I don't need more image types.

[turner111]

Auto Style: Don't need. (And people using ID are likely not just jumping over from Pages.)

Efficient copy paste between Illustrator and InDesign: Could be useful.

New Graphic formats supported in InDesign: Everyone with ID already has Photoshop. Wasn't on my list...

Easily duplicate page or spread after selection: Did this "problem" need to be solved?

UXP Scripting: I'm not a programmer, but ok, I guess most people aren't. Like, statistically, 0% of users. But if it's opening the door for better functionality, ok.

Preview InDesign documents: Again, not an issue for me.

"Adobe continues to invest in new capabilities that enhance the InDesign experience."

What I'd like is for Adobe to focus on expanding and improving existing capabilites, and adding new features to enhance current functionality, such as managing styles across book files with a style sheet. How about better object anchoring? Maybe... endnotes wherever we like?

Sorry for the rant - I realize everyone uses ID according to their own needs... just hoping some things that will improve my own productivity will appear sometime..

[Test Screen Name]

These are good ideas, but have ever suggested them with Adobe's wish list?

[Eugene Tyson]

Maybe not on your list - but they are part of the development path - and there's continious improvements being made and implemented and released when ready.

You can add your voice here

https://indesign.uservoice.com/

This forum is full of users like yourself, and me - just users of the software - helping each other out when stuck on a problem.

Thanks

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Well, first, this is a user-to-user forum, so you aren't communicating very directly to Adobe's development team here.

But I'd agree in that I found most of these features somewhere between "meh" and "won't ever use that." And yes, I'd prefer to see some of the major publication features revamped, expanded, de-bugged etc. — endnotes, expanded style control (as a separate or exportable file, as some other apps allow) and especially some TLC given to EPUB export.

New features bring in new users and revitalize a user base, though, so it's no nevermind to me if things are added, whether I might use them or not, as long as they don't break anything else or get in the way.

I don't think much of the auto-format feature, though. It seems to be aimed at a novice/amateur user level, trying to make the complexity of publication design "E-Z-2-Use," and I doubt it has much of a future. ID is never going to be a novice's tool, and such features will certainly depend on very close "playing by the rules" — working well only when a document is already carefully structured and ready for its coat of paint. It's just that rigidity and precision that throw most users coming in from the freeform anarchy of Word or other "fingerpainting" tools. Getting them to build a careful structure just so they can apply a styling template is not... really a useful expectation or direction.

And I've muttered about how bringing WEBP into the direct import options will just bring another round of novice to half-educated users who don't really understand resolution, image size, color models etc. IMVHO, there should be a distinction at all levels between true publication image formats (especially for print) and web/RGB formats, so that they are selected and managed separately. Now there will be a wave of amateurs who just can't understand why the WEBP image they snagged off Wikipedia looks like crap in their book cover layout...

Oh, well. A few little things at the pro/legacy end did get fixed; a fix for the longstanding endnotes in EPUBs exported from a book is in the current prerelease version. So, yay.

[Eugene Tyson]

Now there will be a wave of amateurs who just can't understand why the WEBP image they snagged off Wikipedia looks like crap in their book cover layout...

By @James Gifford—NitroPress

How is it any different to grabbing lo-res PNGs and wondering the same thing? Or any file format?

Here's my take

Auto Style - ok you don't need it - but many people do. I worked a magazine workflow before where I created the Word docs sent them to the authors and they had to use the styles within the word doc - and then I'd get it back and import to InDesign and map the styles.

Not a useful feature for a lot of people - but I'll get lots of use out of it. Is it needed? Why not, keep improving things - that's what you're asking for, and they've done it and you're not happy with it.

Efficient Copy and Paste - you agree this could be useful. Again, a new way to do things, plenty of people want better integration between apps - and this does that. Another improvement.

Easily dupliacte pages or spread after selection - was it needed, I heard a few people over the years ask for this. Was it needed? No because you can Alt Drag the page to copy to any location - they just made it more obvious how to do it. 

