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The process of placing articles on a layout in a print publication is a time-consuming process, even when a template-based workflow is used. Manually placing each article and adjusting it to make sure that its content fits its place on the layout is a repetitive task that takes up a lot of time.
The AI Layout Automation feature in Studio greatly improves this process by analyzing the available space on the pages of a layout — based on preconfigured blueprints and article shapes and taking already placed articles and advertisements into account — and providing suggestions on how and where the available articles and their images can best be placed to fill the pages.
Adjustments to these suggestions can then be made, and when satisfied with the result, the command can be given to have all articles automatically placed.
The end result is a layout with articles placed on it, identical to how this would be done manually, but now done much more quickly and much more efficiently. All that is left to do is some final copyfit tweaking.
This feature is mainly designed for newspapers but can also be used in magazines for pages with a newspaper-like layout structure.
How to automatically place articles this way in Studio is described in this article.
The concept
Although the working of the Layout Automation feature is relatively easy to understand and use, it is based on various concepts. These concepts are explained in Automatically placing articles in Studio using the AI Layout Automation feature - the concept.
Note: It is recommended to be familiar with these concepts and it is assumed here that this is the case.
Requirements
- WoodWing Studio and WoodWing Studio Server running in WoodWing Cloud.
- Studio 11.227 or higher when using Issues with Editions defined.
- Other specific Studio version requirements are indicated per feature where applicable.
- The AILA Studio Server Plug-in.1
- Adobe InDesign 2024, 2025, or 20262 with Studio for InDesign and InCopy installed.
- Adobe InDesign Server3 2024, 2025, or 20262 with Studio for InDesign and InCopy installed.
1 Support for breakout stories requires version 2.7 or higher.
2 Requires the AILA Studio Server plug-in 2.6 or higher.
3 The Fit article with AI feature for automatically resolving underset or overset issues by adjusting article frames is not supported on InDesign Server.
Restarting InDesign
Using the Layout Automation is primarily done in Studio, but final tweaking to the layouts may be needed in InDesign afterwards.
The Layout Automation functionality in InDesign is very likely made available through the automatic installation of a plug-in. This is controlled by your system administrator. When you have been given access to use the Layout Automation features in InDesign, this plug-in is automatically installed (or updated) when logging in to Studio Server.
At that point, InDesign needs to be restarted to see and make use of these changes.
Supported languages in InDesign
The Layout Automation plug-in adds various menus and dialogs to InDesign. When InDesign is set to any of the supported languages for Studio for InDesign, the menus and their messages are also shown in that language, else American English is shown.
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Note: This requires the AILA Studio Server plug-in version 2.2 or higher. In version 2.1 or lower, only the following languages are supported:
When InDesign is set to any other language, American English is shown. |
Before you start
For the feature to work with optimal results, some preparation is required. It is assumed that the Layout Automation feature has been fully set up and prepared for you. This includes having pages with their folio and any articles and adverts already placed.
Verify that the following is also done and change this where needed:
- The articles and their related images have all been placed in the same Dossier.
- When opening layouts in which Editions are assigned, the following rules apply:
- In each layout, only one Edition may be assigned.
- When opening multiple layouts that have Editions assigned, the same Edition should be assigned in all layouts.
- Opening a mix of layouts with and without Editions assigned is not supported.
When needed, correct the assigned Editions in InDesign first.
- The articles to place on the layouts are in the same Brand, Issue, and Category that the layout is in.
- A sufficient number of images are available as planned to be added to an article.
- The components in each article have been tagged with the correct Element label to indicate the type of content that the component contains.
Note: See also section Labeling decorative images and Labeling breakout articles below.
- The following properties of each article have been set:
- Priority. This indicates to the Layout Automation feature if the article must be included, should be included, or if it would be nice if it is included. It is defined by a number:
- 1. Must have
- 2. Should have
- 3. Nice to have
- Story type. This indicates the type of the story: lead, secondary, third, or filler. The type is directly related to the Article Shape that the Layout Automation feature will use. It is defined by a number:
- 1. Lead story
- 2. Secondary story
- 3. Third story
- 4. Filler story
- Planned number of characters. For planned (and still empty) or unfinished articles, set the number of planned characters of all 'body' components as a measure of the article size. When the article is finished, set it back to zero (using the Properties panel or dialog for that article) so that the actual character count is used.
