Documentation

Everything you need to go from install to a folder full of translated, press-ready documents.

1. Installation

1. Install FormatFlow Translate from Adobe's plugin marketplace (Creative Cloud desktop app → Marketplace → Plugins).
2. Open Adobe InDesign 18.5 or newer.
3. Open the panel: Plugins → FormatFlow Translate.

Your 14-day full-featured trial starts the first time the panel opens — no card, no account needed.

2. Setting up your AI key (once, ~2 minutes)

FormatFlow is BYOK — bring your own key. Your text goes directly from your machine to the provider you pick; we never see it.

1. On the Translate tab, pick your provider and model.
2. Open Settings (gear icon) and paste your key under API & Security.
3. The key saves automatically to InDesign's secure storage — you won't enter it again. Each provider remembers its own key.

3. Your first translation

1. Open the document you want to translate. Save it once if it's brand new.
2. (Recommended) Run Preflight — it catches missing fonts and locked layers before you spend tokens.
3. On the Translate tab: set From (or leave Auto detect), open the To dropdown and tick your target languages.
4. Pick Industry tone and add a sentence of Context about the client/brand.
5. Choose an output folder, then click Translate.

For each language you'll get MyDoc - French.indd (and MyDoc - French.pdf if PDF export is on). Copies open in InDesign automatically; your original is untouched.

4. The Translate tab in detail

• To — target languages: a multi-select dropdown with regional presets (Core 20, Europe, Africa, Asia, Middle East, Americas), a search filter, and per-region Tick all/Untick.
• Estimate: counts text blocks and approximates token usage before you commit.
• Cancel: finishes the in-flight request safely, then stops — no half-written files, ever.
• The log shows each language's lifecycle: translating → validating → building → verified → saved, with warnings for anything worth your attention (e.g. text that needed the auto-fit).

What "verified" means

Every paragraph and table cell gets a stable ID. After translation, the engine checks that every ID came back, re-requests anything missing or suspicious, rebuilds the document XML, and re-reads every block to confirm it matches. A broken file cannot be saved.

5. Quick Translate ⚡

A scratchpad for everyday snippets — email lines, captions, alt text, client queries:

1. Open the Quick tab (lightning icon).
2. Pick a target language, paste your text, hit Translate.
3. Copy result puts it on your clipboard.

It uses your main provider, model, key, industry tone, and glossary — so quick snippets match your batch terminology.

6. Preflight 📋

One click on the active document reports:

• Text volume — blocks, words, characters
• Frames already overset before translation
• Locked layers (their text still gets translated in copies — unlock if you don't want that)
• Missing or substituted fonts
• Estimated AI token usage for your currently selected languages

7. Batch PDF 📄

• During translation: keep "Also export a PDF per language" on in Settings and every language ships with a print PDF automatically.
• Standalone: the Batch PDF tab exports all open documents — or any .indd/.idml files you pick — to PDFs in one go, using InDesign's current PDF export settings. To use a specific preset, do one manual File → Export with it first; InDesign remembers.

8. Overset Fixer ⊞

Translations run longer than English; this resolves text that no longer fits its frame — least invasive first:

1. Tracking (letter-spacing) — visually invisible
2. Leading (line spacing) — up to 5%
3. Point size — up to ~14%, never below 4pt

Scan reports overflowing stories without changing anything; Fix applies only the stages you've ticked, only to stories that still overflow. Works on any document. The same engine runs automatically after each translation (toggle in Settings).

9. Glossaries

Load a CSV on the Translate tab — two or three columns:

source term, approved translation, optional note

• Matching terms are enforced in every request, every language.
• URLs, emails, product codes, variables, and bracketed tokens are protected automatically — no glossary needed for those.

10. Settings & license

• API & Security — per-provider keys, saved to secure storage the moment you paste them.
• Plugin License — your trial status, key activation, and the Get a license button. Subscription covers the plugin; AI usage stays on your own provider bill. Activation is per-machine; keys re-validate quietly in the background and never block you offline.
• Appearance — Match InDesign (follows your Interface brightness), or force Dark/Light.
• Translation quality — Layout-tight (default, keeps translations within the space the design allows), Balanced, or Premium QA; plus placeholder protection, locked-item skipping, RTL handling, auto-fit, PDF export, and keep-copies-open toggles.

11. Troubleshooting

"No InDesign document is open"

Open the document in the same InDesign instance the panel is running in (watch out if you have two InDesign versions installed).

"Could not export the document to IDML"

Save the document once (File → Save) and run again — brand-new untitled documents can't be exported.

Provider errors (429 / 503)

Rate limits or temporary overload at your AI provider. The plugin retries automatically; if a chunk still fails, just run again — only the failed parts are re-requested. On Gemini's free tier, very large batches may need a second pass.

Text still overset after auto-fit

The log names the stories. Run the Overset Fixer with size reduction enabled, or edit those frames manually — the fixer never goes below 4pt or beyond ~14% by design.

A language shows "failed" in the log

That language's file was not written (by design — no broken output). Read the log line for the cause, fix it (usually key/quota), and run again with just that language ticked.

Something else?

Email matt@bear-cg.com with the log text — it contains everything we need, and never any of your document content or keys.