DocsFlow at Agidea
Matt Dunton, digital UX (user experience) designer at Agidea, has written a very helpful overview of their use of DocsFlow and how it solves “the problem of inflexible workflow between copy and designers.”
The background:
Our problem at Agidea was that we wanted to create high quality, illustrated, on-brand documents, that could be reused and easily updated in Indesign when required, with copy and design kept separate, so that copy editors didn’t have to go into the graphics package. Because of the lack of flexibility with integrating copy and visual designs, as a work around in the past, we have used Word or Powerpoint as these are easy for content editors, despite delivering less professional visual layouts.
After adopting DocsFlow:
This has simplified Agidea’s process for print document creation, making it a much more flexible and joined up process. Gone are the days of the designer waiting patiently for the copy to be finalised, and correspondingly the copy writer having to meet a fixed deadline set by the designer. This software allows both parties to work seamlessly as a joined up team, in real time, for painless updates, greater efficient and a simpler working process for high quality print layout creation.
We encourage you to read the whole thing.
Release: DocsFlow 2.12 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This release improves browser-based drag and drop and fixes updates of spanned table cells.
Release: DocsFlow 2.11 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This release adds support for Relink, enhances the Place dialog, and improves the Export dialog.
Release: DocsFlow 2.10.5 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This release improves stability, enables InDesign’s Missing Plug-ins alert, and addresses connectivity issues.
Release: DocsFlow 2.10.4 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This quick release works around a crash bug in just-released InDesign CC 2017.1.
Release: DocsFlow 2.10.3 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This release fixes style mapping, supports list continuations, and improves stability.
Release: DocsFlow 2.10.2 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This release improves stability and fixes issues with exporting images to Google.
Release: DocsFlow 2.10.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This patch addresses minor issues with Unlink, bullet lists, and change tracking.
Release: DocsFlow 2.10 for InDesign CS5–CC2017
This release adds support for just-released InDesign CC 2017, improves drag’n’drop, and addresses a few issues with exporting.
Release: DocsFlow 2.9.6 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release fixes Export and Unlink and includes a number of stability improvements.
Release: DocsFlow 2.9.5 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release includes fixes that improve the quality and stability of updates.
Release: DocsFlow 2.9.4 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release includes fixes for a few crash issues and addresses a problem with the Unlink menu.
Release: DocsFlow 2.9.3 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This patch provides fixes for problems with placing and updating documents.
Release: DocsFlow 2.9.2 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This quick release fixes an issue with DocsFlow’s Place dialog.
Release: DocsFlow 2.9.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release fixes a PDF export conflict and includes a number of internal improvements to make DocsFlow link management more efficient and responsive.
Release: DocsFlow 2.9 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release improves support for embedded images, broadens our definition of “empty paragraph,” and addresses issues with updating and exporting stories.
Release: DocsFlow 2.8 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release adds an Update Linked Google Docs Document option to the main menu and fixes a few problems including an uncommon-but-obnoxious application freeze.
Release: DocsFlow 2.7 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release officially introduces our custom installers, adds import control for cell insets, and fixes minor issues with licensing and export.
Release: DocsFlow 2.6 for InDesign CS5–CC2015
This release adds support for just-released InDesign CC 2015 and abandons Extension Manager CC in favor of, for now, a manual installation procedure (see below).
Release: DocsFlow 2.5.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This patch release addresses a problem with yesterday’s 2.5 release that was causing successful sign-ins to be ignored.
Release: DocsFlow 2.5 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This release adds picture export, updates the Sign In to Google Docs process, and includes a number of other improvements and fixes.
DocsFlow users: switch to browser login immediately
On April 20th, Google is going to shut down the old-style API (application programming interface) employed when you use a direct login in DocsFlow. (You may have gotten a scary-looking notice from Google that says “ACTION REQUIRED: Your Google Apps account is using the Documents List API, which will stop functioning on April 20th, 2015”.)
The good news is that DocsFlow has long been employing the new-style API when you login via the browser, so there should be no surprises.
You should simply start using File > DocsFlow > Sign in to Google Docs… > Sign in securely with your browser (you might need to logout first), rather than Sign in directly here:, and you should be fine.
