Working Remote / Collaborating

[garethh69619152]

Hey,

What are some effective option of collaborating remotely on InDesign.
I have a team of three designers, it can get very messy sharing ideas, new saves, editing previous versions etc
What are some streamline solutions?? Does Adobe provide anything??

It seems like the whole cloud thing for InDesign isn't there yet?

Would love to hear some workflows and options! Thanks!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

No, InDesign is not a collaborative tool. It's not as much any cloud aspects (which are decent for things like Publish Online and Share for Review as well as being fully cloud-integrated for file management) as that there is no good working model for complex publication development with multiple users. No matter how such a thing might be implemented, it's only going to suit some subset of the community.

For projects like magazines and extensive newsletters, you can break the publication into multiple ID files that are integrated using an InDesign Book. Each chapter or section file can be worked on independently/simultaneously, and occasional synchronization of styles etc. can be used to keep things in step.

But really, any kind of collaborative work depends more on the participants and their methods of dividing and sharing work than any inherent tool features. A team all having access to all aspects of design on a whole project would be... chaos without careful coordination. I'd suggest working out effective processes without any dependence on ID's features, and then using things like chapter files and books to make simultaneous progress possible.

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[Lukas Engqvist]

InDesign has some great collaborative tools, but they do require planning. You will find more information if you search for InDesign with InCopy workflows. They do assume a shared (or synced) folder. Once you have made assignments in your InDesign document users can check-out assignments, edit (depending on privilege) and save/check-in.  With synced folders there may be a slight delay that can cause the assignment not to lock immediately when one user checks it out, so team. At require an additional communication/planning to avoid conflict. 

[BobLevine]

InCopy is a brilliant and affordable solution to allow writers and editors to work on content in an InDesign layout. Putting the entire project in a Dropbox or OneDrive folder and sharing it with all participants makes things very seamless.

It does not come without a learning curve so I recommend at least some basic training in its use.

If all participants need to edit the actual layouts then NitroPress is correct. Divide the work up into sections.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Yes, the OP says "our designers..." which implies they want to share/collaborate at the full app level. InCopy is excellent for things like magazine/long doc collaboration of the written content... but not so much for layout, graphics and design.

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[rob day]

Does Adobe provide anything??

Hi @garethh69619152 , Your CC subscription also includes a Dropbox like file sync’ing feature. Files and folders placed in your Creative Cloud Files folder automatically sync to your cloud account, and you can invite other CC users to sync to any folder(s) inside of the CCF folder. More here:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/do-indesign-links-work-with-adobe-cloud-multiple...

[JonathanArias]

what is the issue. you have a shared folder, you have multiple people working from the same folder, what is the mess? can you elaborate?

1. Are people not saving new versions? thats a version control issue, not tehcnology
2. Are people overwritting each other, that may be a communication issue, not tehcnology

the list can go on, explain so we can understand better?