InDesign Workarounds

InDesign is an industrial-strength page-layout tool, but not even its biggest fans would claim it can do everything. Experienced users can easily rattle off a lengthy list of feature requests, but when the clock’s ticking, and the boss or client is waiting, you can’t really wait around for Adobe to add or fix a feature. You need to get the job done now—or preferably sooner. And since necessity is the mother of invention, you look at the tools you have at your disposal, get creative, and improvise. In short, you come up with a workaround. We asked a distinguished panel of InDesign experts, “How do you make InDesign do something it can’t do?” Here’s what they came up with.

1. Table Calculations and Linking

Tables in InDesign are incredibly powerful and allow a high degree of customization. However, one of the first questions I hear from people after they dive in and start working with tables is, “Can I do calculations in tables like I can in Excel?” The answer, unfortunately, is a definitive no… but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an alternative solution. Why not harness the power of both Excel and InDesign to achieve the desired result? InDesign, as we all know, provides the creative control that we need to make the tables look good, and Excel provides the data calculation capabilities that we often need to perform the math in the content of the table. It’s a well-known fact that you can place an Excel spreadsheet into your InDesign layout. Users figure out very quickly, however, that once they place the Excel spreadsheet, it will not update if the spreadsheet is modified. To make these two extraordinary programs work together, we need an Excel spreadsheet (.XLS or .XLSX), and we need to enable

an InDesign preference that maintains a link to that spreadsheet. To enable this preference, go to InDesign/Edit > Preferences > File Handling, and click Create Links When Placing Text and Spreadsheet Files in the Links section of the dialog box (Figure 1).

When you place the spreadsheet in the InDesign document, a link shows up in the Links panel (Figure 2). When placing the file, if you initially get only text, then place the file again, but turn on the Show Import Options option, and make sure to choose Unformatted Table or Formatted Table from the Table drop-down menu. Now, any calculations you perform in the Excel file—indeed, any changes at all—will be reflected in InDesign, and any modifications you make to the Excel file can now be updated in the InDesign layout. One caveat to this workflow is that any formatting you apply to the linked Excel file in InDesign will be lost when updating the link to that file unless you’ve done so using table and cell styles. But you can power up this technique by getting the WordsFlow plug-in from Em Software, which not only lets you keep changes you make in InDesign when the data is updated, but even push changes to the table back to Excel! (See Words Flow review in Issue 65.) And since we’re talking about plug-ins, if you need to do a lot of calculations in tables, you might also consider the Active Tables plug-in from DTP Tools, which does provide Excel-like formulas and more right inside InDesign’s tables (see “DTP Tools and Subscription Models” in this issue). –Chad Chelius

2. Join Tables Together

It’s frustrating that InDesign doesn’t allow me to join two tables. I’m showing you a simple example (Figure 3), but some tables can be quite tricky, with lots of cells, divisions, and so on.

To join these tables, you might consider adding three rows below the original, and cutting and pasting the other table into these new rows. This works when the two tables have the same number of columns. (You could also perform it faster by using a free Merge Tables script from In-Tools.) Unfortunately, in this case, nothing happens—not even a warning dialog box saying that it can’t complete the task. Instead, I suggest you copy the two tables from InDesign, and then paste them into Microsoft Word. (Don’t cut, in case something goes wrong and you lose the tables altogether!) Then (and here’s the magic), insert your cursor in the space between the two tables, and then press the Delete key. Voilà—the space is removed, and the two tables are joined together (Figure 4). Now you can copy and paste the united table back to InDesign. (Note that you need to have the When Pasting Text and Tables from Other Applications option set to All Information in the Clipboard Handling pane of the Preferences dialog box, or else you’ll just get raw text rather than the table.) –Eugene Tyson

3. Text Wrap in Table Cells

Sometimes people use tables for designs that don’t look anything like tables. I’ve seen a whole single-page ad laid out as cells in a table. While there’s nothing technically wrong with doing this, there are things you just can’t do in tables and table cells. For example, text wrap doesn’t usually work the way you’d expect. The only way to create text wrap within a table cell is to anchor the object within that cell’s text. Even then, unfortunately, the text wrap applies only in that one cell; if you want text wrap to affect multiple cells, it might be saner to just use soft returns (or tabs) to shape your table text. –Claudia McCue

4. Applying Multiple Clipping Paths

InDesign allows you to turn on and off clipping paths for only one image at a time, by selecting that graphic, choosing Object > Clipping Path > Options, and then taking the additional step of selecting the Photoshop Path (Figure 5).

