From InDesign Magazine
(september/2020 · Isssue #137)
InDesign MVPs: Most Valuable Plug-ins
When InDesign alone won’t cut it, these tools can help you get the job done better, faster, and cheaper.
No matter what kind of publishing you do, you’ve typically got a list of tasks that need to be applied consistently to every document, paragraph, and image.You’ve also got to meet specific output requirements, which can be everything from PDF print standards to support for interactivity on specific devices.
Much of the 20 years of development invested into Adobe InDesign has gone into making document production more automatic, efficient, precise, and scalable.But InDesign’s deep and capable feature set still doesn’t quite satisfy every last niche of publishing. That’s where InDesign extensibility closes the gaps.
You can extend InDesign in many ways, such as saving presets, installing (or even developing) a plug-in module, or writing a script. And there are literally hundreds of add-ons for you to use with InDesign… which ones are worth your time? To help you decide, we asked 30 InDesign experts from around the world to name their favorite add-ons.
Their answers are a fascinating mix of tools that will save you time, automate tedious tasks, convert a multitude of formats, and more. Here, then, are the top ten vote-getters (in order) from the survey.
★ 1 ★ Multi-Find/Change
Coming in at the top with the most votes was Multi-Find/ Change, which offers a floating panel that lets you create a set of Find/Change queries and then run them all in sequence, reducing a repetitive chore into a one-click operation. This can save a lot of time when you need to run multiple passes of Find/Change to reformat text to editorial standards.
You might be preparing a new edition of an existing book or processing contributions from authors who use multiple spaces instead of tabs or two spaces after sentences instead of one. In addition to saving time, Multi-Find/Change can help improve editorial quality and consistency by ensuring you don’t forget to perform a specific Find/Change query. Multi-Find/Change supports all of the query types you find in InDesign Find/Change: text, GREP, glyph, and object queries. You can share the sets you create with colleagues.
For more information, see Jamie McKee’s review in Issue 37.
Multi-Find / Change is my absolute favorite. The interface makes it very easy to use and organize folders based on projects. Multi-Find / Change also includes a semi-hidden option that allows you to change case, which is something that is missing from InDesign’s native Find/Change. I use this plug-in daily as part of my workflow. — Ron Bilodeau