We also strongly suggest that you upgrade to the latest DocsFlow (see the release notes), as this release fixes a critical bug with anchored, linked items in a story.
Release: DocsFlow 2.4.2 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This release mainly addresses issues with anchored, linked items causing damage to the parent story’s DocsFlow connection.
Release: DocsFlow 2.4.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This quick release deals with a recent Google Drive change that was preventing drag’n’drop from working.
Release: DocsFlow 2.4 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
With this release we’re introducing a new, fully functional, Pro-product trial mode with a 15-day evaluation period (details below). This release also includes improvements for text updating and exporting.
Release: DocsFlow 2.3.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This release improves compatibility with OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) and fixes problems with the Place dialog and with table updating.
Release: DocsFlow 2.3 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This release fixes an incompatibility with the just-released InDesign CC 2014.1 update, changes how documents are displayed in DocsFlow’s Place dialog, and includes minor fixes for document updating.
Release: DocsFlow 2.2.2 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This maintenance release adapts to recent Google service changes and addresses problems with drag’n’drop and sheets.
WordsFlow and DocsFlow user guides now printable/pdf-able
In this Age of the Web, hard copy (physical or virtual) doesn’t matter to most people, but it really matters to some. So we’ve just made important parts of our web site printable or pdf-able for when you want to take some part of it offline with you in paper or digital form, for study, reference or just light vacation reading.
Release: DocsFlow 2.2.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This patch release addresses an issue with the recently-introduced story status indicator on the DocsFlow link icon.
Release: DocsFlow 2.2 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This release mainly adds support for back-saving to previous versions of InDesign, but also addresses a few minor issues.
Release: DocsFlow 2.1.2 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This quick release fixes a build problem with the CC 2014 Windows plug-in and improves update behavior in low memory conditions.
Release: DocsFlow 2.1.1 for InDesign CS5–CC2014
This release adds compatibility with InDesign CC 2014 along with a few fixes.
Release: DocsFlow 2.1 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC
This dot-release improves ODF support, adds support for exporting InDesign’s various story breaks, and improves overall stability.
Release: DocsFlow 2.0.11 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC
This DocsFlow patch corrects a plug-in packaging problem.
Release: DocsFlow 2.0.10 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC
This DocsFlow quick release fixes an issue with links to placed GDrive documents and also story export.
Release: DocsFlow 2.0.9 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC
This DocsFlow quick release fixes minor issues with updating and exporting.
DocsFlow helps out at Syracuse University
Seth Gitner, Assistant Professor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University, writes:
In early 2012, a dozen students in the Multimedia Projects course at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University set out to create an interactive storytelling mobile tablet application on Central New York’s notorious winters.
Famous for frigid temperatures and record-crushing snowfalls, Central New York averages 116.9 inches of snow annually. During the previous winter, more than 179 inches of snow accumulated, making “winter” a natural choice for an interactive storytelling project.
The story ends with a call-out to DocsFlow:
The stories for this application were inserted using a content management system that combined Google Documents and InDesign using the InDesign plugin DocsFlow, from Em Software.
Go read the whole thing—it’s a great story.
Release: DocsFlow 2.0.8 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC
This patch release resolves several problems with exporting stories and with updating a story’s associated Google Docs document.
Release: DocsFlow 2.0.7 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC
This patch release addresses issues with updating Google Docs documents from Adobe InDesign (via Update Original) and improves the quality and general stability of updating.
Release: DocsFlow 2.0.6 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6/CC
This release adds support for InDesign CC and includes improvements to product stability and usability.
Release: DocsFlow 2.0 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6
It’s with a great sigh of relief that, after nearly half a year of substantial internal re-engineering and intense development, we today release DocsFlow 2.0, the much anticipated follow-up to our acclaimed Google Docs connector plug-in. DocsFlow 2.0 offers many customer-driven improvements and new features. The new Pro level gives you full export to Google Docs, and full updating, where you can push-merge your changes from InDesign back into your linked Google Docs document, along with spreadsheet support.
You can purchase both Pro and non-Pro licenses or download the plug-in from the “DocsFlow for InDesign” sidebar, which appears here, on the product page, on the user guide page, and on any related news items.
As a thank-you to our early adopters, all of the licenses we’ve issued prior to this release have been Pro licenses. By updating to this release, those of you who have already purchased a license will instantly gain all of this version’s Pro capabilities (mainly story export and two-way updating).
