Installing scripts and extensions

- In a few of the movies in this course, I show third party scripts that enhance InDesign's long document features. Sometimes when you download a script, it will come with instructions for how and where to install it and in general, you should always read and follow any instructions that come with the script. But, if a script doesn't come with instructions, here's how you can install and run it from your "Scripts Panel." First, if the "Scripts Panel" isn't open, open it by choosing "Window - Utilities - Scripts." And inside the panel, you'll see two folders, the "Application" folder and a "User" folder.

I recommend that you install scripts into your "User" folder so you always know which ones came with InDesign and which ones you installed. To open the "User" scripts folder on your computer, just right-click on it and choose "Reveal in Finder" or "Reveal in Explorer." This will open a window showing the "Scripts Panel" folder and then just double-click that and now I can take a script like this "End_to_end.jsx" on my Desktop and drop it into the "Scripts Panel." Now, when I go back to InDesign, open my "User" folder, there's the script and I can just double-click to run it.

Other third party add-ons that you might install come in the form of ".MXP" or ".ZXP" files, which are Adobe extension packages. And you can see some in this folder here. Here's a ".ZXP" and here's a ".MXP." Again, you should always read and follow the instructions from the developer before installing but to install these files, you can use the Adobe Extension Manager application. You can just double-click on those files on your computer but I like to launch this application so I have better control over the installation process.

So, I'll start by selecting the version of InDesign where I want to install the extension. So, "CC 2014." Then, I'll click "Install," navigate to the file, and click "Open." Then I'll just follow the prompts inside the Adobe Extension Manager. Now I've installed this new extension and I'll have to restart InDesign in order to use it. Notice that I can also use the Extension Manager to disable by unchecking or remove extensions by clicking this button. And you can also use the Extension Manager to find other add-ons for InDesign by clicking "Exchange," which takes you to "Adobeexchange.com" and from there you can click on the button for "Add-ons website" and then scroll down and click on "InDesign." So, in this movie, we looked at the process for installing scripts and extensions into InDesign, which can be really helpful in your long document workflow.