IndiTip [InDesign® Tips&Tricks]

Ann: Moving all to tomaxxi.com!

Marijan Tompa (tomaxxi) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:23:29 +0000

Mastering Live Captions

Marijan Tompa (tomaxxi) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:11:12 +0000

Live Captions were introduced in InDesign CS5 and functionality is the same in CS5.5 as well. Live Captions are very powerful when it comes to pulling metadata out of the image and displaying them on the page. But, why are they called “Live”? Because they are! They are like regular text variables, but they are “trained” to pull out metadata out of images and they change when you swap images. I will not go in details here how to create Live Captions, (click here to learn more about Live Captions) instead, I would like to show you how to work faster and to be more efficient by storing and reusing your Live Captions setups! So, let’s get started!

I created three text frames with different Live Caption setups. As you can see, first contains image title, description and keywords, second contains camera data and third simple copyright text. All that info is pulled out of the image metadata. Now, let’s say I need same setup for few other pictures. It’s not a big deal. I can just use copy/paste and I’m done, But, there is even better way to do it, and it’s called use InDesign Snippets! (you can also use Library to store them as well)

I’m using Mini Bridge to create Snippets simply by dragging text frame containing my Live Captions setup and dropping it onto my Mini Bridge panel. Wow, can it be easier?! Don’t forget to name them as well! Now, I can open different document, and simply drag already created Snippet from Mini Bridge panel to my page and place it where I want to! Awesome! I don’t have to go through really painful process of selecting Live Captions fields anymore! Woohoo! But wait, there is even more!

I have placed my Snippet but it says No data from link! That’s not good at all! But, how to know which “data” is missing?! In cases like this, Story Editor is your very best friend! Select “No data from link” text and go to Story Editor and you will see exactly which part metadata field is assigned to selected Live Caption field! Also, there is another, little bit loner, way. Select “No data from link” text and go to Type menu -> Text Variables -> Define… and when dialog opens, selected text variable is one you are searching for.

Also, same applies when you don’t have image intersecting/grouped with Live Captions text frame and you get No intersecting link message! Story Editor to the rescue!

I should also mention few things you should be aware when using Live Captions. First, and really important is that Live Captions will NOT break across multiple lines! Second, also really important thing is that Live Captions can NOT be formatted using GREP! To use GREP you must convert Live Caption field to text, but after that Live Caption is not live anymore! Also, I noticed a strange behavior with some parts of metadata. InDesign was not able to read data from image even if image contained correctly stored metadata. I had to resave image in Photoshop and after that it was all good.

So, that’s it! Hope this short “mastering” episode will help you work faster and save some time! Have fun!

Adobe Announced Creative Suite 5.5!

Marijan Tompa (tomaxxi) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 07:26:48 +0000

This is wonderful news especially for InDesign users! So, what’s new in this mid-cycle release?!

Let’s list most important ones:

EPUB Export Improvements

Style Mapping

Articles Panel

Linked Stories

Object Export Options

DPS Tablet Features

Easier Anchored Objects

Also, bunch of old bugs from previous releases are corrected! But, that’s not all! Some CS5 users were frustrated with frame edge highlighting! Now in CS5.5 you are CAN turn it OFF! Woohoo! I will not go into details about features and stuff, because there is so many places where you can find info and I’ll list some of them:

Introducing Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Product Family by Adobe
What’s new in CS5.5 by Adobe TV
Adobe CS5 Evolves: Digital Publishing from InDesign to Tablets Gets Better by Terry White, Worldwide Creative Suite Design Evangelist for Adobe
InDesign CS 5.5 Announced: New Features, Subscription Pricing by InDesignSecrets.com
Adobe Upgrades Nine Products to CS5.5 by CreativePro.com
CS5.5 & Any Screen by Cari Jansen

Thank you Adobe for making our creative work easier
with such a awesome and creative tools!

Interactive Shortcuts Guide for InDesign CS5

Marijan Tompa (tomaxxi) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:39:09 +0000

Keyboard shortcuts are a big time saver! And when I say big, I mean BIG! I love shortcuts, and by time, they become part of you, and your everyday workflow! But! It’s becoming difficult to remember all shortcuts when you use more than one program, and I know you do! So, I decided to create nice little interactive shortcuts guide and to be even better, I wanted to use just InDesign‘s interactive features!

