Tue, 28 October 2025
InDesign 2026 is here—and so are David and Anne-Marie! In this episode of The CreativePro Podcast, David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepción bring back InDesign Secrets and dig into the newest release of Adobe InDesign (v21). They explore what’s fresh, and what’s just plain weird. From the new Flex Layout feature to live text editing in the browser, they unpack the good, the bad, and the future potential of InDesign’s next chapter. Along the way, they share favorite finds, event updates, and a few classic “InDesign Secrets” throwbacks—complete with the return of the Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week (-eek!). Highlights: InDesign User Group: 20th Anniversary Obscure Feature of the Week: Emit CSS InDesign 2026: Flex Layout makes its debut (similar to CSS Flex Layout) David explains how Flex Containers let designers control spacing, alignment, and relationships among multiple objects. InDesign’s “InCopy on the Web” (beta) Despite the confusing name, this new feature introduces true browser-based text editing for clients and collaborators. Cloud collaboration Cloud Documents Cloud documents now autosave, sync live edits, and support share-for-text-editing links. Math Expressions evolve Math Expressions MathML integration improves with a dedicated panel and the long-awaited ability to copy equations directly from Microsoft Word into InDesign. Jean-Claude's script to convert math expressions to RGB to CMYK Context Bar gets smarter (and slightly more confusing) The floating context menu now includes quick access to paragraph and character styles. Adobe Express template integration The new “Templates” option on InDesign’s Home screen opens the Express web app, not native templates—an unexpected (and debatable) choice. Links & Resources Free Webinar: Bullets and Numbering in InDesign – Now available on demand Design + AI Summit – November 13–14, 2025 CreativePro Week – Coming to Nashville, June 29–July 3, home of Hatch Show Print Listeners can save $100 on any CreativePro event with the discount code: PODCAST CreativePro Membership – Unlock the magazine, downloads, and exclusive resources |
Tue, 23 September 2025
In this episode, Amy Balliett and Mark Heaps sit down for an honest conversation about artificial intelligence and what it means for creative professionals. They share how AI is showing up in their work today, the opportunities it creates, and the worries it raises about originality, ethics, and the future of design. Along the way, you’ll hear candid reflections on how creatives can keep their unique voice while adapting to rapid change, why embracing experimentation matters, and how to balance efficiency with authenticity. Amy and Mark bring both optimism and caution to the discussion, leaving you with practical insights and plenty to think about. Highlights
AI Tools Mentioned Links & Resources Design + AI FREE Webinar – September 30, 2025: https://creativepro.com/event/free-webinar-unlocking-the-potential-of-ai-in-video/ Design + AI Summit – November 13–14, 2025:https://creativepro.com/event/design-ai-summit-2025/ Listeners can save $100 on any CreativePro event with the discount code: PODCAST CreativePro Membership – Unlock the magazine, downloads, and exclusive resources: https://creativepro.com/membership/ |
Tue, 26 August 2025
In this episode, Theresa Jackson and Mike Rankin go behind the scenes at CreativePro. They share how their similar career beginnings in prepress connected them at their first meeting many years ago, and how they now share overlapping roles at CreativePro. You’ll hear from Mike about the CreativePro Magazine evolution from InDesign-only coverage to a broader creative focus, and other changes that make content faster and easier to digest. This is followed with a conversation about community connection and their ideas for sustaining the energy of CreativePro Week year-round. Mike shares his newly formed Office Hours, and Theresa teases similar new community initiatives on the horizon. Along the way, they preview upcoming events and dive into a candid discussion about AI in design—what excites them, what makes them uneasy, and why creativity and foundational skills still matters most. The show wraps with Mike’s top InDesign career tip—one you won’t want to miss.
