Creative Suite Workspaces

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jan 312012
 

Another often overlooked aspect of most Creative Suite apps is their ability to store preset panel combinations. Adobe call these workspaces and they can be extremely useful for rapidly loading specific panel sets or just carrying out general tidying up.

Workspaces can be found in two locations: under the View>Workspaces drop down menu or, in the Application bar on the right hand side.

Screenshot of InDesign workspace switcher

InDesign workspace switcher

I this example I’m using InDesign. The current workspace (Essentials) is displayed in the application bar next to the search field. Click on the downward triangle to see a list of preset workspaces (this is known as the workspace switcher).  Read more...

 Posted by scott on January 31, 2012  Tagged with: , , , ,

Boxoffice for iPad

 HTML5, InDesign  1 Response »
Jan 132012
 

Here’s another interesting DPS generated iPad app I downloaded recently. Boxoffice is a movie industry weekly magazine. It features the usual range of industry news & gossip, celebrity interviews and film previews. I think the Boxoffice design team has made very interesting use of the features of DPS to make an engaging and genuinely entertaining app.

Screenshot of Boxoffice cover 1

Boxoffice cover 1

Boxoffice makes use of DPS’s horizontal and vertical layouts to create two entirely different covers for each edition. Just rotate to switch between them. This theme is repeated in various locations in the magazine.

Screenshot of Boxoffice cover 2

Boxoffice cover 2  Read more...

 Posted by scott on January 13, 2012  Tagged with: , ,

Secrets of the Word Import filter

 InDesign  No Responses »
Sep 222011
 

InDesign has some extremely powerful text editing tools however it’s more likely that you will be creating and importing text from Microsoft Word. One of InDesign’s less well-known features is the Word Import Filter, designed to help you work more efficiently in a Word based workflow.

The filter is only accessible when you import a text file. In the Import dialogue box, make sure to check the Show Import Options check box.

screenshot of indesign text import dialogue box

InDesign text import dialogue box

InDesign will display the following dialogue box.

screenshot of InDesign Word import options dialogue box

InDesign Word import options dialogue box  Read more...

 Posted by scott on September 22, 2011  Tagged with: , , , ,

Adventures with the Option/Alt key

 InDesign  No Responses »
Sep 092011
 

Have you ever noticed how many useful InDesign functions can be enabled by using the option/alt key?
I’ve tried to itemise as many as possible in the following list though there may be some more…

General uses for the option/alt key

In most Adobe applications, holding option/alt changes the cancel button to reset in many dialogue boxes, saving the need to close and reopen the box.
Similarly, option/alt + drag an object duplicates it, including guides

Option/alt In InDesign

holding option/alt on  import text, changes the loaded text cursor to semi-auto flow mode. This will flow text into a column then reload the cursor automatically.  Read more...

 Posted by scott on September 9, 2011  Tagged with: , ,

Creating interactive documents with InDesign pt 8

 InDesign  No Responses »
Sep 022011
 

In the final part of this series, I’ll describe how to import movie content into InDesign and how to export your document as an animated Flash file.

InDesign has been able to import movies for some time, unfortunately it was not possible to view them without exporting the file to another format. CS5 introduced the Media pane which addresses this issue.

Screenshot of empty media frame

Empty media frame

Importing movies is exactly the same as importing standard images. Either select an existing frame or import directly by hitting cmd + d (ctrl +  on Windows).

Screenshot of media import into InDesign CS5

Media import into InDesign CS5  Read more...

 Posted by scott on September 2, 2011  Tagged with: , ,

Creating interactive documents with InDesign pt6

 InDesign  No Responses »
Jul 082011
 

With this part of the series we move to InDesign’s new interactive features, specifically creating animations.

Before starting an interactive document, it’s worth changing your workspace to Interactive. There are a number of new panels on display including Animation, Timing, Preview, Media and Object States. We’ll use each of these in the next couple of articles.

Indesign interactive workspace panels

InDesign interactive workspace panels

When you open a document with animated objects you will notice a new icon. InDesign cannot display animation directly so it indicates where an animation has been applied by displaying the 3 bubbles icon. This spread already has three.  Read more...

 Posted by scott on July 8, 2011  Tagged with: , , ,

Creative Suite 5.5 Printing Guide

 InDesign  No Responses »
Jun 262011
 

Adobe has just released the Creative Suite 5.5 version of its ongoing Printing Guide. If you haven’t seen it before, this is an extensive document updated for each version of Creative Suite. It explains in detail a myriad of technicalities related to getting your documents to print correctly in a commercial environment. Even if you have read it before it’s always worth reading up on new features and how they affect existing print workflows and for known problems. You may not be aware, for example, that InDesign cannot honour all Photoshop blend modes, which can cause unpredictable problems on output. The printing guide also acts as a great overview to the new features of the various CS apps and as introduction to some of the more difficult workflow concepts such as colour management and transparency flattening. Best of all, it’s free.  Read more...

 Posted by scott on June 26, 2011  Tagged with: , , , ,

Balance text columns with InDesign CS5

 InDesign  1 Response »
Jun 162011
 

A question on a recent training course reminded me of InDesign’s Balance Columns feature which is easily overlooked.

If you’re the kind of person who can’t stand unbalanced text you’ll recall it used to take a fair bit of manual adjustment to make columns line up evenly.

Screenshot of unbalanced text columns in InDesign

Unbalanced text columns

In CS 5, the Balance Columns checkbox was added to the Text Frame Options dialogue box.

The feature works only on multi-column text frames. Select the frame and got to Object> Text Frame Options (ctrl/cmd+B).

Screenshot of InDesign's balance columns option

Columns are balanced  Read more...

 Posted by scott on June 16, 2011  Tagged with: ,

Man in Space

 InDesign  No Responses »
May 292011
 

BBC’s Sky at Night magazine was recently released Man in Space for the iPad. It’s a celebration of manned spaceflight and was developed & designed using InDesign and Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite.

The app makes good use of interactive features, with a clear and well structured design and plenty of navigation tools so you never get lost. The designers have opted to use landscape orientation only so this is one app that won’t rearrange itself when you rotate your device.  Read more...

 Posted by scott on May 29, 2011  Tagged with: , ,

Creating interactive documents with InDesign pt5

 InDesign  No Responses »
May 162011
 

Now that you have a document loaded with interactive content such as buttons, hyperlinks, page transitions etc, you need to export to PDF before you can make use of all those features. CS5 InDesign adds a few new options for the export process.

As previously, you can go to File>Adobe PDF Presets and select an appropriate preset.

Screenshot of InDesign PDFpresets menu

InDesign PDFpresets menu

The screenshot here shows the Rich Content PDF option which is not normally visible. To enable this, navigate to: (Windows Vista and Windows 7) ProgramData\Adobe\AdobePDF, (Windows XP) Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Adobe PDF, or (Mac OS) Library/Application Support/Adobe PDF.  Read more...

 Posted by scott on May 16, 2011  Tagged with: , ,
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