You can learn all about DocsFlow at a high level from its product home page. And you’ll find all the details about using DocsFlow effectively in our online user guide.
New lynda.com course showing DocsFlow and WordsFlow
Anne-Marie Concepción has published a new online video course Using Word and InDesign Together on lynda.com that includes brief overviews of both WordsFlow and DocsFlow.
The course itself looks great, as you’d expect from Anne-Marie, and the two short overviews of our products are spot on. She mentions DocsFlow 2.0, which includes two-way linking to Google Docs, and which we’re just about to release in the next few days.
Beta release: DocsFlow 2.0 beta 4 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6
This beta adds support for OpenOffice (ODF) files, enables multi-document import, and addresses minor issues found during testing.
Beta release: DocsFlow 2.0 beta 3 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6
This beta introduces Pro and non-Pro-level licensing, adds visual indicators to DocsFlow-managed stories, increases import flexibility, and addresses issues found during testing.
Beta release: DocsFlow 2.0 beta 2 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6
This beta addresses some initial issues found during testing.
Release: DocsFlow 1.6.1 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6
This patch release of DocsFlow resolves a conflict with our WordsFlow product and adds quality and stability improvements for InDesign story updating.
Beta release: DocsFlow 2.0 beta 1 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6
We’re happy to announce the immediate availability of DocsFlow 2.0 beta 1, which adds long-awaited support for exporting InDesign stories to Google Docs. In addition, Google Docs documents can now be updated from their linked InDesign stories. We’ve also made improvements to the Place from Google Docs dialog and redesigned DocsFlow’s internals to better support some planned features in upcoming releases.
Release: DocsFlow 1.6 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6
This release of DocsFlow introduces major improvements to table handling and improves the overall quality of the merge process.
Release: DocsFlow 1.5 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6
We’re happy to announce DocsFlow 1.5, which adds support for Google Drive files, improves the drag’n’drop workflow, converts page breaks to InDesign frame breaks, and enhances the quality of story updating.
Release: DocsFlow 1.4.8 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6
This patch release addresses a loss-of-connection issue and includes several improvements for updating from Google Docs.
Release: DocsFlow 1.4.7 for InDesign CS5/CS5.5/CS6
This release supports placing public documents even when not in the user’s account, and fixes a slew of minor bugs.
Release: DocsFlow 1.4.6 for InDesign CS5/5.5/6
This patch release addresses Mac OS X 10.7 & 10.8 installation issues and improves link handling.
DocsFlow accelerates annual report production at literacy project
In general, we’re happy to donate software to qualified educational institutions (for teaching applications) and to non-profit organizations, and we did so for Wisconsin Literacy a few months ago. Sheila McGrath kindly reports back with a very positive review of using DocsFlow with InDesign for their annual report production.
Thank you so much for giving us DocsFlow. Wisconsin Literacy produced their annual report using DocsFlow, with me as an off-site volunteer graphic designer.
(Click on the annual report cover for the full pdf version.)
DocsFlow for CS4 worked very well for flowing text into InDesign. I was not able to get custom style-mapping to work automatically (likely an older Mac Javascript version on my machine rather than a DocsFlow problem) but I had no problem importing text into InDesign smoothly. I just re-imported text after changes and my styles were retained, so all was well. The Links panel indications of file changes worked fine also.
Release: DocsFlow 7/8.1.4.5 for InDesign CS5/5.5/6
This patch release fixes spreadsheet imports and addresses styling issues.
Release: DocsFlow 7/8.1.4.4 for InDesign CS5/5.5/6
This patch release addresses a problem with loss of styling.
Release: DocsFlow 6/7/8.1.4.3 for InDesign CS4/5/5.5/6
This patch release improves document updating.
Release: DocsFlow 6/7/8.1.4.2 for InDesign CS4/5/5.5/6
This patch release fixes problems with style mapping and with deleted documents being displayed in the Place dialog.
DocsFlow gets “exceptionally good” rating in a full review from InDesign Magazine
David Blatner, one of the patriarchs of the InDesign ecosystem, in the June/July 2012 issue of InDesign Magazine, reviewed the latest version of DocsFlow and gave it 4 stars for “exceptionally good.”
