To the developers:

I am in charge of a newspaper in the north of Spain, ALERTA. I am considering whether to switch to the new InDesign 2024 following the information from the presentation meeting your company held. It has taken me time to adapt our catalog to your new policy on Type 1 fonts. Once this issue was resolved, and I was able to look at the new features of the new version, I found that some of the things said in that presentation are either false or not entirely true to reality. That story about the new paragraph styles (something that honestly doesn't interest me because we have them well defined for all publications - we are part of a group that also publishes magazines and supplements of different characteristics) I read that it is only available for the North American and German versions. What a genius to leave 600 million people out of the update. My native language is the second in the world in number of speakers, after Chinese and ahead of the languages of India and English. Maybe German is very important for Berna (I have a berner senner). Aside from the irony, what I really want to know is whether what was said there is true. If InDesign 2024 has AI. And I'm only interested for one reason. Your company said this:

"Summarization and Automatic Content Generation.- AI can assist in summarizing lengthy textual content within InDesign documents, creating concise summaries, which saves time and effort for designers. Furthermore, AI-driven tools can automatically generate filler text or placeholder content based on a given theme, allowing designers to quickly visualize the layout."

After much searching and investigating, I believe (I could be mistaken) that the only thing your company has presented as an innovation in the new InDesign with 'AI' is the ability to adapt to the AI tools ChatGPT or Jasper, which we in the media have been already using for some time. Additionally, in my study about whether we should migrate to the new version, I have found, in addition to the problems with Type 1 fonts, issues with the Applescripts that are working perfectly in a previous version. Moreover, you do not offer support for third-party scripts when all of us who are dedicated to editing have our own scripts, meaning, all InDesign scripts are from third parties. Yours are just for tinkering. I see that the developers have opted for Java, something that may be positive, but understand that newspapers and magazines are not going to change what works well simply because someone understands that Java is more consistent and versatile. I also believe that java is better, but that does not mean that Applescript cannot perfectly fulfill certain functions, as it is indeed doing. That is to say, opting for Java and improving its integration should not have meant reducing functionality in Applescript. This is a very serious mistake.

If you confirm that all of the above is true, I only have one doubt left. When you say 'AI driven tools,' what do you mean? Have you developed your own plugins that link with ChatGPT? We have our own techniques for this 'novel' integration. However, I would be interested in trying yours if that is the case.

I am the Editor of a newspaper. I have been working with InDesign since the CS3 version, and we switched from Quark to your application because we understood that Photoshop was the future. We made the right decision and are happy working with Adobe applications, but I believe that your focus has lost its way and is now targeting graphic artists, which is respectable, but leaves companies that publish daily or weekly out of significant innovations. Painters, poets, and acrobats also feature in our pages. But a newspaper is a very serious business that many families depend on.

ISAÍAS DIAZ TRUEBA
EDITOR DEL DIARIO ALERTA