Open Documents Manager

Getting started

Installing is a double click. The panel then lives in the Plug-Ins menu.

InDesign only shows your open documents as a list of names in the Window menu. That list tells you nothing useful. You cannot see which document is saved, which one has never been saved and is gone if InDesign crashes, how long it is or which folder it is in.

This panel puts every open document side by side and writes down, next to each of them, what you need to know. It is built for production work where ten to fifteen documents stay open at once — the same leaflet from four different weeks, the price tags, a couple of spreads in progress.

Installing

1. Quit InDesign.
2. Double click the .ccx file. Creative Cloud installs it for you.
3. Start InDesign.

Where to find the panel

Plug-Ins → Zalesky Workflow → Open Documents Manager

Every plugin in this line collects under Zalesky Workflow. If you also have Smart Layers installed, you will see both entries in that submenu. The panel docks or floats, exactly like any other InDesign panel, and InDesign remembers its size and place.

The panel

A list, three rows of buttons, a status line. Nothing else.

• 1Filter and the view switch — list or page previews
• 2Column headings. Click to sort, drag the right edge to resize
• 3The active document, in blue
• 4Button row one — works on the document
• 5Row two — closes what is selected
• 6Row three — closes everything open
• 7The status line. Long jobs report their progress here

The row

Eight things about every document.

Sorting and column widths

Click a column heading to sort. Click again for descending, a third time to go back to the order you opened the documents in.

Drag the right edge of a heading to change the width, the way the Links panel does it. The width is remembered, InDesign restart included.

The filter

Type part of a name in the box at the top. You can type several words — only documents containing all of them match. Esc clears it.

State colours

Three colours, and all three are about risk, not decoration.

Red beats blue. A document that was never saved is the worse of the two: it exists nowhere but in memory, and no bulk action can save it without being told where it should go. If InDesign crashes, it is gone.

The St column sorts, and it sorts in exactly that order — never saved first, then unsaved changes, then saved. From the riskiest to the safest.

Marks on the right

The pin, and three warnings.

Mouse

Selection works like every list you already know.

Two views

A list, or previews of the first page. Like a folder window.

Two icons beside the filter switch between them, the way a folder window switches between details and medium icons. Previews earn their keep when every open name is a variation of the same leaflet — four weeks of one job look identical in a list of names, and nothing alike as pictures.

Twelve buttons

Three rows, and the split means something.

Row two acts on the selection, row three on every open document. The difference between "close this" and "close the lot" should never be a modifier you have to remember — which is why each has a row of its own.

Row 1 — the document

Row 2 — closes what is selected

Row 3 — closes everything open

Modifier keys

Three keys, one meaning across the whole panel.

• AltDo it to everything, and stop asking
• ShiftLet me say more about it first
• CtrlThe sideways variant

Hold the key as you click the button. What each one does for each command is also in that button's tooltip.

The menu

What is not on a button.

The menu is the flyout at the top right of the panel, where every InDesign panel keeps it. The twelve buttons are not repeated there — a menu is for what you cannot already see.

Right click on a row

The short version for that document: Go to Page, Save a Copy, Revert, Export PDF, Reveal, Copy name, Copy path, Select all, Package, Pin and Close. It opens at the pointer, like any context menu.

Export PDF

It does not ask, because the panel already knows where it goes.

Select the documents and click Export PDF. Nothing is asked. The PDF goes into a PDF folder beside the .indd file and takes the document's name.

When that name is already in the folder

It is not overwritten. The new PDF gets a suffix instead — _2, _3 and so on by default. That matters, because two documents can be open under one name when it is the same leaflet from two different weeks, and without this the second export would quietly overwrite the first.

The suffix is yours, in Settings. It can contain:

A different destination

In Settings you can send every PDF to one fixed folder instead, or have the panel ask every time. For a one-off, hold Shift as you click Export PDF and pick the folder for that export only.

Exporting several large documents takes a while. The panel says which document it is on while it works.

More commands

The ones in the menu that open a window of their own.

Go to Page

You give the page name as it reads in the Pages panel, so sections work: iv and A-3 both resolve. A plain number is counted from the front of the document.

Sync Page

Puts every document on the same page. Flipping between revisions of the same leaflet, you always land on the same spread instead of finding your way again in each document.

With two or more documents selected it acts on those; otherwise on all of them. A document shorter than the page you asked for lands on its last page.

Snapshot — a dated copy

Saves a copy into a _snapshots folder beside the document, with the date and time in the name. Do it before starting anything that might not work out. The folder name is set in Settings.

Revert

Throws away unsaved changes and loads what is on disk again.

Package

Offers the same choices as File → Package, asks once, and applies them to every selected document. Each document gets its own subfolder. With several documents it takes a while, and the panel shows the progress.

Document sets

Remembers which documents you have open now, under a name you give it. Next time, open them all again at once. Useful for the combinations you open over and over — a whole weekly leaflet, or the price tags for one promotion.

Copy

To the clipboard: the name, the file path, the folder path, or the whole list as text, one document per line. Handy when you are telling someone what you are sitting on.

Document checks

Off by default, and that is deliberate.

The panel can watch four things: missing links, modified links, missing fonts and overset text. When a check finds something, an amber triangle appears on the row; hover it to see what.

So two settings hold it back:

At 0 the checks run only when you ask for them: Check selected documents in the menu. That command goes now, ignoring both the scope and the interval.

A document is only re-checked when its page count or its unsaved state has changed — otherwise the same answer would be computed over and over. While any checks are outstanding, the status line says how many are left.

Settings

Everything optional is here, and not on the panel.

Open it from the menu → Settings. It is a window of its own that can be dragged aside, and it scrolls. Changes are written when you click Save at the bottom; closing the window or clicking Cancel throws them away.

The reason even the switches that could sit on the panel are here is simple: the list is the panel. Every switch on its face is a row with a document you cannot see.

Appearance

View

Document checks

There is a chapter of its own on these. Here is only what each option sets.

Unsaved watchdog

PDF export

Snapshots

Bulk actions

At the bottom of the window

The bottom of the window prints the full path to the folder all of this is saved in, with an Open folder button beside it. If InDesign asks for permission when you use it, that is normal — tick Remember my choice and click Allow.

Keyboard

A number switches document. The rest you set yourself.

While the panel has focus and you are not typing in the filter, pressing 1 to 9 switches to the document with that number. The number is printed in the # column, so there is nothing to count. The number row works, and so does the numeric keypad with Num Lock on. With Num Lock off the keypad sends arrows rather than digits, so it does nothing there.

Your own shortcuts, anywhere in InDesign

The Plug-Ins → Zalesky Workflow submenu holds three commands with no window. They are there precisely so you can give them a keyboard shortcut in Edit → Keyboard Shortcuts, and that shortcut then works anywhere in InDesign, not only when the panel has focus.

Where the data lives

In the plugin's private folder, which survives an update.

prefs.json

Settings, sort order, pins, your own order, column widths

sets/

Document sets, one file each

thumbs/

Cached page previews

Nothing is written next to the plugin itself, so reinstalling keeps your sets and pins. The full path is printed at the bottom of the Settings window, with an Open folder button beside it.

Moving to another machine

The menu has Export settings and Import settings. The first writes the settings and the sets to one JSON file, the second reads them back. Carry the file across and import it.

When something goes wrong

Five things that happen.

The panel is not in the Plug-Ins menu

Check your InDesign version — it must be 18.5 or newer. Then quit InDesign, install the .ccx again and start it.

InDesign asks for permission when I open a folder

That is normal and not a fault. InDesign is asking whether the plugin may reach outside its own folder. Tick Remember my choice and click Allow — it will not ask again.

The Folder column is empty for one document

Either it is a document that has never been saved, and has no folder — or the panel has not resolved the path yet. Paths are fetched in the background and it fills itself in within a moment.

I changed a setting and nothing happened

Settings are only written when you click Save at the bottom of the Settings window. Closing the window or clicking Cancel throws the changes away.

The panel feels slow

Almost certainly the document checks are on over a wide scope. Open Settings, the Document checks section, and set Minutes between checks to 0. The checks then run only when you ask for them. The other suspect is page previews on large leaflets.