MoreInfo Improves Notes, Conditional Text, Tracked Changes and More

Kelly Vaughn

2

Much of my workflow involves obscure, little understood technical features of InDesign. Two of the features I use the most are Conditional Text and Notes. They were introduced many years ago and haven’t been improved since then. However, from time to time, independent developers decide to tackle some of the challenges faced by users of these obscure features. And for these developers I am extremely grateful!

In this post I’d like to introduce you to a new commercial plug-in called MoreInfo by Kerntiff Publishing Systems. MoreInfo combines the information from several features and displays it all in one handy spot. With MoreInfo, you can see, well, more info, on conditional text, notes, tracked changes, overset text, and index entries.

Notes

In InDesign’s Notes panel, the content of the note will only be visible when you have the actual note character selected. So you could be hovering over the note or near the note, or even have your cursor blinking immediately beside the note, and the Notes panel will be empty. Contrast that to the MoreInfo panel, which displays the content of the Note simply by hovering over the line of text containing the Note. What an improvement!

MoreInfo Showing the content of a Note, in a way that’s much more convenient than InDesign’s Notes panel

Conditional Text

A few years ago, I wrote a related article: How to See Hidden Conditional Text in InDesign, Without Making the Condition Visible. It involved hovering over the hidden conditional text indicator, waiting patiently, a saying a prayer that the tooltip showing the hidden text would appear. But that method doesn’t work when multiple bits of conditional text are hidden and stacked on top of each other. MoreInfo completely negates that frustrating behavior! Just like when showing the contents of a Note, all the user has to do is hover above the line containing the hidden conditional text.

MoreInfo Showing Hidden Conditional Text

Tracked Changes

To see tracked changes, you’d normally need to use the Story Editor.

MoreInfo also displays tracked changes right inside the panel so you can see all the changes at a glance. While it likely won’t replace the use of the Story Editor for this purpose, I can see it being really helpful for some people.

MoreInfo displays Track Changes

Overset Text

MoreInfo also displays overset text, so you no longer have to view it in the Story Editor.

Index Entries

More Info also displays the information associated with index markers.

Combined information

One of the best things about MoreInfo is that it can display the information from multiple types of hidden characters. In the example below, it is displaying index entries, conditional text, tracked changes, and notes, all in one panel!

Multiple Types of information all in one panel

In my opinion, MoreInfo is a must-have for anyone who wants to more easily see what’s hiding under those hidden character symbols. Currently, the plug-in is just at version 1, but Version 2 is in development and promises to be even better!