Integrate Adobe Express/Canva into Indesign

[PA-Sami]

So Adobe Indesign has some BASIC animations and I feel this is a completely missed opportunity on Adobe's behalf. Apps like Canva have been spreading like wildfire for years and while Adobe has released Express it is a poor cousin. The idea behind Express/Canva is to have an easy-to-create, templated video/animated solution for social media (which let's face it, is mostly video now), yet as a very heavy InDesign user I should be able to animate and export these animations while also taking advantage of the powerful mail merge (text, images, and it really needs to also have swatches), bulk relinking, dynamically updating files features that we all know and love within the adobe suite.

What I would love to see included in Indesign

1/ export of animation in mp4 and gif (including transparency) formats.

2/ Improved Animation (on a page and page transitions)

3/ Additionally, the use of MOGRTs or being able to make your own custom animations with placeholders would be amazing.

Why Adobe Express doesn't work

- Creative Cloud Library files are not dynamic, which means having to upload every single element you want to use (for me that's around about 50 every month - same templated files, different theming).

- These files are already on my computer and such a waste of time and resources to upload and replace each image when it's already on my computer. I may as well use Canva which has much more variety.

- Also limited in animations

Why Photoshop/After Effects/Premiere doesn't work

- it lacks the ease to mailmerge multiple items so relinking is arduous

Why in5 doesn't work

- it's limited (gifs are created by screen recording in your browser so it cannot do transparent gifs)

I know a lot of people think that animation and InDesign are in the past, but if you look at businesses that have basically made a multimillion-dollar business out of that base premise I guarantee you will see they have a bright future together.

[Eugene Tyson]

The forum is for user to user to help - users helping each other to figure out ways of achieving.

This isn't a help request - rather a feature request whcich you can submit here

https://indesign.uservoice.com/

[PA-Sami]

Sorry I thought it was in here as a general discussion. I'll copy it across. Thank you for the link.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Canva is one online tool, largely for amateur/office/executive users and the modestly skilled who depend on templates, automated design and smartphone-level tools to do largely cookie-cutter, often disposable work, mostly for online use. That is, folks who don't need Photoshop because their iPhone has 238 one-click filters.

InDesign is one very complex professional tool amid a set of what is pretty much the world's premiere professional tools for every form of media design and development, a set that includes extremely sophisticated video and motion graphics tools.

While I wish Adobe in general had platform-level support for HTML5 animation, on the level everything once supported Flash, I don't really care that I have to use a separate, highly optimized tool to do animations, and can't do it within a highly optimized publication design tool.

But there's always Canva for those who disagree.

[PA-Sami]

Hi James,

Thanks for your reply.  I feel like you may have missed the point of canva. While I agree with most of the points you made about it's userbase I think you, and Adobe, have completely missed the point of why so many use it. And why there are people like me who are forced into using it even though we detest it.

I love Indesign. I can't tell you enough about how it is my go to Adobe app. The fact that it allows me to create templated work and then mail merge in my artwork and designs is invaluable to my business and creativity. I possibly use it quite differently to many people, but it's efficient and scriptable (mostly). That being said the bane of what I have to do is social media, this is where apps like Canva come in. 

Social Media has changed from once being primarily static to wanting businesses/creatives to create a mass of both static and gif/video content. We are already using those same assets in Indesign, which also has animation options inside (albeit limited). Many of us who use the Adobe Suite find that while there are other tools available they too involve tedious work arounds where Indesign does 80% of the job already.

The foundation is already in there which could be expanded if only they gave it the time of day.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I wholly, but politely, disagree, and maintain my position. InDesign is not a tool to be turned into a mini-ad generator.

Nor, with mini-ad generators readily available (as well as being creatable with any graphics tool from MS Paint upwards) is there any need to add these features to ID, no matter how little time of anyone's day it might take.

[PA-Sami]

That's fine and I respect your stance on this and I honestly feel it's an uphill battle I'm on. So I'm also going to put suggestions into after effects/premiere/express in the hopes that I might have more luck with improving efficiencies there.

That being said, a little out of the box thinking can often lead to further innovation and better solutions. For example the invention of bubble-wrap which was initially a texturerd wallpaper or the fact that viagra was initially developed for a treatment of angina, both of which were accidental revolutions.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I get it. You spend all day generating a niche production at high speed for a large company, and want your favorite tool modified to expedite your workflow. This despite other, existing tools in the box that do every aspect of that better than this one tool.

And from your perspective, it's just Adobe being a slug about adding "just these few features" (that don't really fit) (to serve your convenience) (at the expense of overall app focus and functionality) (to a tool that isn't really suited to your task anyway). If you understood how difficult it is to change one menu item on an app this complex and 'grown into' its designed niche... well.

