Revolutionising legislative efficiency with InDesign layout automation

Formatting bills and debates of the Mauritius National Assembly in Adobe InDesign from MS Word was time-consuming. This required hours of manual effort due to the need to import all the transcribed content in Word that had to be copied to InDesign with a table of contents, consistent formatting, precise header and footer matching, creating and formatting tables, and more.

To address this challenge, we developed a specialised Adobe InDesign plugin that seamlessly pulls content from Word documents to InDesign. The plugin automates the creation of tables of contents, formats bullets and numbering, ensures accurate nesting of content, creates tables and manages page numbers. Additionally, it precisely matches headers and footers, streamlining the entire formatting process.

Implementing the Adobe InDesign plugin significantly reduced the time required to format bills and debates for the Mauritius National Assembly. Tasks that once took hours are now accomplished within minutes, saving thousands of person-hours every year. The plugin’s automation has increased efficiency and improved accuracy and consistency in document formatting.