Productivity Tools for Efficient Graphic Designers to Automate Design Process

Recently, I have noticed a few great articles about increasing productivity and efficiency in the web design process. I thought that I would put together a similar article for graphic designers in the print industry, since we need productivity tools too, right?! You will find that a lot of these tools can automate your graphic design process by actually doing the tedious repetitive tasks that slow you down. There are a ton of tools listed here, so make sure to bookmark this page. I will update this page as more tools are either mentioned to me or as I find them. You will find productivity tools for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, QuarkXpress, fonts, colors, text and more.

What Tools Do You Use to Increase Your Design Project productivity and efficiency? Is there any website tools or software that you use for your graphic design projects that speed up your design process? Please be kind and share tools / software that you know about so you can help your fellow graphic designers. Thank you!!!

Text Editing / Search & Replace

TurboSR Search and Replace

This is a free stand-alone search and replace utility. It is very handy to make changes to a whole range of text, HTML, XML or other text-based files.

No Design Software v2.5.1

It can be used easily to replace font colors in all HTML pages, replace text, and textfiles.

TextRep 2.0

It replaces text in multiple files in a single operation and make backup copies of your original files. This new version includes improved user interface, a new scan folder option. It’s a freeware.

HandyFile Find and Replace

HandyFile Find and Replace is a powerful tool to search multiple files locally or via FTP, find and replace text in found files. It is one of the few fastest and feature-rich search and replace tools on the market. The regular expression engine can store strings up to 2 Mb in size in each tagged expression! The best part is that you don't even need to open up the files that need a find and replace in.

Actual Search and Replace

Use Actual Search & Replace to find files and execute search-and-replace operations across multiple files. This useful tool is fast and easy to use and of particular value to Webmasters who need to deal with ever-changing content on their Web sites. The powerful string search feature supports Boolean operators and displays and highlights matching strings. The even more powerful replace facility lets you insert text before or after search phrases, delete text, and replace text with spaces, in addition to standard text replacement. You can modify files one at a time or change them all with a single mouse click. Support is offered for both single and multiline entries. Options include filespec, date, and size filters; automatic backups of modified files; and full undo support.

Lorem Ipsum

Need some fake text generated to fill up your design layout? Try this Lorem Ipsum text generator.

Useful File Utilities

Useful File Utilities (UFU) is a very fast and easy-to-use file browser. It has some internal utilities such as Renamer, Replacer and Finder. Moreover, it has external utilities such as Change Attributes and Batch Replacer. UFU has utilities necessary for webmasters, programmers and anybody who is concerned with computers. Imagine that you need to process hundreds of files. It would take you many hours to do this manually. Fortunately, UFU is created to solve this problem as it does this job, and more, for you easily. You can even process files from several directories or even disks simultaneously (see Basket drive in the help menu of the program).

Macro Express

Macro Express is the premier Windows macro utility. With Macro Express, you can record, edit and play back mouse and keyboard macros. Its powerful tools and robust features will make you more productive.

The Power Xchange

With Xdata for QuarkXPress or InData for InDesign, you can automatically generate catalogues, directories, financial summaries, tables, form letters, labels, parts lists, schedules, feature charts, and so on, completely hands-off. These products are reasonably priced at $400, and you'll save that much on your very first project. There are also sizable discounts for multi-pack purchases. These two products bring all the typographical and pictorial power of QuarkXPress 6 and 7 and InDesign CS and CS2 (CS3 coming soon) to data-publishing tasks.

Fonts Identification and Management

What The Font?

Ever wanted to find a font just like the one used by certain publications, corporations, or ad campaigns? Well now you can, using our WhatTheFont font recognition system. Upload a scanned image of the font and instantly find the closest matches in our database. If WhatTheFont can’t figure it out, you can submit your image to the WhatTheFont Forum where cloak-draped font enthusiasts around the world will help you out!

Type Navigator

A visual interactive font search system that you will find very useful.

Identifont

Identify a typeface by answering a series of questions, by appearance, or by name.

FontBrowser v2.0

This flash application will allow to quickly preview the fonts active on your system.

FontMatch

FontMatch™ to the rescue! Instead of calling all the designers you know for advice on font ID, you can ask FontMatch™ to “look” at a sample and compare it to each font on your computer. FontMatch™ compares positive and negative space in a manner very similar to the way your eyes do, matching patterns to determine the best “fit”. After examining each font, it displays two images side by side: the one you supplied, and FontMatch’s best answer.

