Plug-ins and Scripts

Welcome to the Plug-ins and Scripts page, where we post links to commercial plug-ins and scripts that we recommend. More of these are discussed and linked to in our Plug-ins and Scripts blog category.

If you have questions about installing or running scripts, see this post that explains it all for you.

To find all the free scripts that come with InDesign but aren’t part of the default install, read this post.

Here’s some more FREE stuff!

• David Blatner’s InDesign Tips Plug-in: This free “tip of the day” plug-in offers a new tip or technique each time you launch InDesign. Works on Mac and Windows; versions CS, CS2, and CS3. Instructions: Unzip the file that you download, then double-click on the installer and follow the directions.
  Go to the DTP Tools Plug-in Page
• Clever Find/Change Dialog Box Closer: This plug-in does just one little thing: It adds a “Close Find/Change Dialog” entry in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box (under the Edit Menu product area). This solves a problem for many of us who are tired of having to click Done in the Find/Change dialog box all the time.
  Download the Mac version for CS2
  Download the Windows version for CS2
• Zoom to 140 Percent: This small javascript written by Dave Saunders sets the current magnification to 140%. We discuss the uses of this in Podcast Episode 4.
• Highlight On-Off: Cross-platform script that toggles all the Preferences > Composition Highlighting settings on and off. This script was written by Gerald Singlemann in his comment he made to a post about Compositing Skills.
• Type Any Unicode Character: This script (called “dotless i.jsx”) simply types a unicode character. You can edit this tiny script in any text editor, such as the free Text Wrangler (Mac) or NotePad (Windows). There are instructions at the top. Just change the Unicode number in the script and save it (you probably want to save it with a different file name).
• Change Case of Selected Style: Another Dave Saunders donation-ware Javascript. Running this script brings up a dialog box asking two things: 1) Which paragraph style should it target; and 2) Which of InDesign’s Type > Change Case commands should it run on all the text in the targetted style. This is a CS1 and CS2 script; to run it in CS3 put it in a “Version 4.0 Scripts” folder inside the program folder’s usual Scripts > Scripts Panel folder.
• Preserve Local Formatting: Dave Saunders wrote this cross-platform Javascript that can run through a selection of text (or the whole document, if nothing is selected) and replace locally-formatted bolds and italics (among others) with equivalent Character styles. The script adds the styles to the Character Styles palettes on its own,no need to create them yourself. Works in CS1 (change extension to .js), CS2, and CS3.