Actions Panel
An Actions Panel that runs the same type of Recording/Playing features as Photoshop and Illustrator already have would be fantastic.
Tom Miatke
shared this idea
Hello All,
Kindly provide more information about this ask. How do you plan to use the Action Panel in InDesign? Do you want it to work exactly like that in Photoshop? What are the most important actions/operations that you want to record?
Thanks
Abhinav Agarwal
Product Manger – InDesign
53 comments
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Dan S
commented
I would use it to set up a set of custom layers, and to export my work in one click.
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Anonymous
commented
I would use it to automate exporting and doing simple and repetitive things like this:
I have 6 automobiles lined up next to each other. When I do a mirror reflection of these vehicles, I have to copy all of them, paste and group them, turn them upside down and add a gradient feather to it and then move it exactly underneath the others to line them up. (See attached)
This is tedious and could easily be recorded and allowed to play back so I don't have to do this 50 times a day manually.
I would also use it to create many different sizes of documents which I have to do manually at this time.
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Klaus Nordby commented
Photoshop has had Actions for 25+ years. We still have NONE in ID -- despite all the productivity-enhancement they can bring. I must repeatedly and stupidly do TONS of trivial things by clicking a series of buttons! Like exporting PDFs and countless other repetitive things. Just too ridiculous -- in 2019.
Actions! Give us Actions! It is the ONE "new" (hah!) feature I most crave.
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Shridhar Kulkarni
commented
If this can help us in spell check/corrections in styles like someone would like to use "percent" instead of "%" throughout the book and remove multiple return key hits from a document we get from editors... etc...
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Casper Thomsen
commented
Uses:
1:
Doing a number of exports with one click – of current doc (or all open), to different file formats, each with different sizes/resolution and options (all pages/first page/first spread, as pages/as spread, with or without bleed etc.)
Bonus in the action: Toss in some naming conventions for the exported files. Like Add a “web” prefix/suffix to the jpg, a “thumbnail” to the 1st spread png. Option: stop for input.2:
Turn on baseline grid, guides, frames, pasteboard color preference.
(Reason: we have external colleagues that keep messing with these, because they want a “clean” preview like view but with the pasteboard still visible – and I’m tired of the many clicks/keystrokes restoring everything.) -
Erick Puentes
commented
The fact that InDesign doesn't have Actions at this point is shameful. IF they decided to humor us and actually implement Actions, it should be done similar to Photoshop, NOT Acrobat. Acrobats implementation is simply horrible and the "manage actions" portion is a joke. It's almost as if Acrobat is a different company and have no idea about Photoshop and how they implement Actions. I don't have to layout examples as to why we need this feature because many have laid out the case already. Please take this request seriously.
While we're at it, please pay attention to the "Tables" functionality. Look at any spreadsheet app for inspiration in terms of adding to the feature set.
Thanks!
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Phantom Steve
commented
Most of these requests can be achieved in InDesign as it is — without an actions panel.
Sorry, correction — for repeating and running FIND/CHANGE requests one after another you can get third-party add-ins or scripts to create multiple changes.
It would be nice if ID included a panel (similar to Multi-Find/Change — a third party add-in) to allow us to run GREP and TEXT queries one after another as a batch.
That's maybe what this request should be asking for. -
Anonymous
commented
For instance: the ability to assign a group of steps (selecting contents; duplicating; setting to Multiply; pasting in place; turning on PhotoShop clipping path; assigning a drop shadow and then grouping the two items as ONE action. This is something that is done thousands of times in catalogs on images.
To be able to describe it as an action, select all items on a spread and execute would be phenomenal! -
NEED ACTION PANEL IN ID
commented
Action Panels!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Kristofer Haglund
commented
This would be awesome for lots of smaller things, like adding strokes or tilt to certain words when missing a bold or italic typeset. Adding the same effects to images instead of trying to aim the cursor to the correct object or writing down the numbers would also be nice. Also would be great when creating identical tables over and over.
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Emily
commented
PLEASE make this an option, I actually cannot believe it isn't yet. I use data merge to mass produce envelopes, but my particular printer needs all text outlined before sending, so I have to take the time to page by page flatten the text. It takes forever and seems like it could so easily be done. Please let us mass select across pages!!!
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Kirk Thornton
commented
I use data merge to create hundreds of personalized digital ads. I would love to have an action that runs the data merge as well as exports the files.
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Sergio Matos
commented
Make it like Photoshop
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Pierpaolo
commented
It would be fantastic if the action panel would be connected to the history (e.g.: drag a history step into an action to add that step to a recorder action, or, even better, turn some selected steps from the history into a new action)
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Aubrey
commented
I need this ability. The print shop I work for receives documents with hundreds of pages that need to be resized. For example, Letter (8.5 x 11) to half-page (5.5 x 8.5). I haven't found an easy way to do this and spend hours resizing these documents for print. If I could record changing the first page, then apply that to every page, I could save hours of work.
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Luis Juarbe
commented
One example. I do a lot of Certificates (for students) Most of their names are in Spanish. When I import the file that the institution provides all the accented characters change. For example á turns to "√°". I can change all thos one by one with find/replace all, but I have to do it for each character á, é, ú, í, ñ etc. I have to do it for EVERY course taken by the students. If I have an action that I can record all I have to do is play the action and wait.
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Gregor
commented
Anything would help. Like the Actions in Photoshop or even the Action Wizard in Acrobat.
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David Cain
commented
Realizing now that this is an old post, but this feature is still desperately needed within InDesign. Scripting is great an all, but an actions panel that works just like the Actions panel in Photoshop would change the game for designers like myself that are involved in mass scale production. I work for Lifetouch, and we have to convert an incredible amount of print materials into editable PDFs with layer versioning at various sizes, and also have to move contents of some pages to other pages etc. It is horribly tedious, and if I could just record the action once and click a button to run it again and again, it would save the design team here ridiculous amounts of time.
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Soheil Moradi
commented
Please, I really need Actions in InDesign too. I use a lot to configure labels and a lot of other things in books and printed material. It would be a great time saver. Love it in Photoshop, will love it too in INDD
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Anonymous
commented
Yes, capturing keystrokes exactly like in Photoshop would be very useful. For instance, in book design - to click a shortcut that enters a glyph for a chapter start, adds a paragraph style to the title etc. I would use actions like that many times in the course of a day for book design. And it would have to be easy and quick to create, just like in Photoshop, so that I can capture keystrokes on the fly just for a particular function on a particular project. There is so much that I do that is repetitive in book design that could be made much easier by a keystroke capture function.
