I am constantly making catalogs and the proofing process is arduous because we always have to read through text to check for spelling errors, grammar mistakes, etc. If there was a way to create one Master text file (whether it’s an InDesign, Word, Excel doc, etc) and link it to any document, have one or more people edit it, have it update across the board and not override any local changes would be fantastic. Now, I know there are extensions you can use, such as DocsFlow and WordFlow, but the problem with these is that you cannot choose specific text from the Google doc you want to sync over to InDesign. For example:
I make a page in InDesign about jewelry. On the page, there are multiple separate text boxes about the different types of jewelry. If I have a file in Google docs that has descriptions about our various types of jewelry and sync it over, I’m not able to choose the exact description (paragraph) that I need to go in an InDesign text box. I can't have that. What I need is one Master text file with details about the content for every product we have, that can be synced over to InDesign. But I need to be able to CHOOSE exactly what text I want to sync over to one text box. If I have a bunch of different paragraphs on one Google doc and sync it over, it puts everything in that Google doc into one text box. I'm sure you can see the problem here.
Now, I have found a way around this by using cross referencing, but I can only do one paragraph at a time, and if one paragraph happens to be a line, such as a subheading, I will have to go back in again and choose the next paragraph of text. This is time consuming and I want to make this as efficient as possible.
I think this features should be able to take one Master (again, could be an InDesign, Word, or Excel doc), link it to an INDD file, update it both ways while a designer and editor are working on it at the same time, keep local edits, notify people about conflicting changes, choose EXACTLY what I need from the Master, and use whatever styles and fonts I wish in the local document that won’t be lost when the files are synced/updated.
I hope that made sense. But I think a feature like this would be beneficial for everyone!