Introducing The New Adobe Exchange

InDesignSecrets

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Adobe recently released the new Adobe Exchange, which they describe as a Creative Suite extension marketplace. It’s available as panel within several CS6 applications (including InDesign) and lets you discover and install plug-ins, extensions and other Creative Suite content. For the first time you can see add-ons for your Creative Suite application right within the application, search, download free or paid products, and pay for them within the panel, and, best of all, you will be instantly notified within the panel if your product has been updated.

When you click on a product to download it, Adobe Extension Manager CS6 is launched and installs your product for you, in the correct location. This is great for things like scripts, for example, where you previously would have to go and find the correct folder, and then manually move the relevant files there. You can also remove products you no longer need from within Extension Manager; however, if you need them again, they are held securely in Adobe’s Exchange Cloud.

Not the same Exchange

You may know that Adobe already has an InDesign Exchange, which will be rebranded as “Exchange Classic” in due course. However, it does not offer any CS6-specific products, and does not have anything like the kind of experience as the new Adobe Exchange — which is more like an app store.

Now you are the producer

Even better: While many products on Exchange are from developers (including some of the best third party InDesign developers), it’s not just for plug-ins. Anyone can create products for the new Adobe Exchange — such as templates, scripts, and other Creative Suite content. Adobe has made this a quick and easy process with a product called Adobe Exchange Packager. As the name suggests it packages up your content so that it can be installed; then you upload it to the Exchange Producer Portal. While Adobe Exchange is in prerelease you can sign up for free via this form.

You can submit unlimited paid, private, and public products while Exchange is in prerelease (which is expected to last the Summer). Even later, anyone can submit up to 10 products, of which 2 can be paid, so your works could start earning you money.

Even if you have no plans to publicly distribute your products, you can share them privately amongst groups you create. For example, you could share assets across just one organization; the product would appear in the My Stuff section of the Adobe Exchange Panel, could be updated when required, and all the users in that group would see the update and be able to apply those updates.

You can think of it as a little like Dropbox for sharing your files, but unlike Dropbox, it knows where the Creative Suite files should be installed!

In addition to Adobe Exchange Packager there are products like Adobe CS Extension Builder 2 for developing extensions for Adobe Exchange. And the recently released Configurator 3 also lets you create products for Adobe Exchange, letting you create custom panels for Photoshop and InDesign.

Learn more:

There are more products being added to the new Adobe Exchange every day so it is definitely worth keeping an eye on. To get started you can learn more and download the Adobe Exchange Panel from Adobe Labs:
https://labs.adobe.com/technologies/exchange/

[This guest post was written by Adobe’s Jonathan Ferman, Solutions Product Manager — Creative Suite/Creative Cloud. Thanks for the great information, Jonathan!]