If you’ve ever been frustrated at having to hunt down your favorite Id-Extras add-on or script in InDesign’s script panel – and if, like me, you’ve got dozens of scripts in there – here’s some good news!

Id-Extras products can now be launched through a special Id-Extras menu that appears to the left of InDesign’s Help menu. (This menu item is optional, and is off by default.)

We’re in the process of phasing this in for all our products. As the updates are prepared, they will be mailed out to everyone who filled in the short registration form when activating their product initially.

Here’s what it looks like on Windows with InDesign 2015:

 

Id-Extras InDesign menu item, Windows

 

And on Mac OSX:

Id-Extras menu, Mac

How to get the menu to appear

To activate this menu, click on your product’s About button. (If there is no About button yet, either the product hasn’t been updated with this capability yet, or you are still using an older version.) For instance, here it is in Mastermatic:

 

Mastermatic About button

 

(Note for FormMagic users: Find the About button in the confirmation window that appears after you’ve run FormMagic on a document containing a form field.)

In the About window, check the “Create menu item option”, and then close the About window.

 

About dialog

 

It is necessary to restart InDesign for the menu item to appear.

Once InDesign is restarted, the new Id-Extras menu should appear, and under it the product you have just added to the menu, along with any other products you have previously added:

 

New Id-Extras menu item

 

To remove your product from the menu, uncheck the “Create menu item” option in the About window.

When the last product is removed from the Id-Extras menu, the menu item itself will disappear.

This is a convenient way to access all Id-Extras products without having to search for them in InDesign’s Scripts panel.