If you have 20 images, you have to do this 20 times—which is going to be very tedious. Fortunately, there’s a shortcut! Use the free ApplyClippingPath script by Jongware, which can handle this with ease. You can download the script here. Start by doing the above step to just one image first, and then select the other objects and run the script. –Eugene Tyson

5. Simplify Text Wrap Contour Options

If you have an image with a transparent background or a clipping path, sometimes text wrap doesn’t behave the way that you’d like or expect. InDesign does let you adjust the text wrap path manually using the Direct Selection and Pen tools, but it can be incredibly frustrating. Instead, skip all that, and jump over to Photoshop to create a new alpha channel. Convert your existing path or channel into a selection (marching ants), and then choose Select > Modify > Expand and enter 5 pixels (or whatever change you want to make). You might need to manually clean up your selection to make it more appealing, but when you’re finished, save the selection as a new channel. Back inside InDesign, select the object, and open the Text Wrap panel. From there you can set Contour Options to Alpha Channel, and the Alpha pop-up menu to the channel that you created (Figure 6).

–James Fritz

6. Using Blend Modes from Photoshop

If you create a drop shadow on its own layer in Photoshop (for example, to make a custom shadow shape) and then import that PSD into InDesign, the shadow may appear opaque—even if you have applied a blending mode such as Multiply to it in Photoshop (Figure 7)! The reason is that blending modes applied to individual layers in Photoshop are not honored by InDesign!

This is one reason I always recommend that people create their drop shadows using InDesign’s tools instead of Photoshop’s. However, if you need a custom shadow shape (such as making a shadow appear cast by a vase on table), you have to paint that on a separate layer in Photoshop. In this case, take advantage of InDesign’s Object Layer options to create a Shadow Sandwich: 1. In Photoshop, put the cast shadow on its own layer, and save the file as a PSD (sorry, layered TIFFs won’t work). 2. Place the image in InDesign, and then select the frame, and copy it to the Clipboard. 3. While the graphic is still selected, choose Object > Object Layer Options, and turn off all layers except the shadow layer (Figure 8). 4. Set the blending mode of the frame to Multiply in the Effects panel. 5. Choose Edit > Paste in Place to bring in the copied frame in exactly the same location as the original. Choose Object > Object Layer Options again, and this time turn off the shadow layer. It’s a good idea to group the two frames so your shadow doesn’t get separated from the original image. Poof! Now you have a shadow sandwich (Figure 9)! Note: Fortunately, blending modes from Illustrator’s layers are honored in InDesign, so this trick isn’t necessary with AI files. –Claudia McCue

7. Cast Shadows on Native Objects

Here’s another method of making simple cast shadows for native InDesign objects. Copy and paste the object in place. Set the fill (and stroke, if any) to Paper. Set the blending mode to Multiply. This makes the object fully transparent. Now add a drop shadow, and in the Effects dialog box, set the distance to zero (so the shadow is in the exact same location as the object). Select the option Shadow Honors Other Effects, and deselect the option Object Knocks Out Shadow (Figure 10).

Now you can see the shadow of the copied object but not the object itself. Use the Control panel to scale and skew the shadow as desired to make a cast effect. Finally, press Shift+G to get the Gradient Feather tool, and drag over the shadow so it fades out as it gets farther away from the original object. –Mike Rankin

8. Selecting the Right Spot Color

Ever need to add a spot color swatch from a Pantone library? You can either scroll an endless list or you can type in the name of the swatch (usually its number). But the problem with the latter method is that it can be tricky to get the right color. Depending on your typing speed, you can easily get 1235 C when you type (and want) just 123. The solution is surprisingly simple: type a space after the last number. –Mike Rankin

9. Colorizing Grayscale Images With Transparency

You can create a lot of great effects by colorizing placed grayscale images. You just double-click them to select the graphic (instead of the frame) and choose a color from your Swatches panel. All the grayscale pixels are colored with the swatch color. Too bad it doesn’t work if your grayscale image contains transparency. But there’s a solution! Instead of grayscale, use a monotone image, and map its ink to whatever you want. Start in Photoshop: convert the grayscale image to a single channel image by choosing Image > Mode > Duotone. In the dialog box, make sure the Type pop-up menu is set to Monotone. Click the color picker, and choose any spot color for the channel (it doesn’t matter which, because you’re going to replace it later). You can even give it a helpful name like DON’T FORGET TO MAP ME (Figure 11).

