10+ Best InDesign Plugins, Tools & Add-Ons
Today, we dive into a curated selection of the best InDesign plugins, tools, and add-ons that cater to a wide array of needs, from importing Word documents to searching stock images and more.
If you’re looking to add a little boost to your document design workflow, you should definitely start using these InDesign plugins and tools.
These InDesign add-ons will not only save you a ton of time but will also elevate your design workflow to a new level, allowing you to work more efficiently and deliver projects right on time.
Have a look and see if you’re already using any of these plugins.
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1. StockSolo
- Price: Free
How many times do you have to leave the InDesign app to browse websites to find stock photos? Imagine the time you can save by being able to search stock photos and download them directly from the InDesign interface. Well, that’s exactly what this plugin does.
StockSolo is a free InDesign plugin that allows you to search some of the biggest free stock photo sites and download images without leaving InDesign. The plugin lets you access libraries from Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay to explore more than 3 million high-quality and free stock photos.
2. Typefitter
- Price: $49 per year
Normally, after typing text or copying a document, you have to do a lot of work to make that text look beautiful in your document. You have to adjust spacing, fix gaps, and deal with other typographic issues. Typefitter makes that process much simpler.
With the Typefitter plugin, you can easily detect and fix common typographic issues and adjust spacing to make your documents look more professional. Using its slider, you can even fix text while seeing the changes live in your document.
3. AutoFit
- Price: Free
If you ever felt frustrated with auto-sizing text frames that usually get lost off the page layouts, AutoFit is a must-have plugin for you.
AutoFit is a simple and free InDesign plugin that allows you to create complex and responsive page layouts with less effort. Using the plugin, you can set maximum width and height to make sure the auto-sizing text stays within the boundaries of the page.
You can download the plugin for free by registering for an account.
4. Calendar Wizard
- Price: Free / $20
Creating calendars is one of the most common tasks you have to deal with when working on various types of InDesign projects. This InDesign script will make that job much easier.
InDesign Calendar Wizard is an add-on script that allows you to easily create plain and simple grid calendar designs. It’s one of the most popular and useful add-ons among InDesign users.
The add-on is free to use in your personal projects or $20 for commercial use.
5. Bookalope
- Price: Free / $79 per import
One of the most annoying parts of importing MS Word files and eBook documents in InDesign is having to clean up all the styling and structure to make them fit into your documents.
Bookaope is a plugin that allows you to easily import Word, eBook, and other similar files and convert them into InDesign formats while automatically cleaning the styling, errors, and other irregularities.
Bookalope lets you convert your first document for free. And then it costs $79 per import. To access the InDesign plugin, you’ll need the $295 plan, which lets you do 5 imports.
6. MultiPaste
- Price: Free
Are you tired of having to go back and forth between your documents and InDesign to copy over text and data? Then you should check out this plugin.
As the name suggests, MultiPaste is a simple yet powerful plugin that lets you paste the copied content from the clipboard into each selected page in your document. You can select specific pages or multiple pages at once to easily paste content into the right pages.
7. Measurement Labels
- Price: Free
Making precise measurements is an important part of designing print documents. A slightly wrong alignment could end up being an expensive mistake. To avoid such problems, you should always use a plugin like this one.
Measurement Labels is an InDesign plugin that instantly draws measurements and labels around the objects you select. It’s also useful for measuring the empty white space in documents for cutting as well.
8. GoVisually
- Price: $16 per user per month
Gathering feedback on your InDesign documents is one of the most time-consuming parts of the process. Especially when working as a freelancer, getting client approval and feedback on features can be quite frustrating.
GoVisually simplified this process of getting feedback and approval on your InDesign documents and PDFs. It lets your clients leave comments right in your document and allows you to send proofs and get approvals instantly.
9. EAN Barcode Generator
- Price: Free
Whether you’re working on an eBook, magazine, or brochure, adding a barcode is a required step of most print document projects. That’s why this plugin is a must-have for all InDesign users.
With EAN Barcode Generator, you can generate an unlimited number of barcodes for free, right within the InDesign user interface. It’s easy, straightforward, and simply gets the job done.
10. Radish
- Price: Free
Keeping track of your document changes, updates, and variations will get so much easier with this free InDesign plugin.
Radish is a document version control system that allows you to easily manage different versions of documents in one place. It will keep copies of each version of your document, just in case you want to revert back to an old version.
11. Export to split PDFs
- Price: Free
Creating multiple PDFs from a single InDesign document used to be a complicated process but not anymore. This plugin gets it done with just a few clicks.
Using this plugin, you can easily export your InDesign document into multiple PDFs. You can select a page range and select how long each PDF should be to export them into separate PDFs.
12. Layout Grid Calculator
- Price: $69
If you want to simplify the process of creating grid layouts in InDesign, you should consider adding this plugin to your collection.
Layout Grid Calculator allows you to create consistent and precise grid layouts using a user-friendly interface. It’s a useful tool for designing everything from business cards to eBooks, magazines, and more.
The plugin costs a one-time fee of $69.
Note: Some of these plugins haven’t been updated in a while and they might not work with the latest versions of Adobe InDesign
How to Install InDesign Plugins & Add-Ons
Most of the plugins we featured on this list are available in the official Adobe Exchange library. These plugins can be installed directly from the InDesign app.
Simply select Window > Browse Add-ons and then look for the add-on you want to use and Install.
If you’ve downloaded a plugin from a third-party website, it will likely come in an Installer package. You can install these by running the Installer and following the instructions provided by the developer.
For more detailed instructions, check out this guide.