Discussion: InDesign problems and innovations...

BobLevine​

I 100% agree! That is exactly where my beef is at too.

In answer to the original post by amaarora, I think a lot of what is being asked for could be found in the indesign.uservoice.com suggestions – as at the time of writing this post, there are over 2340 suggestions, and I agree with the top 5 (Option to split table rows across pages, MathML Support, SVG import, Make text variables/live captions breakable like normal text, Locate where a specific colour is used in your document). That said, I won't parrot the other suggestions that I agree with, needless to say the uservoice site would be a great place to start.

Other ideas that have cropped up recently (at least in this office) have been:

• Grammar checker similar to Grammarly;
• Open PDFs natively in InDesign;
• Autoformat feature similar to the Microsoft Word autoformat feature;
• Be able to see a "rendered" preview much like RIP software such as AGFA Apogee or Fuji XMF can display;
• A "consistency" checker. For example, a feature to check consistency of a document for how dates are written, how addresses are written, how people's names appear, how post-nominals appear etc.

I don't necessarily agree with Eugene Tyson's comment of "there are lots of functions added to indesign over the years that are no longer viable and should be removed" as this may apply to what he is doing, but not what everyone is doing – an example of this is when Acrobat removed features they felt weren't being used, only to have backlash from the community complaining that the removed features had in fact been used. I do agree that there are features that I don't use and have probably been deprecated elsewhere.

Wow, this thread is fascinating… some great ideas + an enormous steaming heap of complaining and cynical philosophizing. Of course, complaining has its place, I suppose, but holy moley…

Just a few points that need to be made:

• On the question of how should the developers decide what to do: They have been very clear that they a) watch https://InDesign.UserVoice.com carefully; b) read prerelease; c) talk to large customers; and d) watch industry trends and try to innovate.
• Eugene whinges at some length about a comment from 9 years ago, without understanding a number of the important features discussed, and then equates this with how the InDesign team is run today. Makes no sense at all.
• "A developer" says InDesign has been "put out to pasture," apparently ignoring the many, many new features and improvements that the team has made in the past 3 years.

Look, I want InDesign to be better/stronger/cooler as much as anyone here, but whining like a preteen doesn't help at all.

To Barb, Kelly, Jane, Dave, and everyone else here who is providing constructive criticism with great ideas: THANK YOU! Love reading these.

It's fun to think of how InDesign could be better, provide good background so the developers understand it… but please also make sure these ideas are collected and voted for on uservoice!

This is not an exhaustive list (and some is repetitive), but here are the ones that come to mind.

Rather than repeating everything previously posted, I'll just add easier creation and exporting if interactive documents, especially to HTML5. Shouldn't need a third-party plugin to get good output.

Long document features (some not updated since CS3--12 years ago!)

• Graphics
  • Fix runaround with anchored graphic for previous text flow (2-col layout with straddled graphic anchored in 2nd col.)
  • Dynamic Link to Photoshop to edit images directly in ID without switching over to PS (with layer styles)
  • Dynamic Link to Acrobat to edit PDFs directly in ID (with option to save a copy and replace with edited version)
  • Easier anchoring of multiple objects (such as graphic with caption--see below)
  • "Add a caption box" option to graphics (defaults to width of graphic, used predefined format--maybe an Object styles
• Tables
  • Option to remember table geometry (at least table and col width) in Table Styles
  • Conditional table rows (possibly columns)
  • Table footnotes (that show at bottom of noted text on multi-page tables, not at end of table)
  • Excel linkage option upon import rather than under Preferences
  • Table style auto-assigns header rows to incoming Excel document (rather than all body rows)
• Workflow
  • Text insets as in FrameMaker (or InCopy insets, but can be inserted inline with other text but maintain link)
  • Book folders and groups as in FrameMaker (although I would reverse how they are used: groups for multiple documents in same chapter; folders for organization)
  • Ability to turn off multiple undo's temporarily (was a big drag on system with doing InData text flow with inline graphics--I suspect is was recording each entry as an undo)
  • Easier Print Booklet to PDF option
  • Per-page layer option (split Layer panel into two sections--per document and per layer?)
  • Per-page view option for facing page documents
  • More XML features as in FrameMaker (fix it or drop it...)
• Text
  • Track format changes in addition to text edits
  • Leading proportional to type size (like Quark--+2 or +10%)
  • Endnotes for entire book, not just per chapter
  • Wrapping text variables
  • Character styles in variables
  • "TOC" list based on character styles
  • Multiple indices
  • Easier option to right-align auto-numbering (so 1, 10, 100 align on right, not left)
• InCopy
  • Option to prevent manual text reformatting

