Adobe InDesign FAQ

InDesign is a professional page layout application for creating print and digital publications. You can design, preflight, and publish magazines, brochures, books, posters, interactive PDFs, digital magazines, eBooks, and more with precise control over typography and layout.

A professional page layout application for print and digital publishing, Adobe InDesign lets you design, preflight, and publish a broad range of content for print, web, and tablet apps. It offers precise control over typography, built-in creative tools, an intuitive design environment, and tight integration with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and Adobe Animate.

InDesign is built for designers, prepress and production professionals, and print service providers who work for magazines, design firms, advertising agencies, newspapers, book publishers, and retail/catalog companies, as well as in corporate design, commercial printing, and other leading-edge publishing environments.

And because InDesign is part of Adobe Creative Cloud, you get access to all the latest updates and future releases the moment they’re available. With a Creative Cloud plan, you can also access Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, Single Edition* from within InDesign to design and package unlimited single-edition iPad apps for submission to the Apple App Store. Learn more about Creative Cloud.

InDesign leads an integrated publishing family that also includes InCopy and InDesign Server. InCopy is a professional writing and editing program that integrates with InDesign to provide collaborative editorial workflows among designers, writers, and editors, and it is also included in a Creative Cloud plan. InDesign Server brings high-end composition and layout to a server platform, introducing new levels of automation to editorial workflows, collateral creation, data-driven personalized publishing, and template-based web-to-print solutions.

InDesign specializes in multi-page layouts and typography, making it ideal for publications. Illustrator creates vector artwork and logos, while Photoshop edits raster images and photos. Most professionals use all three together—editing images in Photoshop, creating graphics in Illustrator, and assembling everything in InDesign.

InDesign tightly integrates with Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro, InCopy, and Flash Professional. InDesign shares a common user interface, commands, panels, and tools with Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash Professional, and InCopy, so it’s easy to apply what you know about one program when you’re learning another, and to move efficiently from program to program. Because you can import native Photoshop and Illustrator files, it’s easier to lay out, enhance, and update graphics. Native support for PDF files gives you reliable, consistent output whether you publish to print, the web, or devices, you can hand off your page layouts with great fidelity and maintain animation, sound, and video files placed in your documents. In addition, InDesign and InCopy work together to provide robust editorial workflow management for small creative teams.

Yes. If you require a custom solution built on core InDesign technology, systems integrators worldwide can provide publishing systems compatible with InCopy and InDesign.

InDesign includes two Adobe Firefly-powered features: Text to Image (generate images from text prompts) and Generative Expand (extend image boundaries). Both are included with your InDesign subscription, designed for commercial use, and require an internet connection. Learn more about generative AI features in InDesign.

Yes. You can create interactive PDFs with buttons, hyperlinks, and multimedia; export reflowable or fixed-layout EPUBs for eBooks; and publish documents online with Publish Online for web viewing on any device. InDesign also exports to formats optimized for tablets and mobile devices.

InDesign Server is a robust, highly flexible, and scalable layout and composition engine that offers the ability to automate the design, layout, and typographical capabilities of InDesign. Based on the same code base as InDesign, it can power many types of automated publishing solutions, including web-to-print, VDP, and editorial workflow solutions, while delivering the same output quality you would expect from InDesign. Most solutions powered by InDesign Server use templates created by designers using the desktop version of InDesign.

Although InDesign Server shares its code base with the desktop version of InDesign, there are a number of important differences:

• InDesign Server is an engine used to power larger automated publishing solutions.
• InDesign Server is a headless application with no built-in user interface. A customer or solution partner would design a user interface tailored to the automated publishing solution that InDesign Server powers.
• Like InDesign, InDesign Server can be driven through scripting or C++ plug-ins. However, it can also be driven through a SOAP interface or Java APIs.
• Automated publishing solutions powered by InDesign Server can scale as requirements change, with support for multiple instances running on multiple processors.
• InDesign Server has been rigorously tested to help ensure that it delivers long periods of continuous uptime.
• InDesign Server has been designed and tested to work on the server versions of Windows and macOS, including Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2.
• InDesign Server isn't included in Creative Cloud and must be purchased separately.

For help evaluating whether InDesign Server is the right technology for you, call Adobe Sales at 888-649-2990, or download a trial version by selecting the Try link on the InDesign Server product pages.

Yes. You can automate workflows using JavaScript, AppleScript, VBScript, or UXPScript. The InDesign SDK allows developers to create custom plugins, and you can purchase or download extensions from Adobe Exchange. Keyboard shortcuts, workspace layouts, and preferences are fully customizable.

No, newer versions of InDesign cannot be opened in older versions. However, you can export your document as IDML (InDesign Markup Language) via File > Export, which provides backward compatibility to InDesign CS4 and later.

Access tutorials, the user guide, and product support at InDesign Learn & Support. You can also follow InDesign on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and X for tips and updates.