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. 

[Sheena Kaul]

I've sent you a private message. 

[mitjaž72460031]

What privat message?

How can i send you 80mb files?

[mitjaž72460031]

Sorry. Im new to this forum. 😉

[lvmcgill]

I've used this feature twice in the past week. The first time, all the commenting tools you showed were available. I just shared a second document for review and when I went to manage the review on the web to add a couple comments, it only shows the Pin and Draw a Shape tools. I checked my first document, and only those two are showing there now as well. What happened to the other tools!?

[Sheena Kaul]

Is this something you've seen while reviewing a particular document or on all documents?

[PhoolR]

This has just started happening for me. Last night my colleague made substantial comments for changes to the document, by highlighting the areas where the changes were needed. Now I can't see the highlights, and the tools for highlight, strikethrough and text replace are missing, only pin and draw a shape are available.

NOTE: I was using Firefox, and I've now opened the review file in Chrome and the tools are showing, but not highlighting the correct area (a small blue box appears in the top corner of the page where the change is - see below image).

Same issue in Safari.

Also, when you check the reviews within InDesign, only pins or shapes show up in the document, not highlights or strikethrough, which is really not helpful. I have to keep going back to the online version to the InDesign version. I'm trying to educate my colleagues to use pins or shapes, but the highlight option is much more intuitive to them.

[Sheena Kaul]

This is strange although the review comments will be visible to you in the InDesign app.

Are you seeing this issue with other files as well?

[rpr]

This feature still doesn't seem to be reliable with documents.  Have tried resaving or creating from IDML but I still only get an empty box for the share options. Absurd this feature still is so glitchy.

 

[rpr]

resetting Preferences does not resolve the issue

[rpr]

a bit more context here.  Running Indesign 16 on an imac running Catalina 10.15.7 and review won't work. the same document on macbook pro with same versions of OS and indesign did let me start a review. how do i fix this?

[Nathan Marroquin · Accepted solution]

This has worked for others:

1. Save any work and close all open
2. Sign out of InDesign (Help > Sign out). This will cause indesign to quit.
3. Launch InDesign again, at which point you should be prompted to sign in again.

[rpr]

This did work for me. completely overlooked that option.  Aprreciated.

[PhoolR]

This works but is such a pain in the ass. I really hope that Adobe is looking into this issue, as well as the highlights not showing up in the InDesign document, only in the web version. I have found this feature really buggy and not yet fit for purpose. This should have been tested a lot more before rolling out.

[rpr]

Yes this works until it doesn't and still doesn't fix all the confusion on a clients side of things — still too much of a mess to use effectively with an actual paying client. 
If signing out every once and awhile on my end was the only issue it would be annoying but wouldn't be such a big deal. 
signing out also requires signing out of all Adobe apps in use and often will have to do it several times a day with the same document. 
Most absurd is how long this has been going on now and Adobe clearly doesn't care about fixing it.

working today requires stable and better client tools. I can't even share a document with a client who has indesign because Adobe requires the same account to share a document. Even if review was solid and reliable Making a client sign up for an account just to read a review file is also a bad start to get off to. This isn't necessary for pdf review and shouldn't be at all in any of the review features. 
The overall approach since subscription model took over continues to frustrate more than enlighten process. 

[keithconover]

If you just want a single round of comments, having people sign in as a guest is fine.

But I'm not working with "paying clients," I'm working with task groups working on textbook chapters and publications of a search and rescue organization. Those commenting want to see replies to their comments, so that we can use Share for Review to have some discussions amongst us. These are ongoing projects that last months to years.

And as per my previous posts in this thread, I've found I don't need to sign out or reboot to work around the problem with updating a Share for Review. I don't even exit InDesign. I just open a small disposable file for which I have previously created a Share for Review, click on Share for Review > Update Link, and then once that's done, switch back to the document for which Share for Review has been recalcitrant. Now it works fine. Only a minor annoyance now. Once or twice, I have had to exit InDesign and restart it. No signing out. No rebooting. (Though recent evidence suggest that enough bits in your computer get changed by cosmic rays that you should reboot every 2-3 days regardless.) Clunky but works. And works better than trying to send out PDFs for review, or exporting to RTF to review. Significantly.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Hi Keith,

Thanks for the valuable suggestions.

