InDesign Content Collector Tools - Digital Art and Design

When creating designs for multiple documents that have the same content, it can be difficult to keep the content in every document updated as changes are made. InDesign^R CS6 has a new feature that will help greatly with this problem. The new Content Collector tools help you keep your images, interactive elements and text, consistent within the same document, within alternate layouts in the same document and between several documents.

You will find the new Content Collector tool in the Toolbar which will open the new Content Conveyor panel. At the bottom of this panel are the tools you will use for collecting content.
1. Content Collector tools - The first on the left is the Content Collector tool which you will use to collect objects and place them in the Conveyor. Next we have the Content Placer tool which you will use to place the objects from the Conveyor into a new location.
2. Create Link - When you check the Create Link box, InDesign will create a link that will alert you when content has been changed and needs to be updated.
3. Placement methods - You also have the choice of three placement mode icons. The first icon will tell InDesign to place the object from the Conveyor into the page, remove it from the Conveyor and then load the next object from the Conveyor into the Content Placer tool. The second icon will place a set of objects on the page but keep a copy in the Conveyor. The third icon will place one object on the page, keep a copy of it in the Conveyor and load the next object.
4. Nav Arrows - You will use this group of arrow icons to move between objects in the Conveyor.
5. Load Conveyor icon - This icon will open the Load Conveyor dialog box which has more controls for loading content.
With the Content Collector tool, pass your mouse over the page. As you do so, each design element will be highlighted by a box.
You can use the Content Collector tool to drag over several objects on a page to collect multiple objects. When you use this method, the multiple objects are added to the Conveyor as a set. When you collect a set of objects, the thumbnail in the Conveyor will indicate the number of items in the set by placing a small number in the upper left corner of the thumbnail. You can view the items in the set by clicking the down arrow on your keyboard.

*Adobe provided a copy of this software to me for review purposes.

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