David opens with a great story:
For me, one of the most memorable highlights at the PePcon conference this year was a simple conversation in the hallway with an attendee about the DocsFlow plug-in. Staring at me in near-disbelief, he stammered, “You mean I can have all my writers and editors working in Google Docs, and have their changes automatically update in InDesign? That’s awesome!” Yes, yes it is.
Release: DocsFlow 6/7/8.1.4.1 for InDesign CS4/5/5.5/6
This release of DocsFlow adds support for Adobe InDesign CS6, adds links for images, and includes many improvements to importing and updating.
Beta release: DocsFlow 8.1.4 beta 2 for InDesign CS6
This beta improves the quality and reliability of DocsFlow updates.
Beta release: DocsFlow 8.1.4 beta 1 for InDesign CS6
We’re happy to announce the immediate availability of DocsFlow 8.1.4 beta 1 for Adobe InDesign CS6.
DocsFlow is a huge time saver at a non-profit
David Rager, a designer/art director in Paris who works with a non-profit organization called The Ecology Center in California, has been using DocsFlow recently and is quite enthusiastic about the product.
I’ve been plugging away with DocsFlow over the last few months and found it that it’s been a huge time saver. What I love most is that it takes away the trouble I often run into with the conventional edit, proofread, approval, repeat system. My clients are also very happy that they get to interact with a live document and see how their text edits change the way the design looks and feels.
Our first “DocsFlow project” came back from press recently, 5 contributors were involved, each updating their own docs and everyone is very pleased with the results.
(Click on the graphic to review the issue.)
Release: DocsFlow 6/7.1.4 for InDesign CS4 & CS5/5.5
We just posted DocsFlow 1.4, in which we made further improvements to placing and managing large numbers of Google Docs documents, improved usability, added an option for secure, browser-based sign-ins, and fixed a few gremlins.
Release: DocsFlow 6/7.1.3.1 for InDesign CS4 & CS5/5.5
This patch release makes staying signed in while working with documents containing many GDocs document links much more possible, and also addresses problems with mis-mapped styles, paragraph spacing and dates in spreadsheets.
Release: DocsFlow 6/7.1.3 for InDesign CS4 & CS5/5.5
We just released DocsFlow 1.3, which includes several new usability features, substantial performance improvements, and a handful of bug fixes.
Release: DocsFlow 6/7.1.2.1 for InDesign CS4 & CS5/5.5
This patch release fixes crash issues with using Edit Original and displaying the Place Google Docs Documents dialog.
Update: DocsFlow 6.1.2 for InDesign CS4
This minor update addresses an incompatibility with DocsFlow 6.1.2 for InDesign CS4 and some Windows 7 installations. If you’ve experienced problems signing in to your Google Docs account with the initial DocsFlow 6.1.2 release, please remove DocsFlow from your Plug-Ins folder and then download and install this 6.1.2 re-release.
We apologize for the inconvenience of these extra steps and hope that you find DocsFlow to be a valuable addition to your Google Docs workflow.
Release: DocsFlow 6/7.1.2 for InDesign CS4 & CS5/5.5
We’re very pleased to announce DocsFlow 1.2, which adds support for spreadsheets, drag-and-drop and a host of other improvements resulting from many hours of production use by our expanding community of DocsFlow users.
Release: DocsFlow 6/7.1 for InDesign CS4 & CS5/5.5
We’re pleased to announce DocsFlow 7.1, which, along with general fixes and improvements, adds several new features including full tables support and footnote styling.
We’re also very pleased to announce DocsFlow 6.1 for Adobe InDesign CS4, available immediately (see DocsFlow for InDesign CS4 sidebar).
Early DocsFlow release reactions
It’s only been a couple of days, but we’ve seen a huge amount of interest in DocsFlow since its official release on Tuesday.
The Twittersphere has exploded with interest (keep scrolling down for dynamic refresh).
And The Unofficial Apple Weblog has an enthusiastic response.
We sponsored the InDesign Secrets podcast this week with Anne-Marie Concepcion and David Blatner, and they talked about DocsFlow in podcast 156 at some length (starting at 15:00). The whole podcast is great (as usual).