- Intended number of images. The number of images that should be placed with the article.*
- Intended number of quotes. The number of quotes that should be placed with the article.*
- Intended page. The number of the page on which the article should be placed.*
- Genre. (Optional. The use of Layout Genres requires Studio 11.224 or higher) Set the Genre that the article or layout should be part of.
* This is an intention: the Layout Automation feature may deviate from this.
- The word and character count for an article should closely match its type so that copyfit issues are avoided as much as possible. In other words: when an article is to be used as a small filler, it should probably not contain 1500 words. On the other hand: an article with a relatively low number of words or characters could still act as a lead story with a large image, taking up a lot of space.
- When the Layout Automation places content on a layout, it does this on a dedicated layer named the 'PLA InDesign layer'. When this layer does not yet exist, it is created automatically. The layer should not be used for other purposes.
Labeling decorative images
When the Layout Automation places an article on a layout, it uses the value set in the 'Intended number of images' property of that article to determine the number of images it can place with it.
When an article contains images that can be considered to be 'decoration' (such as logos or dividers), these images should not be included in this count. With these images excluded, the process can determine the best shape to place the article in.
To do so, create a an Element label named 'decor', and label these types of images as such.
Using breakout stories
Info: This feature requires Studio 11.230 or higher.
A breakout story is a small story embedded in another article with which it is very closely related.
Within the context of the Layout Automation, a breakout story contains only text and has its own body element and optionally a head and intro element. The following names are used in the system, but custom names may have been set up by the system administrator:
- breakout for the body component
- breakout-head for the head component
- breakout-intro for the intro component
When creating or using breakout stories (which is optional), make sure of the following:
- The breakout Element labels that are going to be used (at a minimum 'breakout' for the body component) have been created in InDesign and assigned to the correct component in the article.
- The breakout story is part of the main story it is related to. In other words: the article for the main story will contain the additional components for the breakout story; the breakout story is not a separate article.
- Only one breakout story per article is allowed.
- Breakout stories are only supported for Print articles, not for Digital articles.
Using Digital articles
Info: This feature requires Studio 11.224 or higher.
If a 'digital first' workflow is used in Studio, stories are first published to one or more digital output channels such as a Web CMS.
This is done by creating and publishing a Digital article using the Digital editor.
The Layout Automation feature however is based on placing Print articles on a layout.
To place Digital articles on a layout using the Layout Automation feature, these Digital articles first need to be converted to what is referred to as a 'Print variant'.
When the Layout Automation is set up to support Digital articles, this conversion is taken care of automatically and you will see Digital articles included in the Layout Automation process.
How it works
When the Layout Automation dialog (see below) is opened for a layout, all articles that can be placed on the layout and that belong to the same Brand, Issue, and Category combination of the layout are shown and included in the proposal for filling the layout.
When Digital articles exist for that Brand, Issue, and Category combination, then these articles are included in the process and shown in the dialog as well.
When letting the Layout Automation place articles, it automatically converts any Digital articles to Print variants and places them on the layout.
From the perspective of using the Layout Automation in Studio, using Digital articles works exactly the same as using Print articles.
In case it does not work
The following are some scenarios that can happen when not everything is working as it should:
Scenario 1: No Digital article configuration has been set up
When the Layout Automation dialog is opened and it is detected that Digital articles are available but no Digital article configuration exists, then Digital articles are excluded from the process and you can continue with just using the Print articles. When this occurs, a notification appears to inform you about this.
Scenario 2: The Digital article conversion cannot be performed
Before the Layout Automation starts placing articles, it checks if any Digital articles that need to be placed can be converted to a Print variant based on the configuration that has been set up for it.
