Learn the new features in InDesign CC
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Update to InDesign CC available

For more information, see the New features summary.


Sync settings using Adobe Creative Cloud

New in InDesign CC

The new Sync Settings feature enables individual users to sync their settings using Creative Cloud. If you use two computers, for example, one at home and another at work, the Sync Settings feature makes it easy for you to keep those settings synchronized on these two computers. Also, if you have replaced your old computer with a new one and have reinstalled InDesign, you can get the application set up quickly with all your settings in place by just pressing a button.

For more information, see Sync Settings using Adobe Creative Cloud (article).

User interface modernization

Enhanced in InDesign CC

InDesign, by default, is now available with a dark theme, which is in line with recent changes in other products such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro. This theme enables a more pleasant visual experience, especially while working with rich colors and designs. It also makes cross-application work simpler than ever.

Dark and medium light user interface
Light and medium dark user interface

New vibrant color themes for user interface: Dark, medium light, light, and medium dark

You can easily vary the brightness of the user interface to a tone you prefer from the Interface option in the Preferences dialog. You can enable Match Pasteboard to Theme Color to set the tone of the pasteboard area to match the brightness of the interface. If you prefer the classic (CS6 or prior) InDesign pasteboard color, you can deselect this option.

For more information, see Tour the new interface (video).

Platform enhancements

Enhanced in InDesign CC

HiDPI support

To take advantage of advancements in high-resolution display technologies, InDesign now includes native support for high-resolution displays. This feature is currently available for the Mac OS (for example, the MacBook Pro with Retina display). You can now enjoy working with a sharper and clearer environment on these devices. You can view text and complex artwork in greater clarity, and in colors and hues that appear more vibrant than before.

64-bit support on Mac and Windows

InDesign, InCopy, and InDesign Server are all now 64-bit applications to leverage RAM beyond 3GB on both Mac and Windows. All the features of InDesign have been enabled to work in 64-bit mode. With support for 64-bit architecture, general processing is faster and more RAM can be made available to the application. This speeds up processes, and makes it easier to work with several large files at a time.

QR codes

New in InDesign CC

You can now generate and edit high quality independent QR code graphics from within InDesign. The generated QR code is a high-fidelity graphic object that behaves exactly like native vector art in InDesign. You can easily scale the object and fill it with colors. You can also apply effects, transparency, and printing attributes such as overprinting, spot inks, and trappings to the object.

The Generate QR Code feature is accessible via Menu > Object, and via the right-click context menu when an empty frame is selected. 

Generate QR Code dialog

Once placed inside a document, the QR code is treated as a traditional EPS object, except that a tooltip appears on hovering over the object, revealing the content details.

QR code graphics

For more information, see Generate QR codes (video) or Generate QR codes (article).

Font menu enhancements

Enhanced in InDesign CC

Several enhancements have been made to the Font menu, including the way fonts are displayed, searched, and selected. You can now also identify Favorite fonts for easy access, and apply fonts on selected text while browsing so that you can see how your fonts will look in the layout.

Major enhancements

  • Search fonts by any part of the name
  • Show fonts with families in a sub-menu
  • Apply font selection by arrow keys to the selected text
  • Manage your favorite fonts

New Fonts menu widget

The new fonts widget has been added in the Character panel and the Control panel. The widget has four elements.

Fonts menu widget
  1. Button control to toggle between the two available search modes
  2. Text field to display selected font name or enter the search keyword
  3. Clear search icon; appears only when some text is entered in the search field
  4. Drop-down arrow button to display the font list – all fonts or search results

Clicking the drop-down arrow button without entering any search string displays a pop-up list of all installed fonts.

Pop-up list of installed fonts

Search fonts made easy

You can now easily search for the fonts you are looking for. There are two modes for doing this:

  • Search Entire Font Name: Looks for a match anywhere in the Font Name. As you type in some text, matched font names are displayed in a popup.
  • Search First Word Only: The first match begins with the entered text is suggested and the remaining portion of the font name is populated automatically.
Search options

Using the new search

As you clear the font name and start typing, the search results start appearing in the popup. A Cross icon appears in the widget to help you clear off the results quickly and start afresh. The search results are displayed as a flat list (without grouping of font and associated family). For example, Ebrima is a family and has two styles – Regular and Bold. If you search for Ebrima, both Regular and Bold are displayed as separate entries and are not grouped as Ebrima.

