Flowing InDesign with Incopy for Newspaper

[Western Ag Reporter]

We are creating our newspaper remotely. We want the designer to be able to place adds and regular columns while I, the editor, place pictures, headlines, and stories at the same time. 

I've tried to do this, but my Incopy version is like it's locked. I can't add or edit text, and when I go to place an image, I can't even click on that button. It's just a locked document entirely.

I NEED to be able to do some of those same design elements that our lead production manager is in charge of, but I need to be doing them at the same time, on the same document. Please help!

[Eugene Tyson]

As far as I know - you cannot edit a document at the same time as someone else.

Why do you have to do it at the same time?

Can you not work on different sections at different times?

Try splitting up the document into manageable chunks, 1 article per document.

Would that work?

[Western Ag Reporter]

We have to do it at the same time because our paper goes out on a deadline on Tuesdays, and sometimes it will be several 16 page sections. I need to be able to be adding text, headlines, and graphics for text while our production manager also flows customer ads and things like that.

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[Randy Hagan]

Please excuse me for questioning your production process, but in this case I really have to. Because you're making things awfully hard on yourself and your crew.

Most all publications I've worked on myself and others I've consulted/set up for others don't place ads in their publication on deadline. Generally, since the ads are near-universally sold far before deadline, all the space advertising below the ad line (the imaginary or literally linearly-defined space between the advertising and editorial content in a publication) is all placed before the editorial team even touches the pages. For most of them, the evergreen content/copy above the ad line like mastheads, columns. classifieds/listings, etc. — just about everything that's produced off-deadline — also gets stuck down on the page and the news content fills the gaps. Hence the classic "All The News That Fits" analogy.

Please trust me on this: your production process will be much faster and far less painless if you start producing your issues sequentially before deadline instead of simultaneously during every weekly deadline crunch.

Your inability to simultaneously work on building pages on deadline with InDesign is probably the least of your miseries. Please consider ways to make life easier for yourselves.

Randy

[Western Ag Reporter]

Thanks Randy. We get a lot of stuff placed the week before, but there are times when things come in last minute.

Our production team is outstanding. This is just our first time doing everything remote as they've generally been in the office all together. I think there's just a worry that if she were to need to get in there she wouldn't be able to while I'm flowing content.

Linking has also been an issue because I am on the remote server and our production manager is not.

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[Randy Hagan]

Gotcha. It looks like there's a lot to unpack here, and this forum may not be the best place to help with your challenges at this stage.

We basically help folks with InDesign issues, and it looks like you've got a lot more ground to cover than InDesign's version control features. I've messaged you privately with more questions about your operation. Perhaps after we can nail down a bunch of variables, we can come back here at the end of the process and offer an answer that can benefit everybody.

Hope you're enjoying your Sunday, and this isn't weighing you down too badly.

Happy to help if I can,

Randy

[BobLevine]

I answered you in the InCopy forum. The InDesign user must export the content for use in InCopy. As I said in my other response, get some training even if it's LinkedIn Learning.

[Creamer Training]

Is the InDesign user adding the stories to an InCopy workflow so InCopy can open the stories? It's not automatic. 

With InCopy, you can edit stories (potentially one editor per story), place text (in text frames created by the InDesign user), and edit photos (the image frame has to be created in InDesign). 

Be sure you are working off of a reliable, fast server.

[BobLevine]

The OP has not responded to me at all but I'm sticking to my original assumption. The OP does not seem to understand how an InCopy workflow functions and without some kind of training will never get it to work the way he/she seems to think it does.

[Creamer Training]

Agree--definitely sounds like some basic training is needed.

[Western Ag Reporter]

You're right, I personally don't understand as well as I thought I did, and have run into issues because of it. Thanks for your input, but someone reached out and offered to help us out. That's why I reached out - because I am not an expert and needed help. Thanks for taking the time to post.