CtrlChanges Pro

CHANGE-TRACKING PLUG-IN FOR INDESIGN AND INCOPY

Tracking changes in text-heavy documents can be a real headache, especially if several people are working with the files. CtrlChanges Pro helps keep your text tracking under control by showing you exactly what’s been modified in your InDesign CS3 and CS4 files. The plug-in tracks all text changes, shows added and removed text, tracks who made changes and when, can print a list of changes, builds PDF reports, color-codes text changes based on author, includes the ability to accept or reject changes, and can build PDF versions of your InDesign documents with changes shown as sticky notes.

CtrlChanges Pro is amazingly easy to use, and its features are nicely grouped under a special menu item and also in a tool panel. Text change highlighting can be shown or hidden, which is really useful when lots of people are modifying your document’s copy, and change tracking can be disabled for documents where text control isn’t critical. InDesign and InCopy CS4 users can hover their mouse over text changes to see who made the modifications, along with a date and time stamp.

On the down side, licensing goes smoothly on a Mac only if you’re logged in as an administrative user. Entering a license code as a standard user fails without any indication that something went wrong, and the installation instructions don’t mention the administrator requirement—something that could easily be avoided with a simple warning dialog.

Despite some potential confusion when entering license codes, CtrlChanges Pro does its job like a champ. It makes tracking text changes in your InDesign documents wonderfully simple, and its change history makes it easy for project managers to keep up on a document’s evolution, too.—Jeff Gamet

Company: Ctrl Publishing
Price: $549
Web: www.ctrl-ps.com
Rating: 4

Hot: Easy to learn; highly detailed text tracking
Not: Licensing works only for administrator-level users