Colors - Color Palette Generators and Schemers

Whats Its Color

Whats its color is an image-color processing utility that will evaluate an image and give you the image's primary and complementary dominant colors of an image, how many visually unique colors are in an image, and the top ten visually unique colors in an image. Extremely useful when creating any type of designs around an image. The more colorful the image, the better the results. Results will display your image on the best suited background for that image.

Color Palette Generator

Generate a color palette based on an image.

I Like Your Colors

There is a form at the bottom of this page that lets you choose any URL you want to extract colors from. The colors you see here are from the site that referred you to this page!

Color Schemer Studio

Use ColorSchemer Studio to explore color using a dynamic visual color wheel, actually see harmony relationships, mix colors, create gradient blends, and even analyze contrast and readability.

Color Hunter

Create and find color palettes made from images.

Color Blending Tool

Input two colors and get up to ten color shades between your two input colors. As the creator states, it's “great for finding a color halfway between two shades you like, or mixing two colors together in various proportions.” Editor note: I've also used it for finding multiple harmonious colors that blend well between two main colors for Web projects, such as hyperlinks colors or subheading colors.

Batch Image Software

AutoImager

Batch Image/Photo Editing and Image Conversion Software. AutoImager is a full-featured batch image converter and editor software application. The program is easy-to-use and because it's "interface-driven", you don't have to understand programming or even scripting in order to perform the batch conversion and processing tasks. Just pick the files you wish to convert or process, choose the options for the conversion or processing task, and you're ready to go!

Blaze ImgConvert

An advanced batch image/graphics converter software application that supports over 140 formats and an entire arsenal of options and features. Images can be resized or rotated automatically in the same process when converting. Comprehensive compression, sub-formats, various colorspaces, color depths, and much more are all options available. For files that already exist, options are provided to prompt for each existing file, automatically replace, skip the file, and rename

Blaze Media Convert

CD Ripper and Audio/Video Batch Converter Multimedia batch converter for 90+ image, audio, video, and animation formats! Powerful multimedia batch converter supporting conversion among over 70 image, audio, animation and video formats! Supported formats include CD, MP3, WMA, WAV, AVI, MPEG, WMV, FLIC, BMP, GIF, DICOM, ICO, JPEG, PCX, PNG, PSD, SGI, TGA, WMF, and more

Batch Image Converter

Batch Image Converter is designed to convert batches of graphic files from one format to another. You may add thousands of different supported image files into the list and then fire a convert at once. You can also add a directory, all the image files under the directory will be added for converting.

IrfanView

IrfanView is a fast and compact image viewer/converter. It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals. Many supported file formats and features. Features include: multi-language support, Thumbnail option, slideshow, toolbar skins, fast directory browsing, batch conversion/editing, multipage editing, file search, change color depth, scanning, cut/crop, IPTC edit, capturing, lossless JPG operations, effects (sharpen, blur, Adobe Photoshop filters), EXE/SCR creating, many hotkeys, command line options and plugins.

uMark Lite

uMark Lite allows you to add a text or image watermark to your digital photos. You can choose from 9 pre-defined watermark placements, set a custom font, size, and color, as well as opacity level. The freeware version can batch process up to 50 images in a single run. The watermarked images are saved in a new folder, so your originals remain unchanged. 50 images at a go, adds uMark Lite watermark.

Digital Image Tool

Quickly process images your way, with ease: flexible resizing, watermarking, renaming, compression preview, smart saving to protect original images, and more! Read about the features.

More Image Conversion Software

Automating Adobe Photoshop with Batch Commands / Actions / Plugins

Using Photoshop Batch Command

You can create action to resample image and save a copy of image for the entire folder.

How to Batch Rename Files in Photoshop

This tool will help you batch rename all your files. It is ideal for organizing your images for uploading.

Advanced batch Processing - Photoshop CS2 Video Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to resize an image and add a border with only one action.

Batch Watermark Images with Different Dimensions/Orientations

This will help create an Action and Droplet for automatically Watermarking your images, and it will walk you through creating to tag your images.

SampsonVideos - Image Resizing

It shows you how to batch resize a folder of images and export them to another folder, therefore preserving your original files.

Bridge - Photoshop Batch Rename

Thankfully Photoshop can be fine-tuned to automate many repetitive and time-consuming tasks, batch renaming multiple files being one of them. Here we'll switch our attention to the Bridge, a free application that ships along with Photoshop, and rename photographs the quick and easy way.

All Graphic Design : List of Photoshop Actions Sites

A nice list of Photoshop actions sites.

All Graphic Design: 1000s of Free Photoshop Plug-ins & Filters Mega List

A comprehensive list of Free Photoshop Plug-in sites along with a summary of what plug-ins and filters you will find on each of these sites. Some of these are great for speeding up your photoshop tasks.