I'd be kinder here, perhaps, if I didn't know for all but a fact that if ID suddenly ingested XD and made your need to churn out cultural detritus more streamlined, you'd be back next week insisting Adobe should make it easy to export Tik-Tok videos, too.

Learn to use these generally superb and highly optimized tools, which work together like a Broadway dance team, as they are used by hundreds of thousands of satisfied professionals. That is, don't take Canva and Figma as some kind of new, ElonMusky model for how the tools would be in a wondrous out of the box world.

[PA-Sami]

Wow! I don't know why you took this from being a respectful discussion to being quite belligerent, and frankly it was uncalled for. Maybe it was before your morning coffee?

It's not just me who is asking Adobe for this as I've come across several similar requests, videos, posts on the same topic. At some point Adobe already included animation within indesign, so I (and others) aren't asking for the world when we just want to export existing functionality in a format that is relevant to more people in 2023. Something that adobe constantly reviews on all their applications.

As per my previous reply I mentioned that maybe including functionality in other software to bridge the gap was an approach that may win more traction. 

I have been using Adobe software for over 20 years and am more than proficient, and have taught many people how to really utilise the software effectively and efficiently to boost their own workflow and creativity. And yes, I do understand the level of work required for something as simple as one menu item change, as I have created several my own menus and scripts for indesign within the last week alone. Adding to this I previously I have worked with multimillion dollar global companies to create systems which improve workflows and save them time and money.

So unless you are the Adobe Indesign product manager or internal Adobe management or development teams, please mansplain to me again why your thoughts on this topic are more valid than mine and others on the internet? 

Good day sir.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Sigh.

I'm sorry you took a third-round level of blunt answer as an insult. It was not intended as anything of the kind. However, you keep arguing your demand from a position that indicates you don't really understand what's involved, or what I am trying to say — civilly, if with less politeness than is perhaps due.

But.

(1) You want features from entirely dissimilar apps added to InDesign, for no other reason than that it would be convenient for you. You argue that some large number of ID users want this functionality, too. I can assure you that any poll of the serious Adobe/InDesign user base would show no significant interest in adding Canva/Figma type functionality to InDesign. (You are aware that Adobe bought Figma and is working to bring it into the Adobe toolset... to do what it does, for the users who need that functionality, not to add it into a tool where it would be... not particularly wanted?)

(2) You have not shown any grasp of how much work is involved adding even the simplest, most straightforward features to a complex app such as InDesign. I assure you again, adding simple, basic extensions to existing features is a tremendous effort involving many rounds of design, development and testing. To add a whole suite of almost wholly new features... it's not going to happen without overwhelming market demand, if then. Yes, I do have software development and architecture experience, and have followed enough discussions of Adobe expansions to be confident that no one knowledgeable is going to contradict this assertion.

Based on those two points, I don't need to know any more about your level of experience or ability to make my responses. Perhaps you've used Adobe tools as long as I have, but you have not seemingly engaged the larger community, such as this one, to have gained an understanding of the tools and their evolution beyond a small-user perspective.

(3) My last comment may have exceeded a reasonable snark factor, but having been in this milieu for a long, long time, I have seen many cases where giving an inch (such as one feature addition) does indeed lead to instant clamoring for some next, off-track, oddball feature — "Because I use it and therefore everyone must want it."

So again, a sincere apology for not remaining more civil, but I'll stand by every statement I've made about the need for these features within InDesign, the lack of demand from most of its user base and the extreme effort it would take to include them.

[PA-Sami]

It's obvious you haven't bothered to actually read anything I have written so continuing this conversation in this way would be useless. I will say that the applications you have suggested (Figma and XD) have no bearing on this conversation on my digital publishing needs.

If however you would like to stop assuming my needs, I am open to answering any relevant followup questions which may then promote a more valuable discussion.

[jaimeg52419869]

That was really presumptuous of you.  Do you know her background, do you know her skill set, do you know her daily flow?  Your response sounds like you are taking a personal affront to anyone using the tool outside of the norms you have determined are correct.  It is a tool, as such, it can have many uses. 

Minecraft was initially developed as a sandbox game where players could create and explore virtual worlds. However, it is also used as a powerful educational tool in classrooms around the world to teach everything from coding and math to history and foreign languages. 

Just because a tool was designed for a specific use, doesn't mean it is exclusively for that.  That would be very closed minded.

[PA-Sami]

For anyone who is interested I have moved this across to the Adobe Indesign UserVoice Forum. 

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/46537384-in...