Photoshop’s layer comps feature is excellent for preserving and previewing all of your different layout ideas. It’s especially useful for Web designers who create the bulk of their backgrounds and graphics in a bitmap environment. Print designers, however, generally use InDesign to layout their pages, and not Photoshop. So why isn’t there a layer comps feature in InDesign?
I’ll leave that question for the powers that be over at Adobe. In the meantime, I recommend creating your own InDesign layer comps.
Let’s say you’re creating a single page advertisement, but you’re not sure whether you like the header text positioned at the top of the page or at the bottom. Why not try both ideas using layers? Place your initial header text on its own layer positioned at the top of the page. Then duplicate the layer by dragging it over the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Turn off the visibility for the initial layer and reposition the duplicate header text at the bottom of the page. Be sure and rename each layer in the Layers panel so that you know which is which.
Unlike Photoshop’s layer comps, you’ll have to duplicate objects in order to save them in different layers. You’ll also have to control layer visibility for each comp manually. Despite the extra effort, this technique is still easier and more flexible than duplicating entire InDesign documents in order to try out your different layout ideas.
As useful as layers already are in InDesign, I think this is one feature that could be greatly enhanced with future releases. I’ve added to my wish list for IDCS5: sub layers, layer sets, and layer comps.
This article was last modified on December 1, 2023
This article was first published on April 20, 2009
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