It was quite a challenge for me even though I knew how to use InDesign and InDesign‘s interactive features. I know, it sounds crazy, but InDesign is really awesome for creating interactive content too! To be honest, I was quite skeptic about interactivity inside such awesome typographic software, but I’m really blown away! Flash is powerful, and you can do a way more and have much more control, but InDesign is just simple and effective! Here are few screen shots that were made from finished InDesign layout before exporting.

So, you might be wondering how this is really created. Here is short outline of workflow I’ve used to create this interactive guide. Remember, I’ve used just InDesign!

Collect all shortcuts PC and Mac
Create InDesign Keyboard Layout
Create Object Styles for Normal/Over/Click keys
Input all shortcuts to tables (every key to separate page)
Merge shortcuts page to Multi-State Object with script
Assign every key to Multi-State Object state
Export to SWF

I think there is no need to explain how to use this guide. Simply start it and explore! In case you still need some help, there is short Quick Start Guide.

That’s it! I hope that you will find this guide useful and helpful! Please, if you have any suggestions, feedback, and even if you find errors, do not hesitate to send me an email!

If you want to put direct link to
Interactive Shortcuts Guide from your blog or website,
PLEASE use original bit.ly URL!

http://webarena.rs/InDesignShortcutsGuide/

THANK YOU!

Choose Object Style while Placing

Marijan Tompa (tomaxxi) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 23:05:32 +0000

I think you still remember my old post about Auto Apply Object Style to Placed Image.

That’s great workaround, but I’ve “found” even better one through scripting! Scripting is just awesome! So many things can be done with just few lines of code.

WARNING: This only works with InDesign CS5!

So, let’s see how to use it!

I think the hardest part for some people will be how to install the script. Script has to be placed into “startup scripts” folder which is located in Adobe InDesign/scripts folder. If you can’t find it, just use your system find and search for “startup scripts”! After copying file to folder you simply start/restart InDesign, and you will find two new menu items like on pictures. Click Enable tomaxxiPLACE® and you are ready to start! Select which Object Style you want to apply, and start placing images! Keep in mind that you can change desired Object Style even while placing!

Download

Version 2.3, 14/01/2011, InDesign CS5 only!

That’s it!

Have fun end enjoy!

Feedback is highly appreciated!

Speed Up your Work with these Cool Shortcuts!

Marijan Tompa (tomaxxi) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:06:52 +0000

Two weeks ago I started small personal project. Main idea was to collect all predefined shortcuts for InDesign CS5 to one place and create interactive guide.

While i was digging through files, I got really surprised first by number of shortcuts that can be applied (over than 1400) and secondly that InDesign ships with more than 400 already predefined ones! That’s really awesome, so many space to speed up your work! But, there is no way you can remember all of them! So, every day you learn few shortcuts, but also, you forget about ones you don’t use so frequently.

So, I’d like to list few, really awesome ones, just list, no talk, no images!

PC shortcut | Mac shortcut

Fit Selection in Window:
Ctrl+Alt+= | Opt+Cmd+=

Create document without dialog based on defaults:
Ctrl+Alt+N | Command+Option+N

Create outlines without deleting text:
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+O | Cmd+Opt+Shift+O

Activate last-used field in panel:
Ctrl+Alt+` | Command+Option+`

Move to first threaded text frame:
Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Page Up | Opt+Shift+Cmd+Page Up

Go to previous frame in thread:
Ctrl+Alt+Page Up | Opt+Cmd+Page Up

Go to next frame in thread:
Ctrl+Alt+Page Down | Opt+Cmd+Page Down

Go to last frame in thread:
Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Page Down | Opt+Shift+Cmd+Page Down

Activate last-used field in panel:
Ctrl+Alt+` | Opt+Cmd+`

Show Hidden Characters:
Ctrl+Alt+I | Opt+Cmd+I

Fitting: Fill Frame Proportionally:
Shift+Ctrl+Alt+C | Opt+Shift+Cmd+C

Insert Special Character: Markers: Current Page Number:
Shift+Ctrl+Alt+N | Opt+Shift+Cmd+N

My favorite one from this list is Activate last-used field in panel! When you start to use it, you will never be able to work without it!

Have fun!

Get More InDesign & Document Info

Marijan Tompa (tomaxxi) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:24:03 +0000

There is good and simple way to check history of your document, last version of InDesign used while saving file, but also version used to create file for the first time. Also, you can find a little bit more about your application like for example number of plugins installed, versions of some core components and other. But, that’s not something you will need very often.

Then, what’s so great about this? Great thing is that you can see plug-ins used in document and also missing ones! Another thing you can find out is which system (PC or Mac) was used to save the file and how many times