The InDesign plugin

Installing

1. Download the plugin file (.ccx) from the How it works page.
2. Close InDesign.
3. Double-click the downloaded file. Adobe Creative Cloud takes over the installation and reports when it is done.

Installing the .ccx file through Adobe Creative Cloud.

Start InDesign and open the panel through Window ▸ Utilities ▸ InTO Translation.

The panel is opened from the Window menu.

The panel docks like any other InDesign panel.

The panel next to an open document.

Signing in to the panel

Signing in with the credentials of your web account.

• Create account and Forgot your password? open the matching page of the website in your default browser.
• Top right, EN / DE switch the panel’s language; the choice is remembered. On first start the panel follows InDesign’s own language.

If your email address is not confirmed yet, the server refuses the sign-in and the panel explains why — with a button that sends the confirmation email again.

Without a confirmed email address there is no sign-in.

How the panel is laid out

The translate screen with its fixed header.

Header

The header does not scroll away and always shows:

Element	What it means
Available balance	How much you can still translate in total. Broken down below it: wallet, plan (amount and remaining characters) and resets on …
Refresh icon	Fetches the balance from the server again
Account	Opens the website’s dashboard in the browser
Top up ↗	Opens the wallet page in the browser
Settings	Opens the panel settings
Sign out	Ends the session in the panel
EN / DE	Language of the panel interface

Once your free quota has run out, it reads “Free quota ended”.

Languages

• Source language — the language of the document. With Detect automatically DeepL works it out itself, which is usually the best choice for mixed documents.
• Target language — the language to translate into.

Both lists have a search field plus the sections Recently used and All languages.

The language picker with its search field.

InDesign language of the translated text

The gear next to the target language sets which InDesign text language is applied to the translated text. Spell-checking and hyphenation depend on it.

• Automatic (…) — matching the target language (the default)
• Do not change the language — whatever the document already sets stays
• or one specific language taken from the document

The mapping is remembered per target language.

The InDesign language mapped to each target language.

Where the translation is written

The target choice, with its warning.

Option	What happens
Current document (overwritten)	The texts in the open document are replaced. Make a backup copy first.
New copy (choose a file name)	A copy is saved and opened; the original stays untouched.

For New copy the document must already be saved. The save dialog suggests the name <document>_<language code>.indd — so Brochure.indd translated into English becomes Brochure_EN.indd — and opens the original’s folder.

Translating a document

Step 1 — analysis (free)

Click Translate document. First the panel reads the whole document and counts the translatable text. This costs nothing, and nothing is sent to DeepL yet.

During the analysis; Cancel stops it at any moment.

Step 2 — confirming the cost

The result of the analysis, before translating.

The dialog names segments / characters, the estimated cost, and confirms that your balance covers the run. You have two options:

• Continue translation — the translation starts.
• Cancel — the analysis is discarded and nothing is charged.

The price shown is the one that will actually be charged: it is worked out with the same split and rounding as the translation itself.

Do not show this dialog again skips this confirmation in future; the translation then starts right after the analysis — but only when the balance covers it. You can undo that in the panel settings.

Because the dialog can stay open while you keep working on the document, the panel reads the document again after “Continue translation” and re-checks the price. If the document changed in the meantime, the run stops with a notice and charges nothing — clicking Translate document again starts cleanly.

Step 3 — translation

The progress display, with a counter and a percentage.

Large documents are translated in chunks and charged chunk by chunk. Cancel stops the run at the next chunk boundary; chunks already translated (and paid for) are still written into the document, the rest stays in the source language.

Step 4 — the report

The result of the run.

The report names the number of translated segments and warns if the translation produced text overflows (overset text in frames or table cells). Translations are longer or shorter than the original depending on the language — check the layout afterwards.

Layout and formatting are kept.

When the balance is not enough

The dialog spells out what is missing.

If wallet plus quota are not enough, the document is analysed but not translated, and nothing is charged. The dialog shows:

• the size of the document in characters and words
• the estimated cost
• the remaining quota of your plan and its reset date
• your wallet balance
• how far quota and wallet reach together
• the shortfall

Top up ↗ opens the wallet page in the browser.

Word counts are approximate. Billing is by character only; the word count is estimated from the ratio inside this document.

When the browser opens behind InDesign

Some browsers (observed with Firefox on Windows) open the new tab behind the InDesign window — it then looks as if nothing happened. So:

• After the click the panel reports that the page was already opened and that the browser window may be behind InDesign (taskbar / Alt+Tab).
• Next to every Top up button the address is written out: click it to select it, copy with Ctrl+C and paste it into the browser.
• If no browser could be opened at all, the message names the address as well.

The top-up address sits next to the button, ready to copy.

“The price went up”

A price change in the middle of a run.

If the rest of the document suddenly costs more than estimated — usually because a second translation on the same account used up the quota at the same time — the panel asks. You can continue at the new total or stop and keep what was already translated; either way only text actually translated was charged.

Panel settings

Through the gear in the header.

Translation flow

The analysis dialog can be switched back on here.

Skip the analysis confirmation dialog — when this is on, the translation starts straight after the analysis, provided the balance covers the cost. Turn it off to bring the confirmation dialog back.

“Do not translate” — keeping text out of a translation

The conditions of the open document.

Text that has to stay as it is — brand names, article numbers, legal wording — can be kept out of the translation. InDesign’s conditional text is what marks it (Window ▸ Type & Tables ▸ Conditional Text):

1. In InDesign, create a condition, for example “Do not translate”, and apply it to the text in question.
2. Tick that condition in the panel settings under Do not translate.

That gives you:

• The marked text is not sent and not charged.
• The rest of the paragraph is still translated; the marked words keep their position in the translated sentence, along with their formatting and their condition.
• A paragraph that is marked in full is not sent at all.
• The selection is stored permanently and applies to every document — handy for a condition that is part of your house standard.
• Clearing the tick puts the text back into the next translation.

The refresh icon next to the heading re-reads the list — after you created a condition in InDesign, say, or opened a different document.

A note on the estimate: the analysis cannot see conditions yet. Where text is excluded, the estimate shown is therefore an upper bound — only the text actually sent is charged, so the real cost tends to be lower.