If it detects that it cannot convert one or more Digital articles, the process stops, no articles are placed, the Layout Automation dialog stays open, and a notification appears to inform you about the issue that is occurring.
The following scenarios exist:
- No Digital article Conversion Rules exist that match the Category, story type, and optionally Genres for the Digital article. The notification lists the articles that are affected.
- Digital article Conversion Rules exist, but their components in the Print article Conversion Rule do not match the components of the Digital article. The notification lists each affected article together with the rules that were attempted to be applied.
Scenario 3: No print variant can be created
When a print variant cannot be created because of a technical issue in the system, further processing for that layout is stopped and the next layout (if any) is processed.
The Layout Automation dialog
Working with the Layout Automation feature is done by using the Layout Automation dialog. It is accessed by right-clicking a layout anywhere in Studio and choosing Open Layout Automation....
It consists of the following components:
A - A Preview pane showing the pages and the blueprints that the Layout Automation feature has chosen for them, and the articles that have been placed and their shapes.
Tip: Drag the divider between the Preview pane and the list of articles up or down to change the size of the preview.
When an area is striped, it means that it is filled with a special (requires Studio 11.215 or higher).
The way the articles are shown in the preview pane depends on the version of Studio that is used (see how to check the version of Studio that is installed).
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In Studio 11.229 and higher: Article previews are shown, with the article names displayed horizontally at the bottom. Note: These are not previews of the articles that are placed, but previews of the articles on which the Article Shapes that were used to place them are based. They are however representative of the final result.
Tip: Hover the mouse pointer over a label of a title to see the title in full in a tooltip. |
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In Studio 11.228 and lower: No preview is shown. The title of the article is shown at the top. For narrow articles, the title is shown vertically.
Figure: In this preview, a weather report is treated as a special, as indicated by the striped area. Tip: Hover the mouse pointer over a title to see the title in full in a tooltip. |
The bottom of each preview contains a Page settings icon with which a layout that is initially planned as a spread in the page planner, can be set to single pages instead. For details, see Spreads versus single pages below.
B - A list of articles that can be placed on the layout.*
- A Refresh button is available to refresh the list.
- A filter option is available to filter the list based on a custom query.
- A filled Pin is shown for articles that are already placed on the layout (requires Studio 11.212 or higher). Hovering the mouse pointer over it shows a tooltip with information on which page it is placed.
- An open Pin is shown for articles that are planned (using the 'Page nr (Aim)' or 'Page nr (Actual) options) but not yet placed (requires Studio 11.224 or higher). Hovering the mouse pointer over the pin shows a tooltip with the page number. For Digital articles, the name of the Digital article Conversion Rule that will be used is also shown.
C - The properties of each article. Some of these can be manually adjusted. See the table below.
D - An Update button to update the preview in the Preview pane. This is typically done after making changes to the list of articles and their properties.
E - A list of Placement Presets with which the way the Layout Automation algorithm fills a page can be influenced (requires Studio 11.216 or higher).
F - A Compose pages button to start the process of creating shapes on the layout and placing articles in them based on the current settings.
* When support for Digital articles has been added, take note of the following:
- When a Print variant is available for a Digital article but it has not been placed, only the Digital article is shown in the list of articles.
- When a Print variant is available for a Digital article and it has also been placed, the Print variant is shown in the list of articles.
The following properties are shown for each article:
| Property | Remarks | ||||
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| Words |
(Not available in Studio 11.230 or higher, as the Layout Automation does not use the word count for determining how to place articles; it is therefore deemed to be superfluous.) The total number of words in all article components that are marked as a 'body' component. It is not the number of words of all components, and does therefore not match the total number shown for example in the Print editor in Studio. Which article components are treated as 'body' components is determined during the configuration. |
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Body length (In Studio 11.229 and lower: |
The total number of characters in all article components that are marked as a 'body' component. It is not the number of characters of all components, and does therefore not match the total number shown for example in the Print editor in Studio. Which article components are treated as 'body' components is determined during the configuration. The value that is used is one of the following, indicated by an icon:
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| Breakout length |
(Requires Studio 11.230 or higher and only supported for Print articles) Shows the total number of characters of all article components that are mapped to the 'breakout' component. Used for articles containing a breakout story. A value of 0 means that the article does not contain a breakout story. |
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| Priority |
The priority that placing the article should have over all other stories of the same type, as set initially in the properties for that article:
Hover the mouse pointer over the field to change its value. |
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| Story type |
The type of story, as set initially in the properties for that article. The type chosen is directly related to the Article Shape that the Layout Automation feature will use.
