Bringing Illustrator gradients into InDesign.

There has been an easy way to share swatches between the adobe apps for awhile now (.ase files. Select the swatches you want, and then panel menu save swatches). Unfortunately you were not able to share gradient swatches between Illustrator and InDesign. Ase files will not let you include tints or gradients. There is a work around however.

Inside Illustrator, create your gradient as usual. Next simply copy and paste your object into InDesign. Inside InDesign you will see in your swatches panel the swatch that you had created inside Illustrator.