Links & Resources CreativePro Membership – Unlock the magazine, downloads, and exclusive resources: https://creativepro.com/membership/ CreativePro Magazine Article MATE: Your AI Helper in InDesign and Illustrator https://creativepro.com/mate-your-ai-helper-in-indesign-and-illustrator/ Office Hours – Join the conversation: https://creativepro.com/office-hours/ Design + Accessibility Summit – September 16–19, 2025: https://creativepro.com/event/design-accessibility-summit-2025/#overview Design + AI FREE Webinar – September 30, 2025: https://creativepro.com/event/free-webinar-unlocking-the-potential-of-ai-in-video/ Design + AI Summit – November 13–14, 2025:https://creativepro.com/event/design-ai-summit-2025/ The InDesign Conference – December 9–12, 2025: https://creativepro.com/event/indesign-conference-2025/ Rob de Winter’s Flux Kontext Photoshop Plugin – https://www.robdewinter.com/flux-kontext-plugin-for-photoshop |
Mon, 28 July 2025
InDesignSecrets is now the CreativePro podcast! Join David Blatner and Theresa Jackson and review the past 20 years of podcasting, as well as what to expect next! Links and Info:
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Tue, 17 June 2025
Topics:
Friendly Alien:
Barbell:
List of All Our Obscure Features (so far)
Positional Form: |
Tue, 20 May 2025
Links: Interview with PageProof: News:
Obscure Feature: Show Transparency Grid |
Tue, 29 April 2025
Topics:
Sponsor: PageProof is a simple-to-use but powerful online proofing platform that makes giving feedback on creative work effortless See David's latest conversation with PageProof founder, Marcus Radich Links: Old InDesign Magazine articles that are definitely evergreen:
What's new in 20.3
News:
Obscure Feature: Delete All Guides on Spread |
Fri, 28 March 2025
* DOIE: Dept. of InDesign Efficiency
Join us in our live studio audience for Podcast 332 at CreativePro Week! Clear Rotation:
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Tue, 25 February 2025
Topics:
Links: Cloud Docs:
Venngage: AI powered design at your fingertips |
Tue, 28 January 2025
Includes:
News:
Theresa Jackson: Font Tricks:
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Tue, 17 December 2024
Topics:
Links:
Coming in 2025: Books we mentioned:
Background on the: carriage return |
Tue, 26 November 2024
Table Scripts:
Fixed Issues in InDesign 20.0.1 CreativePro Events: The Design + AI Summit, CreativePro Week, and more Obscure Feature: Cell Division |
Tue, 29 October 2024
What's New in InDesign 2025:
New "wow" products at MAX Interview with: Karen Brewer, Adobe Obscure Feature: "Show Subset" |
Fri, 27 September 2024
News:
Sponsors of this episode: Adobe MAX: The Creativity Conference PageProof: All your proofing in one place. Online.
Embedding Graphics:
Paula Scher:
Math Typesetting: we recommend MathType Obscure Feature: Paste Nudge |
Mon, 26 August 2024
News
Sponsored by PageProof Update note on InDesign 19.5
Three interesting InDesign Secrets forum posts
Obscure Feature: Contextual Task Bar
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Fri, 26 July 2024
News
Sponsored by PageProof Unboxing InDesign 19.5
Obscure Feature: .joboptions
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Fri, 28 June 2024
News
Interview with Sabine Lenz, "The Paper Queen"Must-Have Scripts
Even more scripts:
Obscure Feature of the Week: Neutral |
Sun, 26 May 2024
News
Marcus Radich interviewExploring InDesign 19.4Obscure Feature of the Week: Adjust Dashes and Gaps |
Thu, 25 April 2024
News
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Tue, 26 March 2024
News
Hot Threads:
Obscure Feature of the Week: Proxy
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Wed, 31 January 2024
Links mentioned in this podcast
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Wed, 3 May 2023
Sponsor for this episode >> Noble Desktop: For over 30 years, Noble Desktop’s project-based classes and certificate programs have given professionals the tools to pursue creative careers in design, coding, and beyond. Learn more about them on our Training Provider page or at NobleDesktop.com. Links mentioned in this podcast
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Sun, 27 November 2022
In this episode:
Sponsor for this episode: >> Santa Cruz Software is the creator of BrandingUI, LinkrUI, and PrintUI: BrandingUI empowers your global team to customize materials at scale, all while staying brand compliant. More on LinkrUI:
