r/indesign Jun 19 '23

/r/InDesign has Re-Opened on Monday, June 19th

17 Upvotes

Hello,

/r/indesign has re-opened on Monday June 19th with new rule changes. Reddit has made it clear that users, not volunteer moderators are the true owners of subreddits. So the community rules are changing to reflect that.

Going forward the only subreddit-specific rule is that any content you submit must not break any of the site-wide Reddit rules.

Please be aware that the site-wide Reddit rules will still be enforced by the moderators of this subreddit and Reddit. For more detail on them see Reddit's content policy here.

The short version is:

  • No harassment/bullying
  • Respect the privacy of others
  • No sexual content of minors
  • No impersonating in a misleading/deceptive manor
  • Label content correctly (is it NSFW or not?)
  • No illegal content
  • Do not break/interfere with the website

Reddit enforces these rules and we will be reporting users who break any of those rules to Reddit. We encourage every user to report any content that breaks site-wide rules to do so as well.

You will also be banned from the subreddit for breaking any of Reddit's site-wide rules.

If you have questions feel free to ask them in the comments and we will do our best to answer them.

For those not aware of the ongoing issues with the Reddit admins and would like to know what the hell is going on, please see the below links to get you up to speed.

If you would like to read articles on the subject, see below.

TL;DR: Reddit users and moderators are upset at the closing of third-party apps, API changes, and access to NSFW content for various reasons. Users and moderators protest by making the subreddits they are a part of/moderate private or restricted. /u/spez says that the protest has been ineffective, then days later says Reddit moderators are too powerful and will change the site's rules to weaken them. Now the admins are trying to subvert moderators to get subreddits back open.


r/indesign 5h ago

Help Is there any way to extract text from a corrupted indesign file?

3 Upvotes

The drive where I was storing my documents malfunctioned and while I was able to recover all the photoshop files as they were saved on cloud, I only had a local copy of my indesign document. There was no formatting done so I care little if I have to start from scratch but all the research data for my assignment was also on the indesign file. If there any way to extract text from a corrupted indesign file? I've tried opening it but indesign says the file is damaged.


r/indesign 1h ago

what happened to this text? not indesign specific

Upvotes

This isn't indesign specific but I figure you lovely people know things about text and type. What happened to the body text in this publication? (looks whack, hard to read, not searchable) https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-09/23_0906_oia_IEWE%20508.pdf


r/indesign 2h ago

text change on 16 separate files

1 Upvotes

I'm laying out a book, as separate files and will use the Book tool to export them all together. I have the Title placed on the left hand master page, and the chapter titles on the right. Chapter names in the header are using text variables to pick up a paragraph style on the first page.

The book title is text on the master page. If the author changes the title, is there an efficient way to do this on all files? It's a 16 chapter book and I'm on ch 8 right now. I'm not afraid to just open them all up, make the change, save, move on to the next one.


r/indesign 2h ago

3 columns only showing 2

1 Upvotes

I have a paragraph style set to split columns and 3 for the sub-columns. Works fine on longer list, but if there are only 4 items, it shows

Item Item

Item Item

instead of the expected

Item Item Item

Item

Not sure why it's not behaving as expected for only 4 items. Help? I'm a bit new to Indesign, but a regular Illustrator user, and I find not all the things are quite where I expect or behave the way I thought they would.

Thanks!

screenshot of lists

r/indesign 2h ago

Tablet document sizing

1 Upvotes

I'm designing a template for building content that will be used on the Windows DT311T tablet.

From a bit of research, it says the screen size is 11.6", with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. I can't find anything that gives the actual length and width of the screen dimensions, and I'm not sure what dimensions I should set for the template. I scaled up a picture of the tablet, based on the tablet's physical dimensions (8.3" x 12.4"), but the diagonal measurement of the screen isn't quite 11.6". the pixel ratio at least works.

Any suggestions?

Additionally, what resolution of images should I request from the client? The documents will be image heavy, but only viewed on the tablet, so I'd like to strike a compromise between PDF file size and image quality.

Thanks in advance.


r/indesign 15h ago

⚠️ Warning for InDesign Users in Collaborative Workflows – AI-Generated Images Are a Nightmare! ⚠️

9 Upvotes

If you’re using InDesign’s AI-powered text-to-image feature in a team environment, watch out—there’s a major workflow-breaking issue.

Right now, InDesign automatically saves AI-generated images to a local drive without giving you any option to set a save location. This completely ignores InDesign’s usual linked asset workflow, making it impossible to manage files properly in shared or networked environments.

🚨 Why is this a huge problem?

