InDesign Share for Review - FAQ

[Sheena Kaul]

Using Share for Review in InDesign’s June 2020 release, you can share your designs for online review, and manage feedback right within the app. Stakeholders can open the shared document in a browser to provide feedback. Share for Review streamlines and simplifies the review process for both designers and their stakeholders.  

The following FAQs provide clarity on common questions around Share for Review:  

Share the document for review - FAQ

View reviewer comments - FAQ 

Review the document - FAQ

Best practices

How is Share for Review different from the ‘Integrated comment and review’ feature in InDesign CS5? How does it compare to the Import PDF Comments (IPC) feature?  

Adobe is investing in features and services that make creative collaboration easier and more enjoyable.  

With Share for Review, our aspiration is to make reviewing and editing InDesign creative more seamless, and address the following limitations in CS Review: 

• Requirement for a flash plugin to use this feature 
• Lack of support for key features such as email notifications 
• User challenges with feature discoverability 

Compared to Import PDF Comments (IPC), Share for Review reduces time by eliminating the need to create and share PDFs and collate the resulting feedback. We will be working to enhance the reviewing features and capabilities in Share for Review, which will soon help this tool surpass the experience of IPC, from end to end.   

Does Share for Review include text commenting capabilities? 

This first version of the feature allows you to provide feedback through the sticky note and pencil tools. We will continue to improve the experience, and we will soon incorporate more text commenting capabilities, including text highlight, text strikethrough, and the ability to accept text comments in a single click. 

Is this feature being introduced into InCopy?  

It is not. Instead, we’ll be making significant updates to InCopy by taking it to the Web to provide better collaboration capabilities. Stay tuned!    

What text capabilities do I have as a reviewer?  

As a reviewer, you will be able to highlight text, strikethrough text, and replace text corresponding to your comment. 

Let us know of any challenges, or questions you have for us around Share for Review and we’ll be happy to assist you. 

[Todd Denton]

Where are these files being stored on the web? Is it an Adobe server? Sometimes my company works on confidential materials and the client may want to know where these review files are being stored and how are they being protected.

[Steve Werner]

Yes, the files are stored on an Adobe server. 

[Steve Werner]

I couldn't find a security document for Creative Cloud servers but here's the one used by the Acrobat product group—the Document Cloud:

https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/security/pdfs/Document-Cloud-Security-Overview.pdf

[Sheena Kaul]

Hi there,

In addition to Steve's suggestions, I'd already covered this question in the Sharing documents for review FAQ.

Let us know if any of that helps.

Regards,

Sheena

[Lauren Evans]

This is a great feature, but full text mark-up options are really needed. Please make adding text markup options a priority. The tools in Acrobat are great - just let us be able to use those in this online markup version. Thank you!

[Steve Werner]

You should post your feature requests at the InDesign User Voice website which is regularly viewed by Adobe product managers and engineers:

https://indesign.uservoice.com

People who feel the same way can vote for your suggestion.

[Lauren Evans]

Thank you! I just went in and added it. 

[mathisl47516182]

Really?

Sigh....

I'm not a beta tester, so back to 15.0.

[Sheena Kaul]

Hi there,

I apologize for the trouble here. A couple of questions before I can help you troubleshoot this issue:

1. Are you getting these errors when you're inviting someone specific or while adding any email address?

2. What steps are you following to add public access?

3. Is there a screen recording that you can send so we can see the entire workflow?

Regards,

Sheena

[mathisl47516182]

Thanks for the inquiry & reply.

I can't invite someone as the field for invites does not even show up.

I just clicked on the public access option and it showed the error instantly.

Unfortunately, I am not going to spend any more time beta testing what should have been a tested version as we are entering final production for a big project.

Maybe in 3 or 4 versions i'll try again.

It's really sad to see how many of Adobe realeased features ar actually just beta tests these days.

[Sheena Kaul]

Well, I can test the feature and it works fine at our end. 

Also, I haven't seen other users reporting this issue so we would need to perform some troubleshooting around the file that you're using so as to understand why are you getting this error.

