Datasheet

CHAPTER 1 Customizing

InDesign can function, to one degree or another, absent any of the nonrequired plug-ins.

Therefore, if some or all of the people in your workgroup have no need of something like, say,

hyperlinks and the Hyperlinks panel or type on a path, you can save (a little) system overhead

and tidy up the InDesign interface a bit by disabling the plug-ins that add those functions.

In past versions, plug-ins were managed from the Conﬁgure Plug-Ins dialog box. As of CS5,

however, Adobe has uniﬁed the management of plug-ins and extensions across all Creative Suite

applications into the Adobe Extension Manager, an app that ships with the Suite and constitu-

ent products (see Figure 1.14). You can launch Adobe Extension Manager from its application

icon or from within InDesign via Help  Manage Extensions (Windows) or InDesign  Manage

Extensions (Mac). In Adobe Extension Manager, select InDesign CS5 from the Products list to

view a list of plug-ins and extensions installed in your copy of InDesign. Plug-ins and extensions

are listed with their versions and authors, if known, and may be selectively disabled by uncheck-

ing the box in the Enabled column. Already disabled plug-ins show an empty box in the Enabled

column and can be toggled back on with a click in that box. Required plug-ins, those that cannot

be disabled without destabilizing InDesign and triggering a planet-wide seismic catastrophe

even John Cusack couldn’t escape, appear with a padlock icon to the left of their names, and their

Enabled column checkboxes are unalterable. To delete, not merely disable, a noncritical plug-in,

select it and click the Remove button that appears to the right of the plug-in author’s name.

Disable any plug-ins neither you nor InDesign need to do your job; you’ll have a leaner

InDesign with less demand on your system RAM. If you’re not entirely sure what a plug-in

does, highlight it; at the bottom of Adobe Extension Manager you can view a description and

advanced information about any selected plug-in. Although the resulting description isn’t guar-

anteed to be illuminating, it might offer some clues. Unfortunately, Adobe Extension Manager

typically offers much less information about plug-ins and their dependencies than the much

more verbose Conﬁgure Plug-Ins utility it replaced. Ah, progress!

When in doubt about what a plug-in does and whether you need it, try disabling it and look for

the absence of what you think it does. Why would I want to disable some plug-ins? For many of the

Figure 1.14

Conﬁguring InDe-

sign plug-ins via

Adobe Extension

Manager CS5

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