indesign-extendscript-plugins

A Claude Code plugin for automating Adobe InDesign, driven from natural-language requests. It bundles two complementary skills:

indd — drive a running InDesign on macOS via ExtendScript (.jsx) run through AppleScript. Create and modify documents, place images, build tables, apply styles, export PDF/PNG/JPG/EPS, convert IDML, and more. Ships 50+ working example scripts under skills/indd/scripts.
idml — unpack, edit, and repack IDML files as XML, fully offline. An .idml is a ZIP of XML, so Claude can extract it, edit the story text / styles / colors directly, and pack it back into a valid .idml — without launching InDesign. Implemented in pure-stdlib Python (skills/idml/scripts/idmlutil.py).

The two work well together: build or render with indd, manipulate the file's XML offline with idml.

Requirements

Claude Code
The indd skill needs macOS with Adobe InDesign installed (2024 / 2025 / 2026).
The idml skill needs only Python 3 (already on macOS) — no InDesign, no third-party packages. It is OS-independent; only optional render-verification (handed off to indd) requires InDesign.

In Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add mindboard/indesign-extendscript-plugins
/plugin install indd@indesign-extendscript-plugins

Just ask Claude in plain language. Claude picks the right skill automatically based on the task — you don't need to name it.

Generate / render with indd:

Create an A4 document with a title and a 3-column body, then export it as PDF.

Claude writes the ExtendScript and runs it against your running InDesign. See skills/indd/SKILL.md for the full capabilities and idioms.

Edit an existing IDML offline with idml:

Open hello.idml, change the text "Hello" to "Hello, World!", and save it as hello-world.idml.

Claude unpacks the IDML, edits the story XML, and repacks a valid .idml — no InDesign needed. See skills/idml/SKILL.md.

Most of the example scripts under skills/indd/scripts are adapted from my earlier repository mindboard/indesign-extendscript.

MIT