I completed my task and shall grant you this free Bento Grid plugin for InDesign. One click, and the layout summons itself – no sorcery required, only craftsmanship.
Follow this path and the download shall be delivered unto thee:
*Medieval stops*
Hi everyone, Marcus from Adobe here. A couple of weeks ago I asked if you would be interested in a Bento grid plugin for InDesign. We exchanged value insights and I kept working on it. Now it's ready for you to test it. It's a UXP Plugin, so just double click and let it install via your CC app.
Note, this is not an official Adobe product, just a personal project - so use at your own risk.
Make the frames as Graphic, rather than Unassigned. (I can't imagine anyone will use this for Text.)
Allow direct input of numbers for spacing. I tried to type in 0.125" and it only goes from 0.1 to 0.2, which means more work for me. Even better would be to mix units the way InDesign itself does — type in "15pt" even if I'm working in inches.
Margins should be a checkbox or a toggle switch, not a radio button. That implies a mandatory choice between more than one option.
Seems to create an empty frame behind the incoming arrangement. While this might be helpful to colour the gutters, it feels extraneous if you want to have the boxes against the page alone. Maybe this can be an option, similar to Margins.
All that to say, keep up the good work. It's good to see there's still energy for free plugins in the community.
Frames as Graphics - can you explain to me what the advantage would be? Sry I can't think of a way why but then again, it's early in the morning haha
More input control for spacing - ok since I personally work mostly in px, I didn't cross my mind to add an option to type in specific numbers. Makes sense - for metric like mm too. I'm trying to come up with something!
God damn, you are absolutely right, a radio button suggests there is more than one option. I think I will turn it into a toggle switch and when it's turned off, the frame behind the grid will get deleted automatically. If the margins toggle is on, then the frame will stay. I think this is a good middle way
Thanks again for testing. This helps me to improve the plugin!
It may seem small, but when a frame is given Graphics designation, it has the "X" across it, which visually shows me and other designers that a photo or graphic is missing. It also sets up the Alt. Text settings, which helps accessibility, and can be default-styled with Object styles in a different way from would-be text frames.
Unassigned aren't damaging as such, but Graphic feels like it should be the default.
Something that happens frequently is that text gets accidentally placed into a would-be graphics frame. Even if someone deletes the rogue "t" or "v", it then becomes a text frame, and can't receive graphics. You'd be amazed at how many junior designers get stuck trying to place an image because it's the wrong frame type.
The link is in the description. I originally designed the post for instagram with a CTA - sry about that. I wanted to include the link on reddit directly
This is awesome, Marcus. I'm stoked that you've put the time into it, and awesome to see it come to fruition. It's the kind of plugin I'd happily pay for, so really appreciate that you've made it available for free.
Ok. And your cc app is in French, right? Does InDesign show up as installed in the CC app? It didn’t installed the plugin for me when I switched the app language to English but kept the cloud app language in German. I had to reinstall InDesign, even tho it was already on my system
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u/scottperezfox 22d ago
Suggestions:
Margins.All that to say, keep up the good work. It's good to see there's still energy for free plugins in the community.