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.
Macsimum rating: 8 out of 10
This review is brought to your courtesy of Layers Magazine.
