Edit images & text in layouts

Place images and texts

You can drag and drop text and image assets to place them or you can use the asset chooser dialog. For drag and drop you have the pinboard as an option. You can also drag assets from an asset list widget such as the “Layout elements” widget next to the editor window and then drop them where you wish.

For the asset chooser dialog, you first need to click the desired frame in order to select it. If the frame is part of a layout group then the layout group will be shown here. In this case, you need to double-click the frame itself to select it.

In the middle of the frame, the frame action bar will be shown with the editing buttons. Click the “Place asset” button to open the asset chooser dialog. Using the standard asset lists, filters for asset details and the page search you can limit the selection. Click the desired asset and confirm your selection with “OK”. Otherwise, discard the selection with CANCEL. For more information see the article about the asset chooser dialog.

For drag and drop, click the cursor in the desired asset. For the pinboard, you need to first open it before you have access to the asset. For more information see the article "Working with tabs". Drag the asset to the desired frame and hold down the SHIFT key while you do it. The SHIFT key tells censhare that you want to select one single frame and not a layout group. As soon as the frame changes and you are requested to place the asset, you can drop it.

While censhare places the selected asset, you will see a progress bar in the frame. After that censhare shows you a preview of the associated master file in the frame.

In the Editor for InDesign Documents, there are different rights associated with placing assets or changing placements within a frame.It might therefore be the case that you can place an asset in an empty frame, but you can’t replace that asset with another one.

An exception here is frames that don’t belong to a group and in which an asset is already placed. If you have the appropriate rights, you can also edit these frames. You always need to double-click in order to see the frame action bar for editing. Likewise, you can place an asset and replace existing assets using drag and drop.

Note on dynamic layouts:  If you use dynamic layouts when changing page size or layout boxes or when placing content, the spacing of frames or other parameters may change. This is intentional behavior and cannot be influenced by you. The Editor for Adobe InDesign documents works with the native censhare dynamic layout solution or with Dylation dynamic layouts for Adobe InDesign. In order to use the Dylation solution, you need an appropriate script to be executed on your InDesign server instance which is not part of the censhare configuration.

Disclaimer:  Dynamic layouts generated with Dylation use the respective third-party plug-in for Adobe InDesign. To take advantage of that feature, censhare calls the "dynamic layout script" from Dylation. Notwithstanding, censhare does not provide any support for Dylation itself or its scripts and shall therefore not be held responsible for the correct execution of these.

Select overlapping frames

The Editor for InDesign Documents with toolbar (1), layout window (2) and preview bar (3): It takes into consideration the spatial arrangement of the frames if they are overlapping (5): The Editor for InDesign Documents highlights the frame over which you have moved the cursor (4).

The Editor for InDesign Documents also considers the spatial arrangement of layout elements in an Adobe InDesign layout and displays the frames according to this index: Frames that are farther ahead overlap frames that are farther back, according to their Z-index.

The editor highlights the frame over which the cursor is moved. Parts of the frame that are covered by other frames will be half-transparent. If you place an image using drag and drop, for example, you will clearly see which frame you are currently selecting.

Edit images and texts

Move the cursor to the desired image or text. Select the frame by double-clicking it. The action bar for the frame will appear. Click the button and censhare now opens the asset in the corresponding asset page. Go to the “Editor” tab to edit the asset there. For more information see the article on the Image editor and the article for "Editor for InCopy Documents".

As an administrator, you can select the threshold values for the minimum image resolution (dpi) for images of certain MIME types. Based on these settings, a check will be carried out when you place an image or change the size of an image in the Editor for InDesign Documents. If the image has not reached the minimum resolution, a warning icon will appear on the image box and a message is posted accordingly. As an administrator, you can specify the settings in the censhare Admin Client under "Master data", "Image resolutions".

For text assets, you also have the option of editing these directly in the InCopy Editor without having to open the text asset. To do that, click the button "Edit InCopy text". A window opens with the InCopy Editor where you can then edit the text.

Select SAVE & CLOSE to save your changes, close the dialog and return to the Editor for InDesign Documents. censhare automatically starts a renderer in the background to display the changes in the editor as well.

For the changed image or text to be permanently visible in the layout you need to change that too. Otherwise, the previous version of the asset will appear in the layout.

The automatic update will not take place if another user has changed the image or text. This also applies if you change a placed asset when you haven’t got the layout open at that moment.

Adjust images in layouts

The Editor for InDesign Documents in "Edit image" mode (3) with the image frame (18) and the actual size of the image (17) with the handles in the corners (19). Scale image (5), Enter width (6), Enter height (7), Fill frame proportionally (10), Fit image proportionally (11), Rotate left (8), Rotate right (9), Discard changes (16), Save changes (15).

To adjust a section of an image, move the mouse to its frame in the layout window. Different buttons will appear for editing the contents of the frame. Click the button “Move/adjust image”. The integrated image editor in the Editor for InDesign Documents will open. Various buttons will appear in the toolbar for you to work in the image editor. If a button is not visible then it has been deactivated for this frame.

This button lets you move the image section, rotate the image or change its scale. The image editor will also adjust the image proportionally to either fit in or fill out the frame.

The image editor will show you the layout frame for the image. This is an image section that you will ultimately see in the layout. You will also see the image frame containing the entire image. The image frame overlays the layout frame. That lets you see which parts of the image are visible in the layout frame, i.e., which part of the image frame lies outside of the layout frame.

You can move the image frame to change the image section that is in the layout frame. Click the mouse on the image and move the frame until you can see the desired section.

Click the “FILL” button in order to enlarge the image proportionally so the frame is filled completely. With the “FIT” button you can enlarge the image proportionally so that it fits completely within the frame.

Use the "Plus" and "Minus" buttons to increase or decrease the size of the image in steps. If you hold one of the buttons with the mouse, the image will either increase or decrease in size until you release the button. Alternatively, you can enter the scale as a percentage in the text field between the minus and plus buttons. In addition, you can pull the corner handles to either enlarge or reduce the image size.

The “Rotate counterclockwise” button turns the image 90° to the left. The “Rotate clockwise” button turns the image 90° to the right.

Increase the zoom factor of the layout window in order to more precisely position the image section.

Keep going until the desired section of the image is visible in your layout frame. Click the "Done cropping images" button in the toolbar to make the changes permanent. Click the "Cancel cropping image" button if you wish to discard your changes. In both cases, the image editor will be closed.

Detach images from texts

To separate a placed asset from the frame, double-click the desired frame to select it. Click the button "Detach asset" in the toolbar. censhare will release the connection of the asset to the frame and a renderer will start in the background in order to reload the view.

Increase the zoom factor of the layout window in order to more precisely position the image section.

Layout snippets

Snippets are layout elements in Adobe InDesign for components that are used frequently in your layout such as company logos or product pages in catalogs. You can drag these elements, for example, products, into layouts and place them in asset structures. This helps you to more quickly get your layout document ready.

For more information see the article  Working with snippets.