EasyCatalog version 2026 is now available, bringing with it a series of improvements that solidify its position as the most powerful tool for automating catalogs and publications with Adobe InDesign. Developed by 65bit.com, this plugin continues to evolve with the aim of reducing layout time, improving data accuracy, and offering new possibilities for visual and technical customization.
Last year, we at Nousmedis presented the new features of EasyCatalog 2025, which introduced significant improvements to tabular fields, JSON/XML compatibility, and enhanced containers. Now, with version 2026, the plugin takes another step forward, incorporating new pagination rules, advanced CSS compatibility, accessibility improvements, image customization, and overall superior performance.
Below, we present in detail the main new features of EasyCatalog 2026 and how they can help you optimize your workflows and automation of professional catalogs.
1. Pagination of anchored objects
One of the most powerful new features in EasyCatalog 2026 is the new pagination of anchored items, which allows you to automatically populate and repeat a formatting rule as an anchored item for each item in the data panel: a record, a group, each element of an enhanced tabular field, individual rows in a table, or a set of images stored in the same field (separated by a paragraph break). This feature streamlines the automation of catalogs containing repetitive modules within the same text frame, eliminating manual processes and ensuring a consistent and scalable visual result.
2. Improved tabular field grouping
It is now possible to create subgroups within enhanced tabular fields, both when populating tables and when paginating anchored objects. This simplifies the organization of hierarchical data, such as product families with different variants or configurations. Thanks to this functionality, projects that previously required multiple structures can now be resolved with a single, well-defined set of tabular data.
3. Improvements in HTML interpretation and support for CSS attributes
The new HTML interpretation engine now supports basic CSS attributes applicable to character, paragraph, and cell styles. This allows you to import formatted web content or feeds and maintain the color, alignment, and text size defined in the source. Furthermore, it includes support for CSS-defined colors (e.g.dodgerblue , rgb(30,144,255) o hsl(210,100%,56%)), ensuring that the visual output in InDesign is faithful to the original data source.
4. New “Frame Options” in the fields
EasyCatalog 2026 includes a new Frame Options section within the general field options. You can now apply a script to generate alternative text (Alt Text) in image frames, improving the accessibility of digital documents created in InDesign.
5. Compatibility with alpha channels in images
The new alpha channel cropping option allows you to create custom clipping paths directly within InDesign, with the ability to adjust tolerance, threshold, and margin parameters. This provides greater efficiency when paginating catalogs with hundreds of images, including product photos or complex layouts.
6. Improved Calculated Field Panel
The Calculated Field panel now displays visual icons indicating the status of each link or element, allowing you to quickly identify potential errors, broken links, or dependencies. This improvement brings clarity to large projects with multiple data sources and field relationships.
7. New menu Replace Record
A Replace Record menu has been added, allowing you to replace the links in one record with those in another. This is especially useful in multilingual or regional workflows, where the same layout needs to be updated with different language versions of the content. With this feature, you can easily replace data without having to manually recreate the links.
8. Deprecation of the URL (Live) function
The “URL (Live)” option has been officially removed, although it remains available as an advanced preference (Preferences → EasyCatalog → Advanced).
The functionalities it offered will be taken over by the new, more modern and efficient ImageLink system. This transition improves the management of images hosted on an external server and reduces potential connection errors with external sources.
9. Color coding of settings
You can now assign a color to each saved configuration, making it easier to quickly identify them in projects with multiple datasets, rules, or pagination styles. This simple improvement contributes to a more visual and organized workflow.
10. Support for CSS-defined colors
When a field’s content includes a color name or CSS definition, EasyCatalog can now automatically create a new matching color, even if no swatch exists in InDesign. This ensures that publications inherit the colors defined in the source data, guaranteeing consistency between product information and its visual representation.
11. Improvements to the context menu
The context menu within the data panel has been reorganized and includes new actions, such as copying field options to the clipboard, pasting them into other fields, and exporting/importing settings. This makes it easier to reuse settings and standardize projects, reducing manual repetition.
12. Improvements to the advanced preferences box
The advanced preferences panel has been redesigned for a more intuitive layout, with reorganized categories and an improved search system. This makes it easier to locate specific options, adjust complex settings, and customize EasyCatalog to suit user needs or workflow requirements.
13. Colors in barcodes
You can apply a color sample to barcodes, or even determine their color based on a field value. This option provides an extra level of customization, ideal for printed catalogs or packaging where the barcode colors match the product or brand’s visual identity.
14. Improvements to the Edge Relationship tool
Accuracy and performance have been improved when clicking or interacting with the edges of text and image frames. This simplifies the manipulation of complex structures within the document and enhances the overall user experience, especially in dense compositions or those with multiple related frames and containers.
15. Improvements to guide-based pagination
Guide-based pagination now allows you to control the starting point and direction of pagination. You can start from any side of the page and paginate in different directions (for example, from right to left or from bottom to top), offering greater flexibility in the design of grids and catalogs in languages where the reading order is left to right.
16. Improvements to the pagination rules panel
The pagination rules panel has been reorganized with a more logical structure, and legacy rules have been removed. These updates can be disabled via a new advanced preference (Preferences → EasyCatalog → Advanced), thus maintaining backward compatibility if needed.
17. New Command Parser (Command Parser v2)
A new command parser (Command Parser v2) has been introduced, significantly improving EasyCatalog’s performance. For compatibility with previous projects, version 1 will remain active by default, but you can enable the new version from (Preferences → EasyCatalog → Advanced → Parser v2).
This new system processes custom fields faster and reduces loading and execution times in large databases.
18. General Corrections and Improvements
Finally, EasyCatalog 2026 includes numerous stability improvements, optimization of internal processes, and resolution of errors detected in previous versions.
These improvements enhance the plugin’s overall reliability, ensuring smoother operation even in large projects with complex data structures. You can find the full list of improvements in the official EasyCatalog 2026 Release Notes published by the developer, 65bit.
EasyCatalog 2026 is the most advanced version to date, offering greater accuracy, flexibility, and performance in automated publishing environments. For the Nousmedis team, this update represents a step forward in intelligent catalog automation, enabling the creation of more consistent, dynamic documents that are seamlessly integrated with Adobe InDesign 2026.
Remember:
If you’ve upgraded to InDesign 2026, be sure to install the latest version of EasyCatalog to maintain compatibility and take advantage of all the new features.
Want to learn how to implement these improvements in your workflow or upgrade your existing systems? Contact us and let’s talk.