Photoshop actions: 124+ Free Photoshop Actions to Boost Your Designs

Here is a list of 124+ actions. Photoshop and Illustrator come with predefined actions installed that help you perform common tasks. You can use these actions as is, customize them to meet your needs, or create new actions. Actions are stored in sets to help you organize them. You can record, edit, customize, and batch-process actions, and you can manage groups of actions by working with action sets.

Photoshop Support : Photoshop Actions

A set of Adobe Photoshop Actions.

DeviantArt : Photoshop Actions

DeviantArt users share Photoshop goodies as well as other application and graphics goodies. Here is a list of Photoshop actions that DeviantArt users have created and decided tos share with others.

Photographers : Let Photoshop Do the Work for You

A common scenario for any Photographer or designer is presenting a batch of images from a photoshoot to a client to pick out the best shots to be used in the design material. This is fine when you are sat at a computer screen with Adobe Bridge sorting through the pictures, but often the photos need printing out onto paper to display at meetings etc. You would imagine this to be a labourous task; opening up each photograph, resizing it onto a new document, typing out the filename… but not with Photoshop’s built in Contact Sheet generator…

CreativeMac: Batch Processing in Adobe Photoshop: Using Actions to process multiple files

Batch processing in Photoshop takes the edge off repetitive tasks. It's a simple process but one that way too many users have yet to discover. It's accomplished by way of Photoshop Actions. [an error occurred while processing this directive] Actions, like filters, consolidate a number of functions into a single, simple interface. Photoshop includes several preset Actions (such as turning color photos into sepia-toned images), but, more importantly, it allows users to create their own. Essentially, anything you can do in Photoshop (with the exception of modifying File Info) can be recorded and applied automatically to any number of image files. This includes filters, color correction, transformations, image adjustments--anything.

YouTube: Advanced Batch Processing | Photoshop CS2 Video Tutorial (Video)

A video tutorial on performing batch processes with Photoshop.

Make Use of Actions in Photoshop

How to make use of the actions function in Photoshop

Adobe Illustrator Automation

Illustrator provides a variety of ways to automate many of the repetitive tasks you have to do, leaving more time to concentrate on the creative aspects of your work. An action is a series of tasks that are recorded while using the Illustrator application—menu commands, tool options, object selection, and so on. When you play an action, Illustrator performs all of the recorded tasks for you. See more about this here Automating Illustrator Task with Actions / Scripts

Adobe Illustrator Scripts

Here is Adobe's repository of Adobe Illustrator scripts to automate repetitive tasks.

RJ Graffix Illustrator Scripts

Scripts for Adobe Illustrator and InDesign

This archive includes following sample scripts (not well commented yet confused) tested with Adobe Illustrator CS 11.0.1, Windows 2000 SP4 (Japanese version). Free to use and distribute.

Vectips : 10 Free and Extremely Useful Illustrator Scripts

Illustrator has a plethora of tools at you disposal. Even with all these tools, there is always going to be something missing. This is where scripts and plug-ins come in to help. With scripts and plug-ins you can perform tasks that Illustrator cannot complete on it’s own. There are a great deal of resources out there and in this post you will find 10 free and useful scripts for Illustrator!

Automate Actions in Illustrator

Actions are a set of commands or a series of events that you can record and playback in the Actions panel. Actions are great for complex or repetitive tasks. I use the Actions all the time, especially when working with icon sets or buttons, like in the previous tutorial. If you are familiar at all with the Actions panel in Photoshop, you will have no problem with the Actions in Illustrator.

VectorTuts : 5 Ways to Customize Adobe Illustrator

Adobe did such a great job of thinking of everything in the entire Creative Suite, they even thought of ways to let us think of our own ways to improve upon it, if you can follow this twisted logic. In this article, I'll share some Illustrator tweaks and customizations that you may find useful.

LogoSpruce

Need to quickly digitize a faxed or scanned logo? Auto-traced images often require hours of painstaking editing to achieve the correct form. Instead of wasting valuable time editing, trace it quickly and easily using LogoSpruce. Tidy logos and other scanned artwork quickly within Adobe Illustrator, using intuitive drawing and trimming tools. Turn on the auto-guides and LogoSpruce will automatically identify endpoints, midpoints, and tangent lines. Using LogoSpruce, trace with extraordinary speed and unparalleled ease of use.

Automate QuarkXpress and Batch Processing in Quark

Batch Print

Prints hundreds of QuarkXPress™ documents automatically. Handles every aspect of the printing operation including one-time page/print setup, automatic updating of modified pictures, separation of spot colors, EPS font and color management, and more. Also maintains a detailed report file of all printing activity.

