3

It's my first time posting here so if this topic has been addressed please let me know.

I'm the only in-house designer in my company. The company I work in has a lot of non-designers who work on designing editable templates since they don't want to rely on me doing the revisions to save time (aka, my design workflow is too slow for them because it can take a few days -.-). I mainly work on marketing automation, designing posters, web design and major print projects like books. Anything that involves major projects will always have follow-up revisions on it's content so there's always a need to enable editing. So lots of the proposals we create are now editable via powerpoint. What I'm having problems with is the revision workflow of hybrid (print and digital) documents created via indesign.

Indesign is the best platform to cater for prints like books. I've created so many guidelines to make editing more seamless (the big editing via word document before doing design or sending the PDF) but they insist on directly editing the content and add images wherever they want. I can implement a separate platform for them to add content and text but at the end of the day, if they want the print version, it still needs to be updated on Indesign. The last option i have now is to just make them buy the indesign cc app and do their editing on the program, which may mess with the design but if it helps them edit it, so be it. But hoping to look for a more sustainable way to balance creating better designs for print/digital documents but still make it editable. OR, if there's a way to totally leave indesign for a more efficient software, even better.

I have read this: Best way to send layouts with editable text to writers/editors who don't have design software But unfortunately it doesn't solve the problem of adding new images.

3
  • Related, useful but not a dupe: graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/3290/… Jul 17, 2017 at 9:36
  • You might look into using InCopy. It is like a mini-version of InDesign that is quicker and easier to learn and use for people who don't already know how to use InDesign. InCopy comes with a Creative Cloud subscription, but Adobe also lets customers purchase InCopy as a stand-alone product.
    – magerber
    Jul 19, 2017 at 20:08
  • Quark.com has a few different comprehensive solutions to what you seek from authoring to cross-platform publishing and marketing materials automation. The company has been making publishing software longer than Adobe and it is not a memory hog if that's an issue for you.
    – Stan
    Aug 7, 2019 at 13:23

3 Answers 3

1

A piece of software that was popular years ago because there wasn't anything else was Quark XPress.

It was rock solid. It depended on plug-ins for most everything which were sold a-la-carte from 3rd party sources. You bought only what you needed. It ran fast. Files were small.

Then, along came Adobe who introduced InDesign as a feature-rich Quark killer. Now, Quark XPress is almost never mentioned.

Time marches on and Quark XPress is now fully automated to handle everything from creation (a simple to use copy editor) through print and Web. It is completely compatible with MicroSoft, Adobe, Apple, etc.

I've been using it for its print page layout repetitively as a production tool. Before you decide, visit quark.com.

The capabilities are astonishing. The learning curve is steep. Their support is available 24/7. Enterprise versions are standard. It's not SaaS—you own it. I'll stop there 'cuz I don't get any commissions. I think you'll be impressed.

1
  • Specifically, look at Quark Author, Publishing Platform, and Content Automation at quark.com.
    – Stan
    Aug 7, 2019 at 13:17
0

As far as i know there's nothing out there more efficient than InDesign at the moment. There are alternatives but for a complete, truly professional workflow which integrates with the rest of Adobe's apps you need to stick with InDesign (assuming you are also linking to files via AI or PS).

More so since you already have a number of items produced and converting these to another format could be labour intensive.

With some training you could get non-designers to do some decent editing work on existing templates in InDesign. Depending on how many people will actually need a new license, it might be more cost effective for the company to just hire a junior designer to handle this extra templating workload, instead of you or the other employees doing that.

0

One primitive option is to link images to a specific folder with some standardized names, for example, Page1-Pic1.jpg

When you break the link to that folder, you can relink the images to pull some new ones.

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.