Having experience in both environments, we are aware of the limitations of creating automatic workflow in InDesign Desktop. InDesign Server: Filling the intended layout with a lot of data Creating many pages or multiple variations of the same document Catalogs, price lists, tech sheets.InDesign Client: Layout composition Creating and balancing layout grids.InDesign Server: Command line and web services activate the license and interact programmatically with the application without halting workflow or processes.InDesign Client: Manual license activation, onscreen messages from application to user that halt the automation until manual approval.InDesign Server: Programming language (usually JavaScript)Īpplication dialogue (start-up, warning, and error handling).InDesign Client: GUI (graphical user interface, meaning with a mouse/keyboard/monitor), Programming language (usually JavaScript).InDesign Server: Developers or organization users with a setup workflow.

Let’s break down the main advantages of InDesign Server when a complex document, heavy workload, fast delivery, and system integration are part of the workflow. In particular, we recommend InDesign Server when the production of a document has to be fully automated to overcome both licensing and technical limitations. However, growing in this direction could pose some limitations for InDesign Desktop that can be overcome with InDesign Server. This means that both InDesign Desktop and InDesign Server can be used to create quite complex workflows that address some of the features needed in medium and large organizations. In about the same way you write Excel Macro with VBA, with InDesign, you can give instructions through programming languages.įor example, instead of starting a new document by navigating with your mouse to File, New, Document, you can send that command to InDesign with file = ()įrom here, it is easy to start compounding long chains of tasks by creating and reusing script commands.Īt Pagination, we are fixated with this method of using InDesign, and since 2009 we have helped our customers create their documents by writing in JavaScript to command InDesign Desktop and InDesign Server. To ease this workload, InDesign offers a way to use the software with scripting. However, if you have to insert and update a lot of information in a document, doing this operation manually could cost too much time or cause mistakes. Such complexity requires at least some training, and the editing of so many parameters in each element could require a lot of time. It is loaded with commands and options to customize and enrich a document as intended. A tool like InDesign offers so much precision.

Indesign trial