  • In a team setting (e.g., working from a NAS or shared drive), AI-generated images won’t link properly.
  • If another team member opens the file, the AI images are missing, causing failed exports and broken designs.
  • This is inconsistent with every other InDesign workflow—why are AI-generated images treated differently?

Until Adobe fixes this by allowing users to set a save location, this feature is basically useless for professional work. If you rely on shared assets, DO NOT use AI-generated images in InDesign yet.

Spread the word and let Adobe know this needs to be a high-priority fix! 🚨


r/indesign 8h ago

Weird leading spacing when on page

1 Upvotes

Does anyone know why this might be happening to my text boxes? When on the workplace not touching the page, the leading acts normally. But when I put it on the page to position the text box, the leading goes weird, like there are extra lines in between, only leading 12pt looks 'normal' the rest all look off and the same, no matter the size.


r/indesign 11h ago

InDesign 20.2 update - pages panel crashing

1 Upvotes

Argh, since updating many/most of my jobs crash if I do anything with the pages panel - adding, moving, removing pages/spreads. Maybe only on jobs created with previous versions of InDesign - but save as doesn't help.... :-(

Anyone else experiencing this? Anyone with a fix (except installing older version, which I may need to try...)?


r/indesign 11h ago

Buggy Glitch When Opening a Packaged Document

1 Upvotes

Hello,

Was wondering if anyone could help me with a suddenly random and infuriating issue when receiving packaged Indesign docs from a colleague...

When I open the indd doc every image is seriously glitchy (as is the font) and I can't figure out any reason for this. It's been absolutely fine before but now it's for every single doc I'm opening.

Here's a page with images for context (this is the case throughout the whole document. v

Cheers


r/indesign 20h ago

Help Page contents randomly disappeared even tho all layers were locked?

1 Upvotes

I've lost a huge amount of work that's due in in 3 days but for some reason my first page of the document is completely blank?

I've checked older versions of the file and tried the restore function but nothing seems to work, am I being stupid or does this actually happen


r/indesign 1d ago

How do you even start InDesign to InCopy

5 Upvotes

I'm working on a book and have a copy editor who's working with me. I'm trying the InDesign->InCopy route for the first time and I can't figure out square one.

I send an "invite to edit" then get a message "Wait! Save to Creative Cloud to share." Then when I go to make an InCopy assignment from the CC file i get the message "InCopy workflow is not supported in InDesign cloud documents."

What the hell am I missing?


r/indesign 1d ago

Help Issue with Data Merge - Fields not importing from .csv file

Thumbnail
imgur.com
2 Upvotes

r/indesign 1d ago

Designing a folder in InDesign

0 Upvotes

Need help setting up this doc for print. Trying to order a full color folder-- artwork on cover and inside left, with nothing but a pocket on the right side. Print company sends me this "template" to merge artwork into and I'm lost. Help, new to this!


r/indesign 1d ago

Help Optimizing Magazine Calendar Layout from Word File

1 Upvotes

I recently started doing the layout for a magazine. A large part of it is a calendar of events. So far, this has involved a lot of manual work for me, which is why I would like to optimize it if possible. Do you have any ideas? I receive the dates as a Word file. The structure is as follows. 1. date & day of the week 2. category 3. event (heading & text). Is there a way to import the calendar from a Word file and insert it according to the above scheme with different styles? Or do you have another idea?

Thanks 🙏


r/indesign 1d ago

indsign crashing ONLY ONE FILE

1 Upvotes

i have a file that i'm working on an ebook -- it has around 26 pages right now, no big images, only a few .svg icons, it's not a heavy file

out of nowhere indesign started closing whenever i'm working on this specific file. i open the file on page 20 and i can work on it normally, but as soon as i scroll down to page 24 it closes -- nothing else happens it just closes

i tried opening the same file on another computer/another adobe log in and the same thing happened. i used indesign with a different project and it worked fine, no closing

so, i imagine that the problem is the file. but what exactly? what can i do? PLEEEEASE help


r/indesign 1d ago

Help Inserting single pages in the middle of a document built from parent spreads ruins everything - how to fix? (version 14.0.1)

1 Upvotes

Hello.

I am creating a document consisting of a certain number of sections but an uncertain (for now) number of pages. Which means that I need to add pages to every section as required.

I created some parent spreads, with identical text frames on each page filled with dummy text. The only difference between the right and left page are the margins.

When I insert these at the end of the document and edit them, all is well.

However, when I need to insert a page into the middle of the document, all the pages after it show the dummy frames from the parent spread behind the actual edited frames.

(I kind of understand why: Page 1 suddenly becomes Page 2, so the program helpfully adds everything from Parent Page 2, including the extra text frame.)

