kevin
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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 – InDesignAn error occurred while saving the comment An error occurred while saving the comment kevin
commented
Problem:
InDesign has no way for designers to record a sequence of UI actions and replay it — the way Photoshop's Actions panel does. The only automation option is the Scripts panel, which requires writing JavaScript/AppleScript/VBScript. This means any designer without coding skills is locked out of automating even simple, repetitive tasks, and has to rely on a developer to build a custom script for every workflow.Time cost:
Repetitive layout tasks — resizing frames to spec, applying consistent styles, running the same export settings across dozens of pages or files — currently take hours of manual, click-by-click work. In Photoshop, an equivalent task takes minutes: record once, batch-apply across all files. InDesign users doing catalog production, multi-language template rollouts, or packaging variants are stuck doing this by hand, file by file, page by page.Error cost:
Manual repetition introduces mistakes that automation eliminates: a missed step on file 40 of 60, an inconsistent margin, the wrong export preset applied to one variant. In production contexts — packaging with mandatory regulatory text, brand-compliant layouts, print-ready exports — these errors are costly to catch after the fact, sometimes after a job has already gone to print.Concrete ask:
Add an Actions panel to InDesign, matching Photoshop's model:Record a sequence of UI actions (style application, resizing, export settings, etc.)
Save and name actions for reuse
Play back a single action on the current document
Batch-apply an action across multiple open documents or a folder of files (like Photoshop's Batch/Droplet)
No scripting knowledge requiredThis would bring InDesign's automation up to parity with Photoshop and Illustrator, both of which already support this pattern within the same Creative Cloud ecosystem. It would make automation accessible to any designer, not just those who can script, and would meaningfully reduce both time spent and error rates on repetitive production workflows.
Forgot to add. I regularly perform a manually repetitive task in InDesign that currently takes me 1.5 hours to complete it manually. With a Photoshop-style Actions panel, that same task could be recorded once and played back in under 5 minutes — freeing up over an hour of my day to focus on higher-priority work instead of repetitive clicking.
On top of that, InDesign has no equivalent to Photoshop's AI-assisted editing (like Generative Fill/Remove), where a user can type a plain-language instruction to add or remove content and have it applied.
AI-assisted correction panel (parity with Photoshop's Generative Fill/Remove):
Allow plain-language instructions to make targeted corrections — e.g. "remove this text box," "add a caption under this image," "align these frames to the grid"
Support this at the object, frame, or page level rather than requiring manual selection and menu-hunting for every fix
Useful for last-minute proofing/correction passes where a user can describe the fix rather than manually executing it.
I'm convinced this would be transformative for how designers work in InDesign.