Links mentioned in this podcast:
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Tue, 27 September 2022
In this landmark 300th episode…
Sponsors for this episode: >> Canto is a leader in digital asset management (DAM) software, with customers that include many of today’s top brands. This is an incredibly intuitive and easy to use platform that gives creative teams a centralized location to organize, find, and share all of their digital brand assets, including videos, images, graphics, etc. Canto integrates directly with Adobe Creative Cloud software. For more information and a personalized demo, visit https://go.canto.com/CreativePro. >> Adobe MAX is one of the largest gatherings of graphic, web, UX and multi-skilled designers, creative and art directors, illustrators, film, video, and motion graphics pros, photographers, and creative leaders. And this year, for the first time ever, you can attend in person or online (for free), so there’s a MAX for everyone. Save $400 off the live event's registration fee by using our promo code M22CPN Register at https://max.adobe.com Links mentioned in this podcast:
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Wed, 27 April 2022
In this episode…
Sponsors for this episode: >> Microsoft and Adobe! Both of these fine companies are CreativePro partners and will be represented at CreativePro Week 2022. Adobe is flying in a group of Adobe CC engineers from India, and MS Office product manager Stephanie Horn is doing a session on using video in Powerpoint. Links mentioned in this podcast:
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Mon, 29 June 2020
In this episode:
News and special offers from our sponsors: >> Cacidi Systems, developers of awesome charts and barcode creation tools for InDesign. See their 15-minute session from CreativePro Week 2020 here. Cacidi just released a huge update to Cacidi Charts, which create many types of vector charts, easy to “convert” to InDesign for ultimate creative freedom. They offer a free 30-day trial version, and right now only for CreativeProWeek attendees 50% of the price, for a very, very limited time! Discount code: CREAPRO2020 (see Cacidi.com) >> Priint:Suite cuts up to 80% off of the creative process lifecycle for any kind of data-driven publications like catalogs, brochures, and datasheets, with the highest level of automation possible. Lay out entire pages, sections or publications with a single click, including complex, dynamic tables. See their 15-minute session from CreativePro Week here! Links mentioned in this podcast:
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Mon, 8 April 2019
In this episode:
News and special offers from our sponsor: > The InDesign Conference: If you use Adobe InDesign, mark off June 10–13, 2019 in Seattle, WA, for the InDesign event of the year! Join InDesignSecrets hosts Anne-Marie Concepción and David Blatner, and dozens of top InDesign experts and members of the Adobe InDesign team, for over 30 sessions and four in-depth half-day tutorials. All registrations include session videos and in-depth speaker handouts. Invest in yourself, register today! Discounts available for groups, government, non-profits, schools, and alumni, contact us for details. Links mentioned in this podcast:
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Wed, 31 August 2016
In this episode:
News and special offers from our sponsors: >> Teacup Software is a consulting firm and a vendor of simple, elegant, and unobtrusive plug-ins for InDesign, including BarCodeMaker, PatternMaker (developed with our own David Blatner), and DataLinker, for linking to databases. Teacup moved to a subscription-based pricing model earlier this year. You can take 15% off the first year of any subscription when you enter the code IDSECRETS15. Hurry, this offer will end in a few weeks. QUIZZLER: Listen to the podcast for the Quizzler, a simple question about InDesign that you can answer with a little searching. When you find the answer, email it to us at info at indesignsecrets.com with QUIZZLER in the Subject line (not in a comment here!). We'll choose a winner from all the correct answers we've received by SEPTEMBER 20. Winner will be notified by email and announced in the next podcast, and we'll send the prize to them too! Links mentioned in this podcast:
