold or Display style of a font such as Arno Pro so that if I apply my "Italic" Character Style to a word set with Arno Display, I don't get pink boxes, I get Arno Display Italic.

[iwhp]

Easier changing and creating InDesign documents via API (.NET Core).

[TᴀW]

Work on improving the text layout engine.

When working with span/split columns it creaks. Really slow.

When working with balanced columns, it creaks.

A lot of anchored objects in a document also slow things to a crawl.

How about removing the limitation that anchored objects can't cause text wrap to text that comes before them, only to text that comes after? That would be useful!

How about inline/anchored objects that "float"? Meaning that if there is not enough space for them on one page, they will appear on the next page, and meanwhile the text will flow to fill the gap on the previous page...

[Dirk_Levy]

As we produce a 16 pages advertisement product every week with a print volumne of 3.6 Mio. prints,

I'd like to have a better tool for adjusting the letters in a font, like Xpress have since a lot of

years.

[Jongware]

Dirk, do you have a link to such an XTension? From your very short description only, I have no clear idea what and/or how this should work.

[Dirk_Levy]

I didn't know an extension for this in ID. In Quark there are two ways build in:

Use Preferences/Character to control the point size at which built-in kern tables are turned on. It’s usually best to keep kern tables turned on for all sizes. Check the preference settings and reduce the minimum point size, if necessary. (Once the built-in kern pairs are turned on, you can still manually kern any character pairs you wish.)

The Kern/Edit feature (under Utilities) is an often-overlooked kerning option in QuarkXPress. It lets you customize a font’s built-in kern table for use in one or all of your QuarkXPress documents. This can be invaluable when setting large quantities of text.

When you change a value in Kern/Edit, the change will affect every instance of that character pair only within your QuarkXPress documents. It does not affect the actual font in your Fonts folder, or the font’s use in other applications.

Regards

Dirk

[crych]

You ask: 'Any smart solutions or workflows you want in the product that can ease work?'

Yes, buy WoodWing's Smart Styles plug-in and ship it with InDesign. Or, fix the table styles so the geometry of tables can be stored and applied.

[MJMarek]

I'd be super happy with some basic useful updates.

Text formatting

• I agree with Dirk that we need kerning tables. Quark has always had that ability.
• I'd like an option to highlight all instances of a style in a document. (Word allows you to select all instances of same style)
• The ability to format unequal column widths in the same frame. (Word has this capability, so ID definitely should.)
• Alpha sort lists without a script (like Word )
• Indent to here option in bullets panel
• Shift tab (align to edge of frame) option in tab panel. (If that already exists, someone tell me how to do it, please.)

Documents

• More built in document presets for standard pieces like trifold brochures, business cards, rack cards, etc.
• Time tracking capabilities on INDD files. Even if it's something as simple as number of minutes the document was edited (again, like Word.)
• The ability to convert images to grayscale in InDesign. Or perhaps there is a grayscale option under new document.
• Option in ID to view two-up with cover on document formatted as single pages
• When adding a new image or font to an already packaged file, the option to add each to the appropriate subdirectory when placed.
• Option to auto-add all colors from a Library to the swatches panel (again, If already exists, someone tell me how to do it, please.)

Pages

• Total number of pages listed at the bottom left (instead of just current page, page x of xx)
• Duplicate page option where we can determine where that page is inserted (instead of just the option to add to the end of the document.)
• Duplicate pages into another open INDD file (similar to duplicate layers in Photoshop) instead of placing a file.

PDFs

• The ability to close an open PDF within the INDD print dialog box when trying to generate a replacement.
• Option to print current page in PDF export dialog box
• Option to Convert to outlines in PDF export dialog box

I know these aren't cool or innovative, but they would definitely improve productivity. Thanks!

[TᴀW]

"The ability to close an open PDF within the INDD print dialog box when trying to generate a replacement."

Very nice idea! That would save time and aggro right there...

[Jeffrey_Smith]

My suggestion... voice activated commands like "Open Paragraph Panel", "Turn Off Layer 1", "Add Drop Shadow to Selection"

[grefel]

More and more work is shifting into online resources (name it cloud, if you wish). With InDesign we cannot access these resources out of the box. A real innovation would be the ability to access HTTPS/REST.

There are two obvious and many other use cases:

1. Link Images/Assets on the web (from any source and DAM-Systems).
2. Access Content (CMS or similar systems)
   In InDesign that might bei simply as my press2id (GitHub - grefel/press2id: Connect Adobe InDesign to a Wordpress Blog via REST ) or this XD plugin Data Populator (https://www.datapopulator.com/ )
3. From an extension/scripitng perspective we could manage Cloud-Workflows with ease. The current situation, were ID only sits in the file system is so much 90ties...

[Haeme Ulrich]

grefel​ Thank you for your input! Exactly what we need for our customers.

[Chris Ryland]

From an extension/scripitng perspective we could manage Cloud-Workflows with ease. The current situation, were ID only sits in the file system is so much 90ties...

In theory, this is coming in some form with UXP, which has full web access. (You can already try it out in XD.)

[grefel]

You can do it even with CEP https://medium.com/adobetech/how-to-build-a-node-js-server-in-a-panel-ba1d63ea67e2  I would love to see a one liner and not all that overhead 🙂

[Dirk Becker]

With all that multi-user connectivity resulting in randomly incoming changes of arbitrary linked assets, plus scripts or plugins triggered by change events and idle tasks, plus lengthy operations that nowadays require an extra invocation for updates, InDesign should overcome the strict sequential transaction processing imposed by the single user centric undo history.

For example undo could have multiple concurrent scopes. While the user is editing some text on page 3, another text incoming from grefel's WordPress connection would silently update itself on page 17, as does the icml link starting at page 20. A bunch of images is automatically relinked as soon the underlying resource is updated (new PS layers, Sensei did some feathering), the index, toc and other dynamic reports would update in parallel, and triggered by the text change Peter's cross-font kerning script would immediately launch and fix the typography.

The layouter is slowly moving forward to revisit the changes on page 17 - alerted to some overset by a cross-breed of background task/track changes panel. While she adds a page, the current state of the layout is automatically uploaded to the in-progress view of the CMS, following an outgoing PDF export link. For all alternative layouts in parallel, as her 18 core machine easily permits.

The user switches back to her text editing cursor/selection, presses undo to correct a typo from her previous typing. Nothing happens to the umpteen other scopes of activity.

[Chris Ryland]

Dirk--

To be honest, all that parallel activity sounds like a nightmare.

Seems to me that linked network resources should only update on request, not randomly in the background.

[Dirk Becker]

Chris - it could be a matter of user choice, or of presentation. E.g. InDesign could keep a copy of the previous state and only when you trigger "update all links" it would immediately swap in the pre-rendered changes instead of having them trickle in. Remember, download and processing of the remote resources will still take time, but why should that be user time?

[J_Harder]

Back in 2016 I have blogged about color management becoming a more complex task by the hour (German only, sorry: Farbmanagement 2020 – printpraxis.net ). Things have gotten worse since then. Unfortunately, Adobe haven't adjusted their CMS since 1852 to make the gigantic pool of ICC profiles more accessible (or understandable). Printing becomes more complex; InDesign does nothing to ease the pain. Change that.

[Laubender]

Hi Jason,

thanks for this article!

One mile stone in that mix could be an InDesign that will work with Device Link Profile technology.

Adobe could add this together with currently very costly profiles. Also Illustrator and PhotoShop should be able to do that.

Simulation of colors in InDesign could do so much more. Why not having a view of separation in RGB colors? Currently we can see values of CMYK simulated, but never values of RGB with Separation Preview.

We also need a preflight that could detect maximum TAC ( Total Amount of Color ), not only a visual guide. A preflight that will do that on basis of the currently used PDF Export preset and controls. And means to reduce colors globally on a page or in the whole document to get below maximum TAC without visibly compromize overall color quality ( if that's possible ).

What about supporting gray scale profiles?

Reasonable rendering of spot colors overprinting based on Lab colors?

EDITED: How about doing tints of CMYK or RGB colors that don't come along without color shifts?

Regards,
Uwe