Adobe InDesign: Feature Requests
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1. Description
2. Why is this valuable to you?
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5358 results found
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RTL in all versions of InDesign, not just the Middle Eastern version.
It is ridiculous that I have to install a completely different regional version of InDesign to get access to RTL. Apart from the addition of an RTL/LTR button and a drop down specially from Arabic, what is the difference other than the default language?
5 votes -
More functionality and control with form fields
Please add the ability to set leading in form fields. Many clients want to print lines for writing but also have multi-line fillable text fields. It's nearly impossible to create this and have it look good. Would be awesome if form fields used paragraph styles for formatting. Please also allow the designer to change the field highlight color. The default blue isn't ideal for most designs.
5 votes -
Gif Export directly from Indesign
Why of why in 2021 can't I export a multi page document from Indesign to an animated gif format - even just rudimentary controls to allow a basic slideshow gif with no transitions would be better than having to faff about in photoshop!
5 votes -
Remove style attributes from Style Settings in General tab
The Style settings overview is helpful, but dang would it be amazing to remove some attributes right from that box.
Sometimes something odd will get added to a style if created from existing type (such as shading bottom right corner radius). If I don't want that as part of my style, there is no way to easily remove it. If the style attributes were in a list format, not a running paragraph, you could have a delete icon next to each attribute, that could be deleted. )Take it one step further, and an edit button would take you right to that tab.)
In this shading example noted, my style settings lists shading parameters, yet shading is not even checked on in the paragraph shading tab. Its just further junk I wish I could remove instead of creating a new style and replacing this.
The Style settings overview is helpful, but dang would it be amazing to remove some attributes right from that box.
Sometimes something odd will get added to a style if created from existing type (such as shading bottom right corner radius). If I don't want that as part of my style, there is no way to easily remove it. If the style attributes were in a list format, not a running paragraph, you could have a delete icon next to each attribute, that could be deleted. )Take it one step further, and an edit button would take you right to…
5 votes -
Just like........actually do *something* to improve InDesign??
Many popular, highly voted Indesign feature requests—even some that you've responded to—have just been sitting here languishing for yearS...literally yearS. Would it be possible to do something? Like... just do something to improve the development of the program we all rely on for our careers? Thanks<3
5 votes -
Highlighting non-consecutive words
I would like to easily highlight non-consecutive words in a document, e.g. names of people in an article, so that I can apply a style sheet to all the highlighted words with one click of the style sheet.
Don't want to use GREP, just a simple keystroke or keystroke combination, e.g. shift > highlight; shift, option > highlight.
Carpel tunnel syndrome is bad enough.
Thank you for the consideration.
5 votes -
ARROWS: Give arrow start/end a different color option from line type color
It would be great if we were able to make the end of an arrow (from within the stroke panel) a different or complementary color from the arrow line itself. It would be a huge time saver from the other workarounds required to create something seemingly so simple. Especially if it could then be saved as an object style. I think many people would use this feature in their designs.
5 votes -
Text perfectly aligned with text frame
If the white space on the left/right hand side of a character (image attached) can be ignored, the option of snapping the text frame with objects, guides/grids, could be possible.
5 votes -
Unresolved cross references need to be detected as errors
If a document contains unresolved cross-references, InDesign should register them as errors that show up at the bottom of the main window, with specifics listed in the Preflight window. At present, InDesign will notify me of the existence of unresolved cross-references when I start to print a file or book, and it will identify which files contain them, but it won't show me where to find them so I can fix them.
5 votes -
Exclude Pasteboard (PB) from Find/Change
Many of the Find/Replace functions would be much faster and easier to complete if only run on the pages area only rather F/C searching paste board too.
5 votes -
Disable Background Tasks
Please! Let me turn off background tasks!
5 votes -
Improve handling of long footnotes
Handling of long footnotes could be improved in at least three ways:
- Sometimes a footnote absolutely cannot start on the same page as its reference either because the given footnote follows so closely behind a very long footnote (or a dense cluster of shorter footnotes). Presently, InDesign simply stops setting text at that point, as it would when a hits a word it cannot fit into any subsequent frame in the story. Ideally such footnotes would be not only be permitted but be custom-labelable—e.g. “(from p. 17)”—but for now simply permitting such footnotes, elegantly or not, would be a far less disruptive behavior.
- Presently very long footnotes will occupy all but one line of subsequent frames for as many frames as they require, and this often has the effect of making the one line of main text appear to be a heading for the footnote. It would be nice to be able to customize the amount of a text frame allocated to footnotes. This value could be set either as a minimum number of lines or a minimum percentage of the frame height reserved for the main text. (Fallback request: If customization isn’t easy to implement, changing the fixed minimum to 3 lines would be a huge improvement over 1 line.)
- Historically, long footnotes that continue onto a subsequent page have often been specifically labeled—e.g., “vii (cont’d)”—but InDesign does not presently support such labeling. It would be beneficial if there were an option to apply custom text applied to continued footnotes.
