What is Indesign Mcp

indesign-mcp is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server designed to interact with Adobe InDesign through the ExtendScript API, enabling text manipulation in InDesign documents via Claude Desktop.

Use cases

Use cases include automating text updates in large documents, batch processing of text changes, and extracting text for analysis or translation from InDesign files.

How to use

To use indesign-mcp, install the required dependencies, configure Claude Desktop with the server settings, and ensure Adobe InDesign is running. The server provides tools for adding, updating, removing, and retrieving text from InDesign documents.

Key features

Key features include adding text at specified positions, updating text with find and replace functionality, removing specific text, and retrieving all text content from the active InDesign document.

Where to use

indesign-mcp is primarily used in graphic design, publishing, and any field that requires document automation and text manipulation within Adobe InDesign.

InDesign MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for interacting with Adobe InDesign through ExtendScript API. Enables text manipulation in InDesign documents via Claude Desktop.

Features

• Add Text: Insert text at start, end, or after selection
• Update Text: Find and replace text with support for all occurrences
• Remove Text: Delete specific text from documents
• Get Document Text: Retrieve all text content from active document

Setup

1. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

2. Configure Claude Desktop by adding to your claude_desktop_config.json:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "indesign": {
         "command": "python3",
         "args": [
           "/Users/honeycomb/indesign_mcp/server.py"
         ],
         "env": {}
       }
     }
   }
   

3. Ensure Adobe InDesign is installed and running

Usage

The server provides four tools accessible through Claude Desktop:

add_text

• text: Text to add
• position: “start”, “end”, or “after_selection” (default: “end”)

update_text

• find_text: Text to find
• replace_text: Replacement text
• all_occurrences: Replace all instances (default: false)

remove_text

• text: Text to remove
• all_occurrences: Remove all instances (default: false)

get_document_text

Returns all text content from the active InDesign document.

Requirements

• Python 3.7+
• Adobe InDesign (tested with 2025)
• macOS (uses osascript for InDesign communication)
• Active InDesign document

How it Works

The server communicates with InDesign via ExtendScript through macOS osascript, executing JavaScript code within InDesign’s environment for text manipulation operations.