Scaling Multilingual DTP by Creating an Escape Hatch for Layout Adjustment (Shrinking All Placed Images at Once)

 

0. Context: Why Layout Adjustment Stops Scaling After Translation

In multilingual publishing, text expansion after translation is expected.
The real problem is not that layouts need adjustment, but that the adjustment work does not scale.

Line spacing and paragraph tweaks can absorb small increases in text volume.
However, there is always a point where those adjustments are no longer enough.

What remains at the end is usually layout work that must be done by hand — and that is where scaling breaks down.

1. Why Image Adjustment Is the Least Scalable Part

Image adjustment often becomes the last step.

  • Images are visually prominent

  • Each image seems to require individual judgment

  • Decisions feel content-dependent

This makes image-related layout work expensive in terms of attention.

The more carefully each image is adjusted, the less scalable the process becomes.
Perfect layouts do not compound well when document count and language count increase.

2. Escaping Instead of Fixing Everything

Instead of trying to fix everything perfectly, this article proposes a different approach:

Create an intentional escape hatch.

An escape hatch is not about achieving a final layout.
It is about applying a simple, uniform rule to reduce overall layout pressure.

The goal is not perfection, but room to breathe.

3. What This Script Does (And Intentionally Does Not Do)

3.1 What It Does

The script introduced here applies a single rule:

  • All currently open documents are processed

  • All placed images are affected

  • Image frames and their contents are scaled together

  • A fixed relative reduction of −10% is applied

No decisions are made per image.
Everything is treated uniformly.

3.2 What It Does Not Do

This script intentionally avoids:

  • Processing only selected images

  • Letting the user choose a percentage

  • Handling exceptions or special cases

  • Providing a UI

These features may be convenient, but they introduce additional decisions.
This example avoids them on purpose.

4. Why the Frame Must Be Scaled Together with the Image

Shrinking only the image content is rarely sufficient.

If the frame size remains unchanged, shrinking the image simply increases surrounding whitespace.
The layout pressure does not change.

What affects layout flow is the area occupied by the frame, not the image inside it.

That is why the script treats the frame and its contents as a single unit and scales them together.

5. The Minimal Script

This approach may feel risky at first.

Shrinking all placed images at once will also affect anchored objects, logos, and icons.
That is intentional.

This script is not meant to produce a final, polished layout.
It is a rough operation designed to reduce overall layout pressure.

In practice, fixing a few broken spots afterward is often much faster
than adjusting every image by hand from the beginning.

In real production workflows, certain images might be excluded —
for example, logos or icons identified by name or layer.

That kind of filtering can make a script more convenient.
However, it also introduces more rules and decisions.

This example intentionally avoids that.
Its purpose is to demonstrate a scalable fallback, not a complete solution.

#target indesign

(function () {
    var docs = app.documents;

    if (docs.length === 0) {
        alert("No documents are currently open.");
        return;
    }

    for (var d = 0; d < docs.length; d++) {
        try {
            scaleAllPlacedGraphicsInDoc(docs[d]);
        } catch (e) {
            continue;
        }
    }

    alert("Completed");

    function scaleAllPlacedGraphicsInDoc(doc) {
        var pages = doc.pages;

        for (var i = 0; i < pages.length; i++) {
            var graphics = pages[i].allGraphics;

            for (var j = 0; j < graphics.length; j++) {
                try {
                    var frame = graphics[j].parent;

                    // Reset relative scaling to 100%
                    frame.redefineScaling();

                    // Apply relative -10% scaling
                    frame.horizontalScale = 90;
                    frame.verticalScale   = 90;

                    // Fix the result as the new 100%
                    frame.redefineScaling();

                } catch (e2) {
                    continue;
                }
            }
        }
    }
})();

The choice of 10% is not critical.

There is no special meaning in that number.
What matters is deciding on a single rule and applying it consistently.

A UI would invite further decisions.
This script avoids that by design.

6. Another Escape Hatch: Preparing Smaller Paragraph Styles

Images are not the only place where escape hatches can be prepared.

Text-related pressure can often be reduced earlier by preparing paragraph styles with smaller font sizes.
Loading these styles in advance creates another controlled fallback.

This approach is discussed in more detail in:

Scaling Multilingual DTP by Automating Style Reloads Before Translation

The underlying idea is the same:
prepare scalable options before manual adjustment becomes necessary.

7. Combining Escape Hatches in Practice

In practice, these escape hatches work best together.

  • Text volume can be absorbed by switching to prepared paragraph styles

  • Image-heavy pages can gain space through uniform image scaling

Only after these global adjustments does it make sense to perform individual fine tuning.

This ordering significantly reduces the number of decisions required.

8. Closing: Scaling Is About Reducing Decisions

The main obstacle to scaling is not complexity, but decision count.

Scripts like this are not about convenience.
They are about fixing rules in advance so that fewer decisions are needed later.

Instead of perfecting each page, create room first —
and adjust only where necessary.

That is what allows multilingual DTP workflows to scale.

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