Just courious... Have you ever used/tried the PDF review since it can be done completely in-browser with the Document Cloud?

[keithconover]

I tried that when it first was available, and had problems with it – don't remember what – and gave up. It may have improved since I gave up on it, but when Share for Review came out, I thought I would give it a try.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I was't directly referring to InDesign's importing PDF comments. Just an Acrobat-based workflow--with email, server, or the Document Cloud.

[rpr]

I have not found the acrobat based workflow to be a viable option when seriously working with clients beyond any other basic pdf markup feedback.  Admittedly It has been awhile since I've attempted again but I gave up on it after several problems. If memory serves it was issues with reliability as well as clients needing to do too much to participate and then would eventually fall apart anyway, a professional reflection that comes back on us.  As pointed out even if it did work it often wouldn't import into indesign where the feedback is incredibly helpful to speed up accuracy and workflow and where the feature is sorely needed. All in all across all Adobe apps they need to start recognizing the needs of the actual customer and creatives paying to use it not just using us to recruit new user logins on workflows that don't work reliably. 

[Laubender]

Hi rpr,

if you do Share For Review with a document and then you want to work on under the following conditions:

[1] Save As with the same name of your document.

[2] Save As with a new name and want to work on with the new document.

[3] You did a roundtrip with Export to IDML, open IDML as document.

you will see a blank Share for Review panel in InDesign.

[4] Duplicated the document file in your file system

you'll perhaps get confused what review marks you see on the page and what can only be accessed with the original document. I just testing with a document that I duplicated in the file system. I have both documents open from time to time. As it shows I never can see all the review marks on the pages. Some show up in the original, some show up in the duplicate. But in all of the two documents I can see all the comments in the panel.

So never do Save As with your document as long as your Share for Review workflow is running.

Never do an IDML roundtrip workflow as well. This all will change the identity of your document and the Review on the web will not be able to maintain a connection to your file through the Share for Review panel.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[rpr]

Just seeing this reply but I do understand these points. 
I would love it that was the solution.
My issues with review have always been with the main document it started with, when it will start that is. 

[aniapppot]

This feature is totally broken. Any time I try to update a document I shared before it was broken says in bright red "There was an error creating the artifact". Just take a look at the article here: https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/40767463-can-t-share-fo... - This feature is obviously seriously beta and should not be released to users. When I was able to get my documet to post, when a reviewer tried to comment all strike-throughs and highlights were not visible in InDesign. What's going on with QA at Adobe these days, do they even test these features or do they just assume they will work?

[PhoolR]

This is just so frustrating. Having spent the last few days managing the issues we have already highlighted by repeatedly signing out and back in and opening InDesign again, now my document crashes right as it's about to complete the review update. I've tried it 10 times with the same crash every time. I've copied the file from a removable disk to the hard drive with the same results. It's SO frustrating! This job is now finished and I just need a final sign-off from my director to complete it, but can't update the review!!!! Really sad with how Adobe have stretched themselves so thin that every app is now crap.

[Sheena Kaul]

Hi All,

For the issues with the Share for Review feature, please try the steps below:

1. Close InDesign.
2. Bring up the Creative Cloud Desktop app (CCD) and Sign out.
3. Launch InDesign and Sign in here (not from the CCD).
4. Create a new document.
5. Open Share for Review panel.

Let us know if that helps!

Regards,

Sheena

[cgpd]

This no longer works consistently. Our team has had to do this multiple times a day since the launch of this feature. It seems the review links remain unsynced more regularly, and disconnect randomly (multiple times in a session). Users should not have to do this at all, and a concrete solution needs to be found by Adobe as this is a paid service. We've removed the feature from our workflow, and actively recommend against its use.