Save the file as a PSD, and place the image in InDesign. Create a new color swatch with the color you want to use to colorize the image, and make sure you save it as a spot color. (Don’t worry—even though you save it as a spot color here, it doesn’t have to be output as a spot color.) Then, from the Swatches panel menu, choose Ink Manager. In the dialog box, map the color you chose in Photoshop to the spot color you created in InDesign using the Ink Alias feature. If you want the color to be a CMYK process color instead of a spot color, then click the little box to the left of its name (Figure 12). Note that you can only see the ink alias (the mapping from the monotone color to the color you created) when View > Overprint Preview is enabled. –Mike Rankin

10. Check Assigned ICC Profiles

Did you ever need to know which ICC profile is assigned to your InDesign document? Unlike Photoshop, where it’s easy to find, in InDesign it’s not obvious at all. Some people believe you can view the current document’s profiles by choosing Edit > Color Settings, but this is not so; the Color Settings dialog box shows the default settings for new documents you create, not the current document. The easiest way to get this information is to choose Edit > Convert to Profile, where you can see the assigned profiles under Source Space (Figure 13). Be sure to click Cancel to dismiss this dialog box to prevent unwanted color transformations.

Cancel to dismiss this dialog box to prevent unwanted color transformations. –Haeme Ulrich

11. Data Merge Directory

InDesign’s Data Merge is a powerful feature for combining a database of variable information into single or multiple records. But if you’re trying to create a single story, like a directory or index of variable information, you’re out of luck. Fortunately, French scripter Loic Aigon has created a free script called InLine Merge that will solve your problem. Simply create a document with standard Data Merge fields (Figure 14). Then select the frame with the Selection tool.

Next, double-click the InLineMerge.jsx script in your Scripts panel. A brief dialog box will appear asking what metacharacter to use to trigger the next record (^p, or end of paragraph, is the default). Then click OK. The script will flow all the records together into a single story (Figure 15). The script can be downloaded from here. –Scott Citron Editor’s note: also check out this post which describes how Loic Aigon’s awesome script allows you to use Data Merge to flow inline or anchored objects.

12. A-sorting We Will Go!

Have you ever created an InDesign layout that contained a list of items that need to appear in alphabetical order? It’s extremely frustrating when you receive additions to the list and have to manually drop them in at the correct location. It might not be too bad for a short list, but as the list grows, it becomes more and more time-consuming to update with new information. What InDesign needs is a sort paragraphs feature! And while it doesn’t have a native Sort feature, it does actually ship with a script that will sort selected paragraphs alphabetically in ascending or descending order! To access the script, choose Window > Utilities > Scripts. When the Scripts panel displays, open Application > Samples > Javascript to display more than 20 useful scripts, many of which may improve your design life significantly, including the one we’re looking for, called SortParagraphs.jsx. To use the script, first use the Type tool to select any number of paragraphs that you want to sort. Then double-click SortParagraphs.jsx in the Scripts panel, and a dialog box will appear with options on how to sort the selected paragraphs (Figure 16).

Choose whether you want to retain the formatting of the text when sorting or not, and choose whether you want it to ignore the spaces and if it should reverse the sort (descending order). When you click OK, the selected text will be sorted as specified (Figure 17). What makes this script so powerful is that you can simply add text to an existing list of paragraphs, run the script again, and you’re done. Even more powerful is that it can be used with bulleted or numbered lists; in the case of numbered lists, the text will be sorted but the numbering is retained. In fact, I should note that it’s important to use auto-numbered paragraphs because the script doesn’t deal with numbers as well as you’d hope. For example, if you sort paragraphs starting with numbers from 1 to 12, the script will sort them 1, 10, 11, 12, 2, 3… oops! What about sorting data in tables? Well, there’s even a script for that, too, thanks to Peter Kahrel! –Chad Chelius

13. Rename Linked Files

In today’s cross-platform world, a best practice is to stick to standard alphanumeric characters in filenames for any content placed in InDesign. Among the problems that can crop up when using extended or platform-specific illegal characters is the failure to package files properly or broken links when moving content cross platform. Even images that have spaces in their filenames can cause problems! EPUB problems have also been reported, as these characters can be badly mangled in HTML. Enter RelinkImages, a free script to clean up all of those links (Figure 18). The direct download for the script is here.