The mysterious Zoom Setting:
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Wed, 29 June 2016
In this episode:
News and special offers from our sponsors: >> Certitec, an Adobe Authorized Training Centre in the UK, is a premiere provider of Adobe InDesign, Adobe Animate (née Flash) and Adobe AEM training, as well as many other software programs. Two of their trainers have been voted in as the top 10 trainers in the world! Marek Mularcyk and Martin Prehiniak have achieved this over the last 12 months and accredited by Metrics that Matter. Certitec hold classes in Cardiff, London, or Bristol. Enjoy a 20% discount on any class in London or Cardiff when you mention InDesignSecrets while booking the class (on the phone or at their site). Links mentioned in this podcast:
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Mon, 24 June 2013
InDesign CC ships; Upcoming appearances; All About Frames; Obscurity of the week: Link Images Direct Link http://traffic.libsyn.com/indesignsecrets/InDesignSecrets-195.mp3 --------- Show Notes:
News and special offers from our sponsors:
>> Rorohiko: Check out their newest plug-in, RepeatAfterMe (CS1 to CS6). It lets you make simple changes to a single object, and then repeat those changes for all similar objects throughout your entire document! You get to pick in which way the other objects must be similar from a dropdown list. It's like a combination of Illustrator's "Select Similar" and "Transform Again. RepeatAfterMe is $19.00 per seat, but you can use the coupon code: INDESIGNSECRETS195 to get 30% off.
Links mentioned in this podcast:
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Mon, 28 January 2013
Listen in your browser: InDesignSecrets-187.mp3(18.6 MB, 34:47 minutes) See the Show Notes for links mentioned in this episode. Special episode with Anne-Marie and co-host James Fritz!
News and special offers from our sponsors:
>> Certitec, an Adobe Authorized Training Centre in the UK, is a premiere provider of Adobe InDesign, EPUB, and Adobe DPS training. Their InDesign classes are so great, their Intro to InDesign course is the most popular one they offer! Certitec hold classes in Cardiff, London, or Bristol. If you sign up for a class and mention this podcast, you can get 10% off any class!
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INDESIGN "PRODUCTION NIGHTMARES FROM THE TRENCHES" STORIES: We want to hear your stories! Send us a short (less than 3 minutes) "InDesign doc/client/user/coworker Horror Story" that we can play on the air (you'll be anonymous) in an upcoming episode: leave us a voice message at +1-801-459-4477 to record it, or send in your own voice recording. Please follow-up with an e-mail, which we will keep private, including any additional information that you'd like us to know. You'll get a nifty gifty from us if we play it in a podcast!
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Links mentioned in this podcast:
> David's speaking at Macworld where he'll be talking about his new book, Spectrums: Our Mind-Boggling Universe from Infinitesimal to Infinity
> Anne-Marie is presenting a workshop at O'Reilly's TOCCON, Feb 12–14 in NYC, titled, "Beautiful Typography in EPUBs"
> Fritz, David, and Anne-Marie will be presenting seminars and labs at Adobe MAX, May 4–8, 2013 (right after PEPCON!)
> Let's give our conference its own line: Come to PEPCON! Our annual Print + ePublishing Conference, this year April 28–May 1 in Austin, Texas
> Here's Fritz's author page on this blog and at lynda.com
> Willie Nelson's 80th birthday bash!
> Fritz was probably thinking of TypeFitterPro from Teacup Software
> Harb's Freeze Composition script
> Adobe's Muse Site of the Day
> Moo.com! The online business card provider that Fritz did that cool project for
> Mike Rankin's awesome InDesignFX ebook (comes with editable sample files!) and lynda.com videos
> More on the protractor
See for yourself!
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Thu, 20 December 2012
Layout Adjustment; Dear Santa; Quizzler Winners; New Quizzler; Obscurity of the Week: Load Conveyor ----- Listen in your browser: InDesignSecrets-185.mp3(15.8 MB, 29:16 minutes) See the Show Notes for links mentioned in this episode.