UXP Scripting - not my wheel house, have no idea about it. 

Preview InDesign documents - not an issue for you - but plenty of people looking for this, especially if files are on a server and someone doesn't have the software, at least they look through the documents sorta and see what's there. Is it for everyone, no  - but it's a small improvement. 

Well all want exisiting capabilites to be improved on, plenty of features not touched on for years, TOCs, variable data, tabs, I could go on for days about all the long document features etc. 

All I can say is that I assume they are working on improving things and release them when they are ready. 

Style sheets across Books already exist, you set one document as your Style document from the book panel icon. Update that document with your style - then you can flow that style to every other document in the book. 

https://helpx.adobe.com/ie/indesign/using/creating-book-files.html#:~:text=Synchronize%20documents%2...

Again - keep pumping ideas into the uservoice.

I campaigned heavily for Footnotes to Span Columns - am I responsible for this feature, I do not know. Perhaps it was always in the works, maybe my campaign worked, but the feature is there now.

Add your voice. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

In my view, WEBP is to PNG what PNG was to JPEG or even TIFF... yet more optimized for web/stream/display use and thus yet more of a headache to use properly for high resolution and print use. It's just unnecessary confusion and as the OP points out, anyone with ID has Photoshop and should know more about image res and color space and conversion... but PNG and WEBP drag-n-drop make it easy in all the wrong ways for many projects.

Separating the two image classes so that they are managed appropriately would be the right solution, not just adding another web-optimized format into the list.

And I agree that a streamlined formatting option is a desirable thing... but when you can't even get a style set from one document to another, as you can/could with many predecessor tools, getting all fancy inside the app isn't quite as useful a step.

Again, with the exception of WEBP, which I think is a mistake, all of these features are pretty meh in my view... and we're still waiting for some important fixes to long-standing production bugs and obstacles.

[turner111]

"Style sheets across Books already exist, you set one document as your Style document from the book panel icon. Update that document with your style - then you can flow that style to every other document in the book. "

That's not what a style sheet is... and requires that the document be a part of the book. This actually is one of my biggest peeves.... just let us reference an external document with two-way operation, so if I change a headline color in one book document, it also changes in the rest.

Then, maybe most people like the current Synchronization method... 😉

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

That ID moved backwards from what was common practice, from a separate style sheet file or at least an export/importable one to content embedded in each document, has always mystified me. It throws so many hurdles to serial or streamlined document production.

[Eugene Tyson]

But that's how it works.

You can also setup a document if you like - leave it in a folder - and you Load the styles from the Paragraph/Character style panels.

You then have one document in your book file using these styles anyway - so you can set that as the Parent document for styles.

You can then update your external style document - load the paragraph/character styles into the panel - and sync to the rest of the book.

Can it be done - yes! 

Do you have a better way! Head over to User Voice and put in your say! 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

That works well enough, but it's still not quite a separate style sheet that can be managed, exported and imported more directly.

A minor point, maybe, but ID's insistence that styles are integral to an individual document and have to be somewhat clumsily dragged around to, say, create a new doc with those styles never was a best approach.

It's clearly not going to change any time soon; just expressing that the new style features sort of pile on to this wrong road instead of correcting things.

[Eugene Tyson]

Works fine for me for over 20 years. 

[turner111]

We haven't had a choice.
I can hammer a nail with a saw handle if I need to...

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Okay, okay, put down the hammers and saws, here. 🙂 You're both right.

Yes, ID has the ability to share styles. But given how absolutely essential, core even, that styles and style management is to the entire workflow, making styles an embedded, document-specific element that has to be rather crudely extracted and copied is, and always has been, an odd choice.

Unless you maintain a "style sheet" document, for example, you have to remember which working doc has the styles you want, then either sift them on import or accept that you're going to get some junk specific to the source document you have to clean up.

The whole process should be more defined, contained and intuitive. But we have what we have, and now we can "format paint" just like Word, too! 😄