You can learn more about the script by visiting InDesignBlog.com. The article (and script) is in German, but can be translated by your browser. –Haeme Ulrich

14. Straight Margins in Rounded Corner Text Frames

Have you ever put text in a frame with a rounded corner effect? It can mess up the margins of the text at the corners. To avoid this, simply increase the inset value on the text frame to be equal to or greater than the corner radius (Figure 19).

–Mike Rankin

15. Transpose characters

Some old editorial and word processing systems featured a “transpose” feature that would interchange two characters, and people have asked for this feature in InDesign. Indeed, InCopy even has a transpose feature (Edit > Transpose), but alas, not InDesign! But of course, this can be remedied with a simple script I wrote (Figure 20).

–Keith Gilbert

16. Convert InDesign Files into Other Formats

Have you ever had to create a bunch of PDFs from a bunch of InDesign files? Or maybe you needed to down-save a series of InDesign projects to an earlier version by exporting to IDML. These common situations can become tedious if you have more than a few files, since you need to manually go through the export process for each file. Thankfully, there is a fantastic free script called Batch Convert by Peter Kahrel, which you can download here. You’ll need to put all of the InDesign files into one folder. When you run the script, choose that folder as the input folder, and then choose where you want the converted file to be saved to (Figure 21).

This time-saving script is likely to be useful to nearly every InDesign user. –James Fritz

17. Left-align to Text Centered on the Page

Ever have a situation where you want Phone, Fax, and Email listings to line up at the left, but the block of text has to be centered on a page, relative to the width of the email address? This can be difficult, of course, because email address sizes vary a lot. The solution? Auto-Size in the Text Frame Options dialog box. First, set up the tab stops as required (in my example, I used 17mm). Then, in the Text Frame Options dialog box, select the Auto-Size tab, and choose Width Only from the Auto-Sizing drop-down menu. Using this option, the text frame will take its width from the widest line of text. Typically (as in this example) this would be the email line, but if no email existed for this client, then the type would be centered on the phone/fax numbers (Figure 22).

–Colin Flashman

18. Convert InDesign Notes to PDF Sticky Notes

Have you ever wanted to convert InDesign Notes to PDF sticky notes (annotations)? Do you need a more efficient way to communicate with clients on PDF drafts, such as asking questions about specific content or images? PDF commenting doesn’t have to just go one way! You can use PDF commenting to ask questions of your clients, while keeping the question in the proper context of the design or document. InDesign’s editorial sibling, InCopy, can make PDF sticky notes out of the box. Unfortunately, InDesign can’t without a little help from an affordable plug-in: PDFStickies, by Kerntiff Publishing Systems (£UK 30.00) (Figure 23). The plug-in does have some limitations: it doesn’t maintain the InDesign Note author name for the PDF Sticky note author name, and it doesn’t change the default sticky note icon and color. But these things can easily be changed in Acrobat. For instructions on fully utilizing PDFStickies, check out this post.

–Kelly Vaughn

19. Show No Break

The No Break attribute (in the Control panel menu) is an easy way to keep text from breaking at the end of a line. This is handy for keeping long URLs together or for fixing a short line at the end of a paragraph (a “runt”). The problem with using this feature is that there is no way to “see” where this attribute has been applied. This can be maddening if you inherit a long, text-intensive document from someone else, and are trying to edit the text or manipulate line breaks. Peter Kahrel has written a script that solves this pain point. Download and install the No Break script. When you run the script, any text with the No Break attribute applied will appear with a light blue highlight. From then on, you can enable or disable the highlighting in the Conditional Text panel. –Keith Gilbert

20. Adding a Second Animation to an Object

InDesign some has pretty impressive animation capabilities, and with the ability to use them as HTML5 increasing (for example, with the in5 plug-in), it’s worth looking at these capabilities again. However, one of the weak spots with animation in InDesign is the inability to add more than one animation to a single object. Fortunately, there is a little trick that you can use to overcome this. After you add the initial animation to your object, draw a no fill/no stroke rectangle, and group it with the original object. The animation will remain in place, but you’ll be able to add a second animation to the group. (The group acts like a different object.) Use the Timing panel to set the proper timing for the two animations. –Bob Levine