Batch Collect

Collect for Output in batch mode. Gathers up all of the elements required to produce an entire group of QuarkXPress documents. Similar to the QuarkXPress built-in collection feature but allows you to work with more than a single document at a time. Includes a comprehensive reporting feature which lists all pictures, fonts and colors used throughout the entire group of documents.

Batch Update

Updates all modified and missing pictures throughout an entire group of documents. Supports three options for missing pictures: Prompt, Skip or Search. Up to 10 different search volumes can be specified along with sub-folder options. Also generates a complete report file detailing picture usage throughout all documents.

AutoPrice™

Provides sophisticated, two-way linking of QuarkXPress® or InDesign® documents to any external database. Ideal for catalog price updates and versioning. Supports both text and picture information. Also includes comprehensive reporting and batch processing features. ODBC module also available.

ClassFlow

ClassFlow automatically paginates ads, along with classification headers, rules, multicolumn ads, boxed ads and more. You can process your entire classified section in minutes. ClassFlow handles a variety of headers and rules, ensuring that your paginated pages look identical to those pasted up from galleys.

CopyFlow Gold for Quark v7 Upgrade from v6

Provides tools to batch import and export text and art. Especially useful with translation workflows.

AutoPage Pro

Now there is a low-cost alternative to expensive, proprietary, automated book page-layout systems: Autopage Pro. Autopage Pro works with industry-standard software and hardware to provide editable, native QuarkXPress pages. It is a powerful QuarkXPress XTensions module compatible with other XTensions modules and Macintosh, Power Macintosh, and Windows versions of QuarkXPress.

Batch Collect Xtension

The Batch Collect XTensions module allows QuarkXPress users to gather all elements required to produce or archive an entire group of QuarkXPress documents. This XTensions module works like QuarkXPress's built-in collection feature, but allows the user to work with more than a single document at a time. Select the documents to process using the file-selection dialog, check off the elements to be collected, and click the collect button. An option is provided to create a separate folder for each document, holding only those elements required to produce the individual job. In addition to collect-for-output features, Batch Collect XTensions module also includes a comprehensive reporting option. The report will list all pictures, fonts, and colors used throughout the entire group of documents, and will also provide important status information about those items. In addition, the report file can be formatted and sorted.

Batch Printer

BatchPrinter is an XTensions module that facilitates printing the entire contents of QuarkXPress folders. This is a big help for anyone who needs to print out more than one job and wants to free themselves of the tedium of waiting to click on the print button. Simply direct QuarkXPress to the folder of documents to be printed, and BatchPrinter will sequentially print the jobs in that folder.

Bob Tail

BobTail brings added speed and agility to QuarkXPress. It provides a sleek palette of up to 40 configurable buttons. Quickly label a button with an icon and assign a specific menu item to it. Once a button is configured to a menu item, accessing it is immediate.

BIM Utility Binder

The BIM Utility Bundle is a suite of XTensions modules for QuarkXPress that provide a number of productivity-enhancing tools.

Batch Print Xtension

The Batch Print XTensions module helps to streamline printing operations by allowing groups of QuarkXPress documents to be printed automatically. Documents can be output to any PostScript printer supported by QuarkXPress, and the Batch Print XTensions module even supports output to disc files as well. Simply navigate to the documents to print, and add them to the print list. Batch Print can process hundreds of documents at a time. After selecting the documents and choosing the page setup and print values, just press a button and the Batch Print XTensions module takes care of the rest. The Batch Print XTensions module opens each document, sets up default page setup and print options, and sends each document to the selected printer. Batch Print XTensions module handles every aspect of the printing operation including: automatic updating of modified pictures, tracking EPS font and color usage, tracking missing DCS plates, separation of document spot colors, and much more. Batch Print XTensions module keeps a log file for each session to enable the user to start printing now and check for errors later.

Art Swapper

ArtSwapper automates swapping between low-resolution and high-resolution versions of art for use in QuarkXPress work and print. ArtSwapper saves the user time since all pictures in a document (or just one picture) can be swapped with a single click.

DropIt

If you're not using Dropit, you're typing too much! Dropit's drag and drop interface is faster and easier than copy and paste, and can be set not to tie up your clipboard. Ever get tired of manually typing in the same information again and again in those browser forms? Dropit makes it quick and easy to fill out those forms by keeping your information in a list box. To get an item into the form, simply click it in the listbox to highlight it, then click the blue bar on the left side of Dropit's window and drag the cursor to the edit box on the form where you want it, release the mouse button, and, presto, the item is dropped into the form.

