Learn how to manage, sync, and reuse graphics, colors, color themes, and character and paragraph styles – in your InDesign projects and with your teammates – from one central repository.
Adobe Creative Cloud Libraries allow you and your colleagues to collect and organize all of your design assets from different projects, devices, and apps.
Whether you’re working alone or on a team, Libraries make it easy to update, reuse, and share assets. And because Libraries are automatically synced to your Creative Cloud account, you can access them wherever you are, even offline.
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use Libraries in Adobe InDesign to make your design process efficient.
Add document assets to a Library
To add assets to a Creative Cloud Library in InDesign, go to Window > CC Libraries, to open the Libraries panel.
In the Libraries panel, you can create a new Library by clicking the Create New Library option and naming the Library, or you can simply add assets to the default library, named My Library.
To add an asset to your Library, select an object in your InDesign document and click the corresponding button in the Libraries panel to add the object (or character style, paragraph style, or color) to your selected Library.
You can also add graphic assets such as shapes and photos by dragging them directly from your document into the Libraries panel.
Add assets from Adobe Stock and mobile apps
Adobe Stock has thousands of royalty-free images, illustrations, and video assets accessible from the Libraries panel in InDesign. To search Adobe Stock, use the Libraries panel search bar. When you find the right asset, hover over it, and click the cloud icon to download a watermarked preview of the asset, or the shopping cart icon to purchase it.
Use Adobe Creative Cloud mobile apps to capture inspiration on the go, such as shapes and colors. Assets collected this way automatically sync to your Libraries.
Learn more about Using Adobe Stock with InDesign and how to Capture color themes with Adobe Capture.
Reuse Library assets
Once you save your assets to Libraries, you can reuse them in your designs—in the same file, another project, or another app—without worrying that you’ll grab the wrong versions.
To add a graphic asset to your project, drag it directly from the Library onto your InDesign layout.
To add or apply colors, color themes, paragraph styles, or character styles, select an object in your project and click the thumbnail of the desired Library asset to apply it.
Work with up-to-date assets
When you drag a graphic asset from your Library, it is placed as a linked asset in your document. If you or others reuse or modify the asset in your Library, all files will have the updated asset, ensuring that all of your files have the latest version.
Linked assets have a cloud icon on the graphic thumbnail for the asset, or, you can also look in the Links panel to see them.
Tip: To edit a copy of an asset independently, so that it doesn't update the asset in all files, create a copy of it. Press Alt/Option while dragging the asset from the Libraries panel, which creates an embedded or unlinked asset.
Share Libraries with your team
You can share a Library with your team, which allows others to contribute assets to it, and ensures everyone uses the latest versions of the assets.
In the top corner of the Libraries panel, click the Options icon and choose Collaborate. In the browser window that appears, enter the recipient’s e-mail address and an optional message, and click Invite. The recipient will receive a message with a link to accept your invitation.
Alternatively, you can choose Send Link from the Library options to allow others to download a copy of your Library that they can edit independently from your original Library.
