WordsFlow，a plug-in for InDesign, for the first time combines the editing power of Word and Excel with the layout power of InDesign, adding its own dynamic linking and sophisticated merge technologies to supercharge your editorial and production workflows.
With WordsFlow, you place Word documents (including tables and graphics) and Excel spreadsheets (Pro version) as InDesign story contents normally, using a familiar place dialog.
But, behind the scenes, WordsFlow maintains a dynamic link so it can intelligently merge external document changes into the InDesign story contents on each link update, rather than just replacing the story. The Pro version provides a two-way link so you can push your InDesign story changes back to Word format.
So you can format, layout, and edit in InDesign, while your authors and editors continue creating and editing story content in Word and Excel, all without ever losing work. Your authors and editors are no longer “frozen out” once layout begins.When you place the original Word or Excel file (or any text file), WordsFlow asks InDesign to keep a special kind of dynamic link to the file.When you or anyone else makes to changes that file (locally or in a shared-file situation), InDesign will notice that the link’s source has changed, and change the link’s status to “modified” in the Links panel (a yellow alert icon, as shown here). You can update the story when you’re ready, using the normal link-update invocations, such as a double-click on the modified icon.As the link update starts, WordsFlow kicks in. Instead of letting InDesign replace the linked story wholesale，it applies a complex algorithm behind the scenes to merge the changes made to the external document since the last update into the current InDesign story contents (and to detect any conflicts). We call this the “magic merge-update,” since it seems like magic the first times you see it working. It’s this magic that saves you from endless error-prone manual merging.With WordsFlow building on the standard file linking mechanisms you already know for graphics, there are no learning pains.And there is no barrier to using WordsFlow—just install the plug-in, select Place with WordsFlow and proceed using the normal place dialog. Your collaborators don’t need any special software, and can continue to work exactly as they always have. But now their last-minute or even ongoing changes won’t slow you down.
Pro is two-way
The Pro version of WordsFlow adds two major features to give you a fully two-way workflow.
With WordsFlow Pro, you can push updates from any InDesign story to its linked Word document. This way, you can keep your collaborators working with the latest InDesign content, in their own editing environment.Additionally, the Pro version can export original InDesign story content in Word docx format, auto-linking to the result. So you can now take existing InDesign content—however it was produced—and push it out in Word format for further editing and revision, to be shared with your collaborators. As they make additions and changes to the exported document, you can pull them in with a normal WordsFlow story update, usually with just a double-click.One happy side-effect of WordsFlow Pro’s two-way capabilities is the availability for the first time of full, modern docx export for InDesign stories. Before, your export options were limited to using rtf or other half-way solutions.
Pro works with Excel (one-way)
The Pro version of WordsFlow also works with imported Excel spreadsheet files as well as Word files. You can place a spreadsheet file, then format columns/rows or individual cells, etc. in InDesign. Later, if you or someone else makes changes to the original spreadsheet, including moving around rows or columns, WordsFlow will figure out what changed, and merge in the changes without losing the formatting and edits you’ve made in InDesign.WordsFlow Pro doesn’t support two-way workflow with Excel documents, for now. But we call it a “one and a half-way workflow,” since you can work on both sides simultaneously.
Works with open-source word processors
If you’d rather use open-source (and free) word processors like OpenOffice or LibreOffice, WordsFlow can interoperate with those tools as well, either using ODF (their native format) or DOCX, Word’s native format, which they support well.