[johans60]

I just had the same problem. Tried from two different InDesign 15.1.1 files (Mac OS10.14.6).

Error message popped up as soon as I tried "Share for review". Didn't even get a chance to select Private or Public invite and web view was not generated. 

I tried "update link" but it only generated another error message.

[johans60]

Update: I quit all applications and did a restart of my Mac. I can now generate a Review without getting the error message. Something created the conflict but I don't know what. For whatever it's worth, Safari seems to freeze finder and make some apps inaccessible these days.

[Sheena Kaul]

Thanks for confirming. 

[DaleValet]

Has potential. Would like to have the ability to notify (email) members/people whenever a link has been updated. Currently, without notifictions sent, we can go hours before a client looks at revisions because they didn't realize the change was made.

[Sheena Kaul]

Hi there,

I understand the ability to have a notification that would update about the change. 

I'd suggest posting about this on our UserVoice here: https://indesign.uservoice.com/ so that the team can work on this request and update you.

Regards,

Sheena

[Cre8ive74]

How can I keep private and not use a password for clients I need to review -- had done a few tests and when in InDesign the comments panel says it is having trouble loading comments.

Also, if someone makes a comment, do I get notified via email or does the file have to be open. I send out around 10 -15 new proofs a say and would like to start using this feature

[Sheena Kaul]

Hi there,

For your first query, I'd suggest referring the Share the document for review - FAQ which covers the answer for this question.

For the other query, please see View reviewer comments - FAQ 

Let me know if you still have questions or issues and we'd be happy to help you further.

Regards,

Sheena

[DaleValet]

Hi Sheena,

Thank you very much for your help and quite timely response!

I have followed these steps and it seems the notification email(s) to the clients only get sent out during the initial invite. After that, no more email notifications. Not even in spam/junk. When the invitee makes a comment, I will recieve an email notification, but when I update the file/link, unfortunately, a notification does not go out. Even upon checking after a few hours, nothing in in junk or spam.

When following the steps I though maybe it only works when I do a Private Invite. However, when setting up a Private Invite, it only seems to be geared toward other users that have an Adobe Account. If I send via Invite Only, the user is prompted to enter a password (where I have yet to be able to find where to create a password) or sign in with their Adobe ID. 99.9% of my clients will not have an Adobe Account or Adobe software. Because of this, I have to publish pubicly. There, however, I am able to assign a password.

I don't doubt that Adobe wanted notications sent each time the file/link is updated, it's just not doing that for me or my clients at the moment.

Thank you again for your help. It's much appreciated.

[Sheena Kaul]

Oh, I see. 

Well, that's right, the notification doesn't go out when the document is updated through the update link button because the link always remains up to date. 

Only if the reviewer is reviewing the file, they might need to refresh the browser to let the updates flow in. 

I hope that clears the process. 

[MAXIMUS Marketing]

Still a little curious/confused about the password issue. The implication is that I can just share this with people, but they received an email asking for a password, and there doesn't appear to be anywhere in InDesign to address this. [ie: 'set password']

[Sheena Kaul]

Hi there,

It looks like they are being asked for a password to their Adobe ID. I'd suggest referring to the Review the document - FAQ where this query has been answered. 

Let me know if that helps.

Regards,

Sheena

[hannafb]

Hi, Loooving this! Makes the proofing process so much easier, thanks adobe! 

Really missing one feature thouh, and you're probably already working on it...fingers crossed 😉 Our documents often have alternate layouts, and we'd like to have an option for reviewing just one layout at a time, same as the feature in the publish online-tool. 

[Sheena Kaul]

Hi there,

That's a cool suggestion.

I suggest you post it on the UserVoice here: https://indesign.uservoice.com/ so that the product team can update you about its availability.

Regards,

Sheena

[Laubender]

B_P_1 said: "…An option to share only pages (not spreads) would be good, too."

Hi B_P_1,

I think, that would be essential!

If we communicate and discuss with the customer where a distinct change in a document should happen usually page numbers are communicated in the review workflow. We never refer to spreads.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )