Good Afternoon!
I am trying to figure out the best way to create a brochure in InDesign that can be sent/shared and used by multiple clients for their specific needs. I will create the brochure in InDesign and then I want to share it somehow so that clients can edit the copy and pictures to suit their specific needs without them having to use InDesign or Canva, etc. (most clients don’t have this software) Any ideas on how to do this?
Thanks for your ideas and feedback!
The only way is with incopy
There are 3rd party online editors but they are expensive.
The best way is with pdf and let them mark it up.
You could use share for review directly in InDesign.
Or a platform like workfront where multiple people can leave comments and upload files.
Honestly, I don’t think there’s a good way to do this.
You used the word “clients.” Are these clients you’ll be working with and whose changes you’ll subsequently need to deal with? Or are these clients people who will receive the template, use it and never interact with you about it?
InCopy’s a workgroup pagination system that seems like it wouldn’t be appropriate for clients if those clients are anything other than coworkers. Even then, it’s mostly good for editors to edit copy without risking them messing up anything else.
Expecting a client to insert their own photos is a disaster in the making. They’ll do it wrong every single time because there are just too many things they’ll know nothing about. Canva handles it by hiding those gotchas behind the scenes without having to expose the users to the technical stuff. A template prepared in InDesign and shipped off for someone to use in a non-InDesign setting doesn’t come with any of these safeguards.
The only thing I can think of that might have any chance of working is a template that can be placed in MSWord with blank spaces for photos and text to be added in Word, but even that’s a horrible solution. It would be better to build the template in Word to begin with, which is also a terrible idea.
A truly good way to do that has never materialized, and there are good reasons for it.
Clients often are under a false impression that it’s just a question of “access” and that we designers actively deny them that access solely to protect our future revenue stream. On this side of the transaction, we all know what we’re protecting; quality, literacy, the brand. There have been plenty of times when I came very close to telling a client they’re paying me to protect them from themselves.
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