Handling of long footnotes could be improved in at least three ways:
- Sometimes a footnote absolutely cannot start on the same page as its reference either because the given footnote follows so closely behind a very long footnote (or a dense cluster of shorter footnotes). Presently, InDesign simply stops setting text at that point, as it would when a hits a word it cannot fit into any subsequent frame in the story. Ideally such footnotes would be not only be permitted but be custom-labelable—e.g. “(from p. 17)”—but for now simply permitting such footnotes, elegantly or not, would be a far…
5 votes -
InDesign for iPad/Mac cross-compatibility
The iPad Pro has the M1 chip now. Why not have InDesign for iPad? Now that iPads have the same hardware as Macs there's no reason not to have one app that works on both.
5 votes -
"Find Command" option in the "Keyboard Shortcuts" window
It would be useful to have a "Find Command" option in the "Keyboard Shortcuts" window
5 votes -
Page naming and exporting separate pages with it names as a sufix.
A above. I'd like to be able to name the pages separately and tick an option to use this names as sufixes when exporting separate pages (tiffs, jpgs, pngs, etc.).
5 votes -
Slow publication analytics loading
Most of time our analytics / statistics pop-up is VERY slow to load. Sometimes it doesn't load at all.
Can it be speeded up. Is there a reason its slow?
(PS I don't mean the 90 minute update lag, I mean any figures showing at all)
5 votes -
Rethinking pages with an infinite pasteboard and multi-user collaboration
Let us bring InDesign into an open and more collaborative world.
The individual pasteboard and contained page structure of InDesign are very constraining. It is time for a different approach to how we do page layout.
Let us move to an infinite style pasteboard canvas (a la Illustrator, or Adobe XD, Figma) where your imagination can run wild! Think of it as a blown-up version of the Pages Panel with the same click-to, snap-to rearrange functionality, but without the extra layer of InDesign UI baggage.
- Pages would function the same way with a left-to-right, top-to-bottom order, snapping layouts into the proper page arrangement.
- A visual thread can bind groups of pages together to maintain pagination and order.
- The same thread could double as the indicator of the document's spine for printed matter and the starting point for the measurement ruler.
- Master Pages would be more like how they are presented in the Page Panel, prepending the pages, but could live contextually, presented only when prompted.
With this addition, it would be amazing to (fingers crossed) bring collaborative editing into the fold. Opening up the pasteboard makes working with other contributors fun, effective, and overall time-saving. Teams can work in tandem to concept out a project, work on specific areas of the design between page layout, copy editing, artwork creation, and overseeing the creation from afar. If anyone has used Figma, you know how great collaborative features would be if brought to InDesign. Forget about cobbled together documents with varying pages, typographic and object styles, and separate applications like InCopy. No more lone star designers feeling the weight of impending deadlines because “there can only be one” person in the doc at a time.
InDesign would also become a better educational tool, allowing instructors to showcase typographic concepts and demonstrate page layout.
A different approach to how we view layout structure and design in InDesign's, plus the ability to work together in a single document would evolve InDesign into a more intuitive and productive software.
Let us bring InDesign into an open and more collaborative world.
The individual pasteboard and contained page structure of InDesign are very constraining. It is time for a different approach to how we do page layout.
Let us move to an infinite style pasteboard canvas (a la Illustrator, or Adobe XD, Figma) where your imagination can run wild! Think of it as a blown-up version of the Pages Panel with the same click-to, snap-to rearrange functionality, but without the extra layer of InDesign UI baggage.
- Pages would function the same way with a left-to-right, top-to-bottom order, snapping layouts…
5 votes -
Export document from iDesign to PSD format including layers
Export document from iDesign to PSD/PNG format including layers
5 votes -
Adjust colours directly in the gradient panel
In InDesign, I'd like the option to edit colours from directly in the gradient panel, as in Illustrator (double click to access colour slider)
Having this feature added would greatly improve workflow - at the moment, I have to add colours to a swatch panel then drag them onto my gradient slider which becomes a very tedious process when making micro-adjustments.
5 votes -
Interactive features retained when PDFs placed in InDesign
When PDFs are placed into an INDD layout, and then the layout is exported to a new PDF, all of the interactive features in the 1st (or source) PDF are removed:
-- Hyperlinks in the source PDF
-- Buttons in the source PDF
-- Accessibility tags and functions in the source PDFIt's as if the PDF is treated like a dead graphic. All of the interactive features built into it are lost and must be recreated manually in Acrobat.
Two excellent examples of how disastrous this is for designers:
1) When a magazine places a PDF of an advertiser's ad, the hyperlinks to the advertiser's website are lost and must be recreated manually in the final PDF. For a magazine with dozens or hundreds of ads, this is a helluva lotta labor to correct the URLs.
2) When making accessible PDFs, a designer might place a PDF of the president's letter into the layout. The source PDF's text is accessible and tagged, but once the final PDF is exported, that's lost and the president's letter is a dead graphic. That type of item can't have Alt-text on it (Alt-text usually is limited to 200 characters). The real solution is for the letter to remain as live, tagged text in the final PDF.
SERIOUS shortcoming in the InDesign-to-PDF workflow.
When PDFs are placed into an INDD layout, and then the layout is exported to a new PDF, all of the interactive features in the 1st (or source) PDF are removed:
-- Hyperlinks in the source PDF
-- Buttons in the source PDF
-- Accessibility tags and functions in the source PDFIt's as if the PDF is treated like a dead graphic. All of the interactive features built into it are lost and must be recreated manually in Acrobat.
Two excellent examples of how disastrous this is for designers:
1) When a magazine places a PDF of an advertiser's…
5 votes
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