Hover the mouse pointer over the field to change its value. |
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| Genre |
(Optional) The Genre that the article should be part of. Changing this can be done in the properties for the article. |
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| Images |
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| Quotes |
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| Page nr (Aim) |
The number of the page on which it should be aimed to place the article on, as set initially in the properties for that article. Note that this is an intention; the Layout Automation feature may deviate from this. When a value is chosen, that value is used. When a hyphen is chosen, the Layout Automation feature is free to decide the number to use. Hover the mouse pointer over the field to change its value. |
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| Page nr (Actual) | The page number on which the article is going to be placed, as determined by the Layout Automation feature. | ||||
| Exclude |
This indicates that the article should be excluded from the process and should not be placed. Select it to enable it.
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Filtering articles
When the Layout Automation dialog is opened for the first time, by default all articles that can be placed on the layout and that belong to the same Brand, Issue, and Category combination of the layout are shown.
The list can be further filtered by selecting a Custom Search above the list.
When a Custom Search is selected, it is automatically set the next time the dialog is opened for the Brand and Category combination until the Custom Search is removed for that combination.
Spreads versus single pages
Info: This feature requires Studio 11.213 or higher.
When a layout is initially planned as a spread in the page planner, it might be that by the time articles need to be placed on it, single pages should be used instead.
To make a spread act as single pages, do one of the following:
- In the Layout Automation dialog, click the Page settings icon in the preview pane of the layout, and from the menu that appears, choose 'Single page'.
- Before accessing the Layout Automation dialog for a layout, enable the 'Handle spreads as single pages' option in the Properties panel for the layout.
Note: This setting is managed on a layout level, not on an individual spread or page level. Toggling the setting for the layout affects all spreads on that layout.
Alternatively, if the 'Handle spreads as single pages' option for a layout was enabled and the layout needs to be treated as a spread when working with it in the Layout Automation dialog, choose 'Spread' from the Page settings menu.
Placing articles
Placing articles on all the various pages within a specific section of a publication is typically done by a dedicated person such as a 'Chief print'. The steps are as follows:
Step 1. Make sure that any article that should be treated as a special (such as a weekly column or a weather report) is already placed on the layout before the layout is opened in the Layout Automation dialog.
Step 2. Anywhere in Studio (including in the Publication Overview application), select the layouts that you want to place articles on using the Layout Automation feature, right-click one of them, and choose Open Layout Automation....
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Notes:
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The Layout Automation dialog appears.
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Notes:
Example: When a layout that is part of Category 'Sport', different blueprints may be used than for layouts that are part of Category 'News'.
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At this point, the Layout Automation feature is scanning the pages in the layout, and generates a proposal for placing the articles. The proposal is based on the available blueprints, Article Shapes, article properties, and already placed articles and adverts, as well as all pages of all other layouts in the same Brand, Issue, and Category combination.
The result is shown in the Preview pane.
In theory, the proposal can be accepted and the pages can be composed based on the current settings.
Step 3. If no changes need to be made, click Compose pages. Continue with the text after step 6.
In practice, it is likely that you want to make some adjustments.
Step 4. (Optional) Click Refresh to get the latest list of articles for the section that the layout is part of.
Step 5. (Optional, requires Studio 11.216 or higher) Choose a Placement Preset from the list if the algorithm should focus on a specific aspect such as copyfitting, the placement of images, a balanced placement, and so on.
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Notes:
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Step 6. (Optional) Select a Custom Search to reduce the number of articles in the list.
