Layer Groups 1.1 is a rather self-explanatory in inDesign CS3 plug in by DTP tools. Taking its lead from the very same feature in Photoshop, Layer Groups adds the ability of organizing layers into sets and ultimately making your InDesigns docs more manageable.
While you would expect the plug in to work within layers pallete in InDesign , it doesn’t. It works as its own palette, effectively replacing the native Layers palette and therefore asking you to change your workflow somewhat. However, it’s not a painful adjustment- the Layer Groups palette looks and feels just like InDesign’s own Layers palette.
There are really only two features to this plug –in. The first we’ve already explained and the second is to create printing or non-printing groups of layers. You can, of course, create non-printing layers natively in InDesign via the Layer palette’s options menu, so why is this beneficial? Well, being able to set an entire group as non-printing is handy if you have a number of annotation layers (for convenience , really), but other than that it’s not exactly essential.
For designers using loads of layers though, organizing them in a Photoshop-esque way is a very attractive proposition. The fact that layer order and hierarchy will remain intact when documents are opened in copies at InDesign without the Layer Groups plug –in makes it even better.
Browse Timeline