News and special offers from our sponsors:
>> Rorohiko’s StoryTweaker ($99) plug-in lets editors and writers access your InDesign file’s text without needing to own InDesign or InCopy. The plug-in lets one InDesign user do a Save As to create an unlimited number of AssignmentTweaker sets, which is what the editors open and work on. The workflow is spelled out on the StoryTweaker site, and there’s a 20-day free trial available. Special for InDesignSecrets listeners: Get 30% the StoryTweaker plug-in (reducing the cost from $99 to $69) if you use the code INDESIGNSECRETS185 when you buy it.
>> Mag+ (magplus.com) is an efficient and affordable digital publishing platform to create apps for tablet devices straight from InDesign. In the latest version (4.0), you can now publish to Smartphones as well –including iPhone 5. The Mag+ tools are FREE to download from their website, and work with CS4, CS5 and CS6. You can use the bundled InDesign templates, and take advantage of their innovative Review button to quickly see fully-functional touchscreen previews. For more information go to www.magplus.com.
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INDESIGN "PRODUCTION NIGHTMARES FROM THE TRENCHES" STORIES: We want to hear your stories! Send us a short (less than 3 minutes) "InDesign doc/client/user Horror Story" that we can play on the air (you'll be anonymous) in an upcoming episode: leave us a voice message at +1-801-459-4477 to record it, or send in your own voice recording. Please follow-up with an e-mail, which we will keep private, including any additional information that you'd like us to know. You'll get a nifty gifty from us if we play it in a podcast!
--
QUIZZLER: To enter this episode’s Quizzler, send an email to info@indesignsecrets.com with the word QUIZZLER in the subject line and the correct answer to the puzzle (as described in the podcast). You have until December 31, 2012 at midnight CDT to send in your answer, one per user! We will randomly choose a winner from the correct answer(s). Winner will be announced in the first podcast in 2013, and receives the prize: InDesign CS6 Essential Training DVD, a $149.95 value!
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Links mentioned in this podcast:
> Is it (or was it) the end of the world? See what they say on Slate
> Layout Adjustment blog posts on InDesignSecrets.com
> Who is Rabbi Hillel?
> You can post your InDesign wishlist items to the InDesign User Voice site
> David's favorite Christmas movie
> All about preserving vectors in Photoshop files
> Creating a custom bullet character
> More info the wonderful More Info button inside Find Font
> Content Placer tool ("Bucket of Peas" tool) is discussed here, briefly
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Mon, 13 August 2012
Find Color; Ridiculous Features; Obscurity of the Week: Save Query ----------------- Listen in your browser: InDesignSecrets-178.mp3(16.5 MB, 30:32 minutes)
[media id=99 width=* height=20]
See the Show Notes for links mentioned in this episode. The transcript of this podcast will be posted soon.
News and special offers from our sponsors:
>> Em Software: You must check out their InData plug-in for InDesign. Do a little set-up in InDesign, point it at a tab-delimited text file exported from a database or spreadsheet, and bam, you have a fully-formatted, sorted, tabbed publication, ready for distribution. InData makes the job easy for simple cases, and makes it possible for tough jobs. They're offering a 25% discount to InDesignSecrets fans for 1-packs of InData, expiring on August 31 2012. Just use coupon code IDS812 in the EmSoftware site when you purchase InData.
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Links mentioned in this podcast:
> Anne-Marie's post from 2006 on Find Where That Color's Used
> Video demo of the Find Color feature in the Blatner Tools plug-in
> Readers comment on Ridiculous Features in InDesign with their nominees
> Transcript of our Podcast (episode 139) where we discuss the Floppy Disk icon in InDesign
> Where Saved Queries live
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The CreativePro Podcast (general)
Join the CreativePro team for fun and insightful discussions about our favorite tools and technologies: InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, PowerPoint, Acrobat, print, digital publishing, presentation design, accessibility, AI, and more!
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