Step 7. Update one or more of the following settings for an article (see the table above):
- Planned number of body characters
- Priority
- Story type
- Genre*
- Number of images
- Number of quotes
- Page number to aim for
- Exclude the article
Step 8. When support for Digital articles has been added, check the tooltip of an open Pin for a Digital article that is planned but not yet placed. It shows the name of the Digital article Conversion Rule that is going to be used. When this is not the correct rule, have the Digital article Conversion Rule in the AILA Management Console adjusted.
Step 9. Click Update to let the Layout Automation feature update the proposal based on the updated settings.
The preview in the Preview pane is updated.
Step 10. When happy with the proposed result, click Compose pages.
The dialog is closed and the system starts the process of placing the articles on the layouts. A notification is shown when this is completed.
Step 11. (Optional) When needed, resolve any underset and overset text issues by editing the articles in Studio, by using Studio for InDesign and InCopy, or by tweaking the layouts using Studio for InDesign. Use one of the following methods:
For adjusting the text (copyfitting):
- In Studio, use the AI Copyfit feature to quickly resolve copy fit issues in various ways.
- In InDesign or InCopy, modify the text of the article so that overset or underset is not indicated anymore.
For adjusting the frames (layout fitting):
- In InDesign, right-click any frame of an article that has been placed by the Layout Automation feature, and from the Fitting menu, choose one of the following commands:
- Fit Article with AI (Responsive - quickest)
- Fit Article with AI (Creative)
The frames of the article are automatically adjusted to make the text fit the frames. Experiment by using each option to see which results bests fits the story.
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Notes:
Figure: An example of the dialog, showing here that the copyfit issues for one article could not be resolved. * Requires the AI Layout Automation plug-in 2.8.x or higher. |
Tip: Keyboard shortcuts for these commands can be assigned in Edit > Keyboard shortcuts > Product area 'Scripts'.
Step 12. (Optional) Feel free to add components to the layout after the Layout Automation process has completed, and then run it again for that layout. However, be cautious when removing components after the Layout Automation process has completed if you intend to run it again for that layout.
- Advanced: delete some. When the Layout Automation places articles in a partitioned box, dividers may be added between sibling articles, adverts, or specials that share the same box. If a divider contains a fender, the affected articles may be squeezed accordingly.
- Recommended: delete some. Consider removing everything that was placed by the Layout Automation process so that it can fill the available areas from scratch again.
Removing one or more of these articles, adverts, or specials creates space for the Layout Automation to place articles again. However, this will not remove dividers that were placed earlier, nor will it restore the dimensions of squeezed articles .
Before running the Layout Automation process again, manually remove the affected dividers and restore the dimensions of the articles adjacent to the removed articles, adverts, or specials.
Revisions
- 11 November 2026: Updated step 11 in section 'Placing articles' with information about the improvements for the 'Fit Article with AI (Responsive - quickest)' option.
- 29 October 2026: Updated section 'Requirements' with support for breakout stories.
- 29 October 2026: Added sub section 'Using breakout stories' to section 'Before you start'.
- 29 October 2026: Updated section 'The Layout Automation dialog' by marking the 'Words' column as superfluous.
- 29 October 2026: Updated section 'The Layout Automation dialog' by renaming the 'Characters' column to 'Body length'.
- 29 October 2026: Updated section 'The Layout Automation dialog' by adding information about the 'Breakout length' column.
- 13 October 2026: Updated section 'Requirements' with a link to the Compatibility of Studio for the AILA Studio Server plug-in.
- 14 October 2026: Updated section 'The Layout Automation dialog' with information about the improved previews in Studio 11.229 and higher.
- 30 September 2026: Updated section 'Requirements' by adding InDesign 2026 and InDesign Server 2026.
- 30 September 2026: Updated section 'Placing articles' by adding a step with information about adding or removing components from a layout after it has been run through the Layout Automation, with the intention to run it through the Layout Automation again.
- 16 September 2026: Updated section 'Requirements' with information about Edition support.
- 16 September 2026: Updated section 'Before you start' with information about opening layouts with Editions assigned.
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