InDesign for 2024: New Features, Extensibility, Express and AI
Max Dunn
San Francisco, California
Virtual
October 19, 2023
3:45-4:00 p.m. Pacific — Networking
4:00-5:45 p.m. Pacific — Presentation
This meeting was sponsored by the Adobe Community Experts Program
He also discussed the Unified eXtensibility Platform or UXP. This significant technology, which required the efforts of many brilliant individuals and took a long time to implement, has brought InDesign’s extensibility into the modern age. He showcased the use of the latest JavaScript along with REACT support and debugging tools.
Furthermore, Adobe Express—Adobe’s response to Canva—has been enriched with sophisticated new extensibility tools (as well as AI features based on Adobe Firefly). Max highlighted the two Express SDKs available: The Add-in SDK, which allows for the addition of features to Express, and the Embed SDK, which facilitates the inclusion of Express in other applications.
During the session, it was revealed that developers now have the capacity to elevate Adobe’s creative tools. For example, Max’s company, Silicon Publishing, has seamlessly integrated Express with its InDesign-based document editor. This integration means that users can now edit documents in a web browser, utilize Express to create or process content, and subsequently reintegrate it into the document, all the while maintaining compatibility with InDesign.
Max delved deep into the innovative capabilities unlocked by Adobe Express and Adobe Firefly. He touched upon the role of AI and elucidated how Adobe’s suite of tools synergizes to redefine modern publishing workflows. Attendees gained insights into making informed decisions between InDesign and Express and received guidance on optimally utilizing both applications. The session also spotlighted the integration of generative AI from Adobe and other sources, showcasing their benefits in InDesign-centric publishing processes.
About the Presenter
Max Dunn
Max Dunn grew up in Berkeley, California, earned a BA in Music from Wesleyan University in 1985, and spent the 1990s as a database programmer in Silicon Valley before directing Software Engineering at Bertelsmann Industry Services (BIS) at the peak of the dot-com era. BIS was then feeding billions of pages a year to Bertelsmann's 300 print subsidiaries worldwide, and it was there that Max fell in love with document and image automation. He immersed himself in the emerging XML standard and its relatives (XSLT, XSL-FO, SVG), while BIS pioneered online document creation and became the first company to produce dynamic PDF from web input.
In 2000, Max co-founded Silicon Publishing with BIS colleague Alissa Whitney; Adobe became their first client on day one. SPI helped Adobe bring XML support and server capabilities to FrameMaker and led DITA implementation for years, but the founders' real passion was Adobe's new InDesign, which they pushed to its limits on the desktop while lobbying Adobe for a server version. When InDesign Server finally shipped in 2005, SPI grew substantially. The company later hired numerous members of the original InDesign team, and in 2011 Olav Martin Kvern, who had led InDesign automation at Adobe, joined SPI. Along the way, Max tech-edited SVG Unleashed, contributed a chapter to Charles Goldfarb's XML Handbook, authored whitepapers for Adobe, published articles on XML, InDesign Server, and DITA, and has spoken at numerous conferences and on technology and business podcasts.
Max and Alissa continue to lead SPI as CEO and CTO, and the company has delivered some of the largest document automation projects in the world for leading brands. Max is a strong believer in staying current: SPI's code is continually updated to reflect test-driven development, continuous integration, and prudent adoption of technologies such as XR, AI, and headless, API-first publishing. Today he is energized by the renaissance in Adobe's graphic and document software. Offerings like Adobe Express and Firefly Services closely parallel SPI's long-held devotion to online editing and server-side rendering, crystallizing the vision Max has pursued since the beginning, and SPI is more deeply allied with Adobe than ever.