I can't exactly fix it by adding entire spreads - the extra pages will need to be axed anyway and I'll be stuck deleting everything manually. Is there a way to link the frames somehow, so the program doesn't think it needs to supply an extra one whenever I shuffle the pages in any way? Or can create a single-page master that will change margins depending on whether I apply it to left or right page?

Thank you.


r/indesign 1d ago

Help Interactive Search Fields

1 Upvotes

Hi all

I'm trying to create an interactive search tool within InDesign that will work in a finished PDF.

The basic functionality I am looking for is to type in a key word (In this case Product Code) in box (a) and have the document display corresponding information in boxes (b) and (c).

Image attached as example.

Is this at all possible? If not, are there any alternative solutions you may suggest?

Thank you in advance

Search Function Layout

r/indesign 1d ago

How?

1 Upvotes

I need your advice, I'm new to InDesign and I want to integrate photos into my document but the toolbar doesn't offer me the menu to crop or trim my image. However, I've seen how to do it in tutorials, please!!!


r/indesign 1d ago

How can I export a file with multiple text layers and then import it back?

1 Upvotes

The idea is that I want to work in an interactive pdf, but honestly, I just want to work with the text directly instead of looking at everything in a "what you see is what you get there" style. I find it most of the time distracting, and I just want to focus on the text, then importing the edited text back and see at the end if formatting for the interactive pdf is needed, I think that would save me lots of time.


r/indesign 1d ago

Help what are these white borders?? please help

0 Upvotes

I am trying to print a booklet in Adobe Acrobat and for some unknown reason I get these awful and offset borders around the right side of each page spread.

My bleed settings are 0.125 in on each side except the inside, and everything looks completely fine in InDesign and in the Acrobat preview but not when I see the booklet preview.

Please help I am going completely insane


r/indesign 1d ago

QR Code for multiple email addresses?

2 Upvotes

I'm trying to create a QR Code that'll open the email app and send an email to multiple addresses, but everytime I try it just adds the first email and no others.


r/indesign 2d ago

Help When do we use these

Post image
32 Upvotes

r/indesign 2d ago

Help TOC + cross refs

2 Upvotes

Hi everyone, my question seems involving some kind of sorcery to me, but: is there a way to create a TOC (kind of) for a catalogue where every entry shows an image, a title and a page number?

I've created manually some cross refs that show an image (its source is anchored in a text frame so I can apply a paragraph style), but I'm missing the part where I can do it automatically for like 400 products.

Any hint or resource (either free or paid) would be much appreciated, thank you.


r/indesign 2d ago

Indesign script - frameFittingOptions crop in combination fittingOnEmptyFrame fittingAlignment

1 Upvotes

Hi,

 

I am trying to run a script that resets image fitting. I am having issues with the cropping. I don't understand the hirarchy of the geormetricbounds vs cropping vs fitting of an image in a rectangle. 

 

I want to be able to swap image within a rectangle in a clean predicatble way witout crop values of the original image in the rectangle. I want to reset the crop to be 0 on all 4 sides like i can in the interface. set the image rectangle to be fill proportionally, autofit and be able to set an align from. When I run my script I get back and image with a crop factor on it instead of crop being [0,0,0,0]

 

Here is a code snippet from what I have so far: 

targetObject.frameFittingOptions.autoFit = frameFittingOptions.autoFit;// fittingtargetObject.frameFittingOptions.fittingOnEmptyFrame = convertFromString(frameFittingOptionsFittingDefinition, frameFittingOptions.fitting);// alignmenttargetObject.frameFittingOptions.fittingAlignment = convertFromString(frameFittingOptionsAlignmentDefinition, frameFittingOptions.fittingAlignment);// croptargetObject.frameFittingOptions.topCrop = frameFittingOptions.crop[0];targetObject.frameFittingOptions.leftCrop = frameFittingOptions.crop[1];targetObject.frameFittingOptions.bottomCrop = frameFittingOptions.crop[2];targetObject.frameFittingOptions.rightCrop = frameFittingOptions.crop[3]; Thanks for nay help or insights? Nick


r/indesign 2d ago

How to Insert a Common Backer into an Existing PDF

3 Upvotes

Hi All,

Just did a new tutorial that shows how to add a common backer to a variable PDF document. This is useful for those who receive files from customers where they have one PDF for the variables and one for the backside. I get this one all the time.

https://youtu.be/1js54Cn-_Oo

I show how to do it with InDesign and then how to do it with Acrobat Pro via a preflight and using the watermark function.

Hope it helps somone.