One feature enhancement I would love (that I realize may be completely unworkable for coding reasons).

I'd like a Find/Change and Spell Check option inside the Index Panel.

Hi Aman:

I forgot to add my support for better form fields properties. We have a good start, but there are many properties that can only be changed in Acrobat, which are wiped out when we re-export the PDF. And JonathanArias​ pointed out recently that form fields options could—but are not—part of object styles. Yet.

~Barb

• Ability to export notes as PDF comments. The new PDF comments feature only goes one way (when importing). And it's wonky and doesn't work well.
• When exporting a PDF from the book panel, the PDF type defaults back to the type used when exporting from the File > Export menu. The different PDF export areas should be independent of each other.
• In the Stroke styles dialog box, stroke weights are tied to the Document Units of measurement, not the Stroke unit of measurement (as set in Preferences)
• I'd love to see conditional text that can be manually reordered. Right now, it's ordered by alphanumeric only.
• Ditto on the Text Variables that get squished.
• Ability to change missing fonts in hidden conditional text.
• The Notes panel is really in need of improvement. I'd like to see XML incorporated into annotations so that the resulting PDFs can have various types of annotations, not just sticky notes (which currently requires a third party plugin). I write about that here: Document Geek: My Wish List for Notes in Adobe InDesign
• Get rid of Hover Scrolling! Or give us the option to turn it off. It's been messing up my workflow since it was introduced in 2013.

Some of these I've posted to the UserVoice site, but I am reposting them here because they are out-of-the-box workflow which would greatly improve my ability to work with InDesign. Improving PDF Comments/Notes is probably top of my list of desired features. I don't use any of Adobe's recent additions to this area (either in Acrobat or in InDesign). I came up with my own solutions that are more full-fledged and reliable.

Reading through all the posts - most of the ACPs here want functionality for exisiting items to be updated and work better than when first introduced. They were introduced, then no further updates to how they work since being integrated.

A lot of features fell behind when InDesign programmers were scurrying to the "interactive" market, flash, ePubs, etc. and the main functionality of the program hasn't been updated in years!

We want InDesign back for what it was designed for! We want it better. We want features improved upon, year on year - not just once!

Long documents features that work without plug-ins and scripts would be awesome beyond imagination!

Footnotes

Endnotes (including at the end of the book)

Indexing (with Italics)

Selecting all of the same style

Moving to another style to make edits from within the Paragraph Styles panel (Drop down menu)

Text variables that don’t jam up

A selection of several H&Js to choose from that are better than the default. Talk to Nigel or Brad or anyone.

Turn off greeking as the default. Leave the checkbox in case someone wants it. QuarkXPress did this in QXP 7.

Charts and graphs (unless Illustrator gets them)

No bugs? Some of these “bugs” have been here since the beginning. Fixing them would be the coolest thing you could do!

~ Jane

Hi Aman:

Also late to the game but I'd like:

1. the ability to link the application of a master page to a paragraph style (i.e., opening page master to chapter style title).
2. sidehead columns and paragraphs (to designate a subhead to sit the the left of the paragraph it modifies)
3. option to put para numbers at the left or right of the paragraph they modify (equations are numbered on the right)
4. more options for paragraph numbering—specifically the ability to add a tab character at the beginning or middle of the number string.
5. variables that can break across lines and variables in a pod for quicker updating.

~Barb