Endnote Plungin — Indesign

Indesign CWYW Plugin for Mac/Windows

I have already submitted a request for an Endnote plugin (CWYW) for Indesign—a replica of the Word and Pages plugin.

I renew my request for an Endnote plugin. I have support of an academic, leading Indesign writer and Indesign script coder, Peter Kahrel. Peter is a big name in Indesign circles. He too has tried to come yp with a script to interface with Endnote that has the same functionality as the Word/Pages CWYW plugin. It fall down because this would require the plugin to seamlessly interface with the Endnote program, which Peter was not able to do.

Many academic and other professional writers use Indesign. We desperately need a plug CWYW plugin. Please, please, let this request reach the people to action this request. Hear us!!

I have the full support of Peter Kahrel to mention him that he supports this request.

I look forward to seeing an Indesign CWYW plugin
Best Regards
David Horsfall

On the face of it, it sounds like a Good Idea™ and I was about to suggest the same for Affinity Publisher (as it is widely and increasingly used in professional circles since Adobe went to a subscription model)

However, both InDesign and A-Publisher are document creation tools into which you paste the text and images. You would not write text in either of them as you would in Word. One is a document creation tool, the other is a word processor.

You would be writing the text in Word, editing, spill and grimmer checking, adding citations etc and then importing/flowing it in to the InDesign/Publisher document.

You would not be putting the images into Word unless you were going Word → PDF. Neither would you be editing the images in InDesign, you would use Photoshop (or similar).

Therefore, despite my initial thought that it is a Good Idea, on reflection I don’t think it is. Especially as it request the miss-use of InDesign. I think there are more useful things Clarivate could spend their time on

NOTE, I have produced documents with InDesign, which resides on my computer, for well over a decade.

I would to disagree with you there.

Creation tool and Word Processor Tool Point

You posit straw man arguments that has some modicum of truth to them, making it compelling, but on analysis, your points are not exactly correct.

Indesign is versatile. It can be used either as a creation tool or word processor. Your point negates the basic truths of the functions that Indesign has. Pure creation tools like CorelDraw don’t have footnotes and endnotes functions that combo programs like Indesign does. Even Word falls short of the functionality of footnotes within Indesign. In fact, the Indesign program features, like for like, match the functions that Word has, but Indesign has more. This is why Indesign has a book feature and Word doesn’t; why Indesign has more advanced typography controls than what Word has. The only thing lacking in Indesign is the ability to produce multiple Indices, which Word can do.

The majority of writers, not all, that use footnotes/endnotes are writers, not designers. Furthermore, many professional writers have purchased the plugin from ID-Extras called ‘footnote’ which is designed for pure text inclusion: “Fully-automated Complex Layouts with Multi-column Footnotes in InDesign made easy!” (Footwork - Id-Extras.com)

Furthermore, I think you will find that those that use the ID-Extra plugin, the books that have been published are pure text only books. I have written many articles with pure text in Indesign. I think your point is a flimsy one—the evidence for Indesign that it doubles up as a word processor are demonstrated in the functions of Indesign, and secondly, the outputed published books with pure text.

Export Word Documents to Indesign

I don’t understand your argument. Why in the world would you want to export a Word document to Indesign if there was an Indesign CWYW plugin plugin. The whole point for requesting the plugin is to enable writers like myself to totally disband with writing in Word. My suggestion would facilitate writing in Indesign by using the proposed Indesign CWYW.

I also can match your last point. I am an advanced user of both Word and Indesign. I have produced many documents and books with Indesign. I also have produced many image based documents and pure text documents in Word for well over a decade.

I think it would be fantastic if Clarivate did produce an Endnote plugin for Indesign—time well spent. I think your points are very weak and flawed reasoning for not producing it.

It is clear we work in different fields.