FormatFlow Translate is the IDML-safe AI translation plugin for Adobe InDesign. Pick your languages, click Translate, and get a press-ready .indd (and PDF) per language — layout untouched, every text block verified, powered by your own AI key.
No credit card for the trial · InDesign 18.5+ · Bring your own AI key (free options available)
Features
Most AI translation plugins write into your live document and hope for the best. FormatFlow exports your document to IDML (InDesign's own XML format), translates the text inside the XML, verifies every single block, and builds a fresh copy per language. Corruption is structurally impossible.
Tick French, German, Japanese, Arabic and 44 more — one click produces one production-ready .indd file per language, named and saved automatically.
Your original document is never touched. Text is translated inside InDesign's XML interchange format, so frames, styles, tables, and masters are preserved by construction.
Stable IDs map every paragraph and table cell. Missing or suspicious translations are automatically re-requested; a broken result is never written to disk.
A scratchpad tab for instant text translation — paste, pick a language, copy the result. Same provider, key, glossary, and industry tone as your batches.
One click before you translate: text volume, missing fonts, locked layers, pre-existing overset, and an AI cost estimate for your selected languages.
Translations run longer than English. The fixer tightens tracking, then leading, then size — least invasive first — so nothing gets clipped in print. Also a standalone tool for any document.
Get a print PDF per language alongside each .indd, using your InDesign export settings. Or batch-PDF any set of documents from its own tab.
Load a CSV of brand terms and approved translations — they're enforced on every matching unit, in every language.
Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian get correct right-to-left paragraph direction automatically. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Thai and Vietnamese fully supported.
Text goes directly from your machine to the AI provider you choose. FormatFlow never sees, stores, or proxies your content — there is no middleman server.
How it works
Install from Adobe's plugin marketplace, open InDesign, and find the panel under Plugins → FormatFlow Translate.
In Settings, pick a provider and paste your key. It's stored in InDesign's secure storage on your machine — and remembered, so you do this once.
One click tells you about missing fonts, locked layers, pre-existing overset, and what the batch will roughly cost in AI usage.
Tick everything you need in the language dropdown — or hit a preset like Core 20, Europe, Asia, or Middle East. Set the industry, add context, load your terminology CSV.
Choose an output folder and click Translate. Watch each language get translated, verified, fitted, saved as .indd, and exported to PDF.
Pricing
The subscription covers the plugin. Translation compute is billed by your own AI provider — typically pennies per document, or free on Google's AI Studio tier and local Ollama.
Need 5+ seats or an agency licence? Talk to us.
Bring your own key
BYOK means you sign up with an AI provider directly and paste your API key into the plugin. You control the model, the cost, and the data path. Setting one up takes about two minutes:
The recommended starting point: fast, excellent quality, and a generous free quota with no credit card.
Get a free key →Premium translation quality with superb instruction-following — ideal for client-facing finals.
Sign up →GPT models via the Responses API. Solid all-rounder if your team already has an OpenAI account.
Sign up →The specialist translation engine many studios already trust. Billed per source character rather than per token.
Sign up →Run open models on your own machine. Zero cost, zero data leaves your computer. No key needed at all.
Download →FAQ
No — ever. The plugin sends text directly from your machine to the AI provider you configured (or to a local Ollama model, in which case nothing leaves your computer at all). We have no server in the path and never see your content. The only network call to us is license validation, which contains your license key and nothing else.
No. The plugin never edits your open document. It exports to IDML — InDesign's own XML format — swaps only the text inside the XML, verifies every block, and builds a fresh copy per language. Frames, styles, tables, and master pages are preserved by construction. If a translation runs long, the optional auto-fit tightens tracking, leading, and size (in that order) so nothing is clipped.
You need an API key from one provider — and free options exist. Google's AI Studio tier costs nothing and handles most workloads; Ollama is free and fully local. Paid usage with OpenAI or Anthropic typically costs cents per document. The plugin subscription and your AI usage are completely separate.
48 language targets including all major European languages, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Bengali, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Swahili, Zulu and more — with automatic right-to-left handling for RTL scripts. Presets cover Core 20, Europe, Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Americas.
Yes. Table cell text lives in the same XML stories the engine reads, so tables are translated and verified like everything else.
One production-ready .indd per language (e.g. “Brochure - French.indd”), plus an optional print PDF per language. Your original stays exactly as it was.
Load a CSV glossary (source, target, optional note). Matching terms are enforced in every translation request. Product codes, URLs, emails, and placeholders are automatically protected from translation.
Anytime, from your billing portal — the plugin keeps working until the end of the paid period. The 14-day trial needs no card, so there's nothing to cancel if it's not for you.
Adobe InDesign 18.5 or newer (2023+) on macOS or Windows, and an API key from any supported provider (or Ollama installed locally).
Install the plugin, grab a free Gemini key, and translate your first document in the next ten minutes.