Adapted rewriting for the design in InDesign: adjust the text without altering the design

One of the challenges of layout design in Adobe InDesign is making sure that the text fits in the spaces. The mere act of adding one extra word can throw everything off and require rethinking the design.

In its latest version, InDesign has launched Rewrite, a new artificial intelligence feature designed to solve this problem. With this tool, we will be able to expand, condense, or modify the tone of a text to fit the available spaces we have. Next, we will see how it works step by step.

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What is Rewrite and what is it for?

Generative artificial intelligence has also arrived at InDesign, specifically to help us with texts. Rewrite helps us analyze the content and the space of the text box to make everything fit better in your designs. Thus, instead of editing word by word, we can shorten very long texts, expand them, change the tone, or generate other variants that fit better in the layout.

Changing the tone of a text can be useful for certain situations; in some cases, you may need a more professional approach, or perhaps the complete opposite. In the end, you can generate different versions that maintain the essential information but change how it is communicated.

How to use Rewrite in InDesign

To begin, open your project in InDesign and select any text you want to modify. You can also place the cursor over a text frame to select the entire story.

When you select the text, a floating contextual bar will appear. If you don’t see it, go to Window and click on Contextual Task Bar to make it appear. In this floating bar, select Generate Text; by doing so, you will also open the Generate panel.

There are other ways to access Generate. To start, you can activate the option by going to a text box, right-clicking, and selecting the Generate Text option. On the other hand, you can make the Generate panel appear by going to Window > Generate. From this panel, you have several options, but we will focus now on Rewrite. Below Rewrite, you will see a text box where you will need to write your prompt. Simply describe there how you want the selected text to be modified and click on Generate.

When I finish processing your request, you will see how the text is automatically replaced in your layout while respecting the paragraph style you have applied. As a detail, keep in mind that the language of the generated text will match the language you used to write the prompt.

You can also see other variations of the text in Results (through the Generate panel) in case the one you see doesn’t fully convince you. Choose one of the three alternatives and select Done to finish. Below you will see other symbols that will help you confirm that the result is good (thumbs up), that it is bad (thumbs down), or to try again (retry symbol).

If you want, you can modify the text with a series of predefined shortcuts, such as Rephrase, Shorten, Lengthen, or Fit Text, for example. These “buttons” will help you perform very specific actions in a short amount of time.

If you want to improve the results of this function, you must consider the length of the text to be modified and ensure that it does not exceed 1500 words. On the other hand, do not lose sight of the cost of generations made with AI. Although the Rewrite and related options are free for InDesign users, the Fit Text function does consume a credit per generation.

Images also receive updates

In addition to Rewrite, InDesign also includes a series of improvements in images. Within the Generate panel, there is also the option of Text to Image. Just like in Photoshop, within InDesign we will be able to generate images from a prompt.

This can help you create images that serve as provisional while you wait for the final ones. Just like lorem ipsum, this way you can visualize how your almost final layout would look. If you click on the Advanced option, you will be able to access a new panel with more options that will help you create more detailed images.

There you can choose artistic styles, the aspect ratio, and even upload a reference image so that the generated output closely resembles the final image.

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