Our LayerLifter freebie is a simple plug-in for Adobe InDesign that offers an alternative method for moving page items between layers, instead of using the InDesign Layers palette.

With LayerLifter, the names of the document layers appear in the context menu of any selected page item. You can move a page item between layers by right-clicking and selecting a layer name from the context menu.

This updated version adds an optional feature to nudge all items on a layer throughout the whole document, or across the current spread – only users that have a license for APID ToolAssistant installed have access to this optional feature.

To see a little bit more about this new feature, check this out – it’s a little article that explains how to nudge a whole collection of frames in one swoop:

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/2009/10/29/how-to-nudge-and-shift-a-whole-layer/

More info about LayerLifter can be found here:

http://www.rorohiko.com/layerlifter

The latest version of our LayerLifter tool includes an optional layer shifter feature, which allows you to do document-wide ‘layer nudging’

Imagine you made a picture grid layout, with captions below the pictures – something like this:

You’ve put pictures into the picture frames (to do that fast, you might have used our ImageLibraryLoader tool), and the caption text is all neatly styled using a paragraph style Caption.

The caption frames are on their own separate layer.

Imagine there are many tens of pages like this. Now, for the sake of the argument, suppose we want to make the caption frames overlap the pictures instead of sitting underneath.

First select the API – LayerLifter – Preferences menu item, and make sure the Drag Attached Layer On All Spreads option is enabled.

Select any one of the caption frames, and then pick the API – LayerLifter – Attach To Layer menu item.

The caption frame should now display a little paperclip icon near its top left corner.

The caption frame is now ‘attached’ to the layer it is on – anytime you move this particular frame, you will ‘drag’ the whole layer along, as well as any other page items on that layer.

Drag the caption frame so it overlaps the picture above it. As soon as you let go of the mouse button, all other caption frames on all pages will shift the same amount – so they now all overlap – they were all on the same layer, so they all move along. (Yeah, I know the result does not look good – good thing this is only a dummy layout just for the sake of the demo, eh).

Finally, with the attached caption frame still selected, use the API – LayerLifter -Detach From Layer menu item to remove the paperclip, and detach the caption frame from its layer.

Important: this layer shifter feature is only enabled for LayerLifter users that also have a valid APID ToolAssistant license installed.