Flat font list

Browse and apply fonts

You can browse the fonts list with the Arrow keys. On selection, the font style is applied to the selected text in your layout or document for preview. Clicking a font name or pressing the Enter key commits the font style and closes the Font List popup.

Manage your favorite fonts

You can add or remove a font from the Favorite list by clicking the Favorite icon (star) in the font list. When you click the drop-down arrow key, you see the Favorite icon highlighted in Black for the fonts which are marked as favorite.

Favorite fonts list

Adding or removing a font belonging to a family adds or removes the entire font family to the Favorite list.

Font family as a favorite

For more information, see Font Menu Enhancements in Adobe InDesign CC (video).

EPUB enhancements

Enhanced in InDesign CC

EPUB Export workflows have been simplified: several improvements in the existing features, additional control while authoring, and a few brand-new features.

Support for table of contents (TOC) stories

TOC Story has been redone so that any existing, possibly edited TOC story is now exported like any other story. If portions of these TOC stories are copied and pasted elsewhere, the hyperlinks back to the PDF page and the source paragraphs (in case of an EPUB Export) remain live.
The NCX (navigation) file, required in the EPUB package, cannot use an existing TOC and is generated using the TOC style as in CS6.

  • If you don’t want page numbers in the TOC, you can remove them manually or generate the TOC without page numbers.
  • TOC stories generated in CS6 and before must be regenerated in InDesign CC for the links to be live.

Support for Index stories

Index stories are now supported in the exported EPUB file. Live hyperlinks to indexed terms are displayed in the exported file. The terms retain their references to content at paragraph level.

Export without CSS

While exporting an InDesign document or book to EPUB/HTML, if you decide not to generate the CSS, only the classes associated with the styles are marked in the HTML tags; no overriding classes are created. The exported file is now much cleaner and ready for an external CSS.

CSS option on the Epub export options dialog box

EMIT CSS

The Emit CSS control has been added under the Export Tagging of the Paragraph, Character, and Object Style edit dialogs. If you want to include this style in the CSS, select the Emit CSS check box. If you don’t select the check box, no CSS class will be generated for this style. If you have two or more styles having the same class assigned, InDesign displays an error or warning message while exporting.

Emit CSS option

Tidier CSS

To map InDesign attributes with appropriate CSS properties, it is often necessary that we have to generate a sort of “override class” to adjust the behavior of the CSS class generated from the style. Prior to this change, these were given obscure names. These names have now been changed to reflect their purpose and give more clarity to the users regarding the applied overrides.

Object style to export tag mapping

Object Style Options now has the Export Tagging feature. In terms of mapping styles to classes and tags, the object styles now work more like paragraph and character styles.

Export tagging option in Object Style

Object export options for object styles

Object Style Options now includes the Export Options for Alt Text, Tagged PDF, and EPUB & HTML. You can specify rasterization settings and custom layout options. Objects with the applied style are handled based on the export options.

For more information, see:

Adobe Exchange panel

New in InDesign CC

The new Adobe Exchange panel is now an in-app experience for you to explore and discover content, plug-ins, and scripts that you can purchase or download for free. If you produce scripts, templates, plug-ins, or anything that can enhance the functionality of Adobe’s Creative applications, you can quickly package and submit and make them available to a larger community.

Adobe Exchange even lets you privately share products. For example, you can package up a series of images, InDesign templates, and other files. Anyone with who you have privately shared the products can install the content and see any updates you make. The experience is very much like an app store.

You can become a producer for free. Get started here: https://www.adobeexchange.com/producer

To open the Exchange panel, go to Windows > Extensions > Adobe Exchange.

Adobe Exchange panel

For more information, see Explore the new Exchange panel (video).

Other updates

Enhanced in InDesign CC

New document dialog box

The New Document dialog now has the option of showing a preview of the new document. As you select new document options, you see the impact of the selection or changes in the background at the same time.

New document dialog box

For more information, see Create a new document (video).

Opomba:

(Chinese, Japanese, and Korean only) The preview option is displayed in the New Layout Grid dialog box (New Document > Layout Grid dialog).