Replace in Place

ReplaceInPlace lets you retain previous picture attributes when importing an image into a picture box. Previous offset and scaling, for example, can be retained when replacing a low-res with a hi-res version of a picture. To use Badia ReplaceInPlace, choose "Get Picture" from the File menu and select "Retain Previous Picture Attributes" from the "ReplaceInPlace" tab.

InDesign Automation & Batch Processes

InDemand

Automate placement of text and images .. Files palette for quick file loading .. Paragraph style automation and sampling .. Text filter for instant error correction .. Repeater grid for fast layout creation .. Automate many aspects of your layout tasks

InDesign Batch

Batch makes it possible to automatically convert QuarkXPress and PageMaker files into the InDesign format. Batch utilizes InDesign's built-in conversion system, but automates the process for multiple files. Supports: QuarkXPress 3.X and 4.X saved as one language, and PageMaker 6.5 and 7.0.

CopyFlow Gold

CopyFlow Gold adds powerful page-assembly capabilities to InDesign. It provides menu selections which enables the end user to automatically import and export text into InDesign documents. These automated-processing features make using InDesign faster and more productive than ever to meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of publishing professionals in high-volume and/or multi-user, networked publishing environments.

Badia ExpertTools for InDesign

Badia Exportools fully automates the process of saving and exporting the content of individual pages into separate files — whether it's for remote printing, impositioning, archiving, or portability purposes. High-end printers and prepress houses worldwide rely on the power, speed, and flexibility of Exportools to generate high-resolution output using today's printing standards: EPS, PostScript, and PDF.

Cacidi Extreme Suite 7.0 CS3

Cacidi Extreme Suite 7.0 CS3 is the most advanced and yet easy to use standard software available for automating graphic design. Whether producing catalogs, brochures, price lists, business cards, or other single- or multipage documents containing text, image, and barcode content, Cacidi Extreme Suite provides the user with the advantage of avoiding tedious and repetitive tasks such as copying, pasting, applying local formatting to text, manually importing and scaling images, and generating barcodes — as well as updating content for future productions, Cacidi Extreme Suite 7.0 CS3 is the tool of choice for businesses with a demand for optimizing time and budget in their graphic production flow.

ImageSwapper for Indesign

The position, scale, rotation, and cropping that was applied to the FPO image now needs to be applied to the high-resolution replacement. To go through this process manually is tedious and time consuming. ImageSwapper for InDesign makes this process fast and simple. The user selects two points on both the original and replacement image, and with that information ImageSwapper will automatically calculate how much the replacement image should be rotated and scaled, while offering the option to manually override any setting. It features a single, straightforward dialog and offers numerous features that enable fast, precise, and seamless replacement of low-res images.

MadtoPrint for InDesign

The professional tool to enhance output options in Adobe InDesign, MadeToPrint optimizes and expands the output options in Adobe's premium layout application, minimizes mistakes, and allows faster production. MadeToPrint is the standard tool that makes life for professional InDesign users a lot easier.

InFlow

InFlow provides automatic page insertion for InDesign. Turn any master-page text thread into an auto-flow text thread in seconds. When InFlow detects over set text, it creates a new document page (instead of requiring the user to create it manually) and links the current text story to the auto-flow text threads on the newly created page so that text can flow automatically.

InData

Simply put, InData works like a mail merge on steroids. Write simple text statements to import and format text and graphics. Then our menu-driven tools, in a few clicks, build documents at hundreds, or even thousands, of pages per hour.

PageSlug ID

This Plug-in provides automatic, basic-information slugs for InDesign CS documents, and updates crucial items such as date, time, computer, and so on, on each page.

Q to InDesign Batch

Q-to-InDesign Batch provides you with the possibility of automatically converting your old Quark Xpress and Adobe PageMaker files into Adobe InDesign format. Q-to-InDesign Batch uses InDesign’s build-in conversion system but automates the process.

Adobe InDesign CS3: Automated publishing with XML and scripting

The flexible XML options and rich scripting support in Adobe® InDesign® CS3 allow you to create powerful automated workflows for publishing content across various systems and output media. This area provides in-depth information about the XML and scripting support in InDesign to help you create a strong foundation for custom solutions that meet your unique publishing requirements.

Excellent tutorial for automating InDesign: Automate InDesign (PDF)

This is an excellent PDF on how to Automate InDesign.

What Tools Do You Use to Increase Your Design Project productivity and efficiency? Is there any website tools or software that you use for your graphic design projects that speed up your design process? Please be kind and share tools / software that you know about so you can help your fellow graphic designers. Thank you!!!

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