DocsFlow 7.0 for InDesign CS5/5.5 released
We’re thrilled to announce that, after almost exactly two years of development, and several months of intense beta testing, we’ve released the first version of DocsFlow (7.0) for InDesign CS5 and CS5.5. DocsFlow is a plugin that connects Google Docs to InDesign, for a breakthrough in affordable collaborative publishing.
Beta release: DocsFlow 7.0 beta 4 for InDesign CS5/5.5
DocsFlow 7.0 beta 4 (for InDesign CS5/5.5, Mac OS and Windows) is now available for download and testing. We think this version represents a huge step forward, as it fixes a few major updating and stability problems that were hampering usability. We’ve also made further improvements to the merge process and made various other fixes and improvements that are detailed below.
Beta release: DocsFlow 7.0 beta 3 for InDesign CS5/5.5
DocsFlow 7.0 beta 3 (for InDesign CS5/5.5, Mac OS and Windows) is now available for download and testing. This version adds style mapping, as well as many internal changes which improve the import and update experience.
Beta release: DocsFlow 7.0 beta 2 for InDesign CS5/5.5
DocsFlow 7.0 beta 2 (for InDesign CS5/5.5, Mac OS and Windows) is now available for download and testing. We encourage you to upgrade to this version if you’re using DocsFlow, as it fixes some update merge problems, improves stability, and builds in some debugging tools to help us diagnose future merge problems.
Beta release: DocsFlow 7.0 beta 1 for InDesign CS5/5.5 Windows
After a long struggle with packaging the complex technology behind DocsFlow, we’re very happy to announce the release of the first Windows beta version of DocsFlow 7.0 for both InDesign CS5 and CS5.5.
You can download it from the sidebar on the right or from the (same) sidebar on the main product page. When you download and expand the linked .zip file, you’ll find an outermost folder Em DocsFlow 7.0 beta 1, containing the folder Plug-ins for InDesign CS5 & CS5.5, containing the actual installation file docsflow70b1_installer_win.zxp, which you double-click to install.
(Adobe Extensions Manager will install the proper version (CS5 vs CS5.5) based on what you have installed on your system.)
We’re working on beta 2 for both platforms (Mac OS and Windows), containing some important bug fixes and feature additions. We hope to pick up the release pace, now that we’ve jumped the initial release hurdle.
Early DocsFlow beta feedback
There are already a couple of public responses to DocsFlow that might be helpful for others kicking its tires.
David Blatner gives his initial thoughts in an InDesign Secrets blog entry and emphasizes the “magic” part of DocsFlow, the document merging facilities. His tagline is “Em Software’s DocsFlow heralds a breakthrough in collaborative publishing!”
Haeme Ulrich calls it a “dream fulfilled” in his Ulrich Media blog entry (German; here’s a Google translation into English.)
Beta release: DocsFlow 7.0 beta 1 for InDesign CS5.5
Last night we re-released the DocsFlow beta to include binaries for both InDesign CS5 and CS5.5 (including 7.5.1, the latest update).
You can download it from the sidebar on the right or from the (same) sidebar on the main product page. When you download and expand the linked .zip file, you’ll find an outermost folder Em DocsFlow 7.0 beta 1, containing the folder Plug-ins for InDesign CS5 & CS5.5, containing the actual installation file docsflow70b1_installer_mac.zxp, which you double-click to install.
(Adobe Extensions Manager will install the proper version (CS5 vs CS5.5) based on what you have installed on your system.)
Beta release: DocsFlow 7.0 beta 1 for InDesign CS5
We’re delighted (and relieved) to announce that the first beta of DocsFlow, our brand-new product for connecting InDesign to Google Docs, is now available for public download and testing, at no cost during the beta test.
See the sidebar to download and for further information, such as the DocsFlow product overview (home page) and the user guide.
We’re first releasing the InDesign CS5 Mac OS version, with the CS5.5 Mac OS version coming later today. Then we’ll release the Windows versions over the next few days as we finish its integration process.
If you’re interested in testing, we strongly encourage you to learn more about keeping in touch via various methods, so you can hear about each beta release as it happens. At first, they’ll be coming pretty fast and furious, while we work out the bugs and glitches.
Thanks for any feedback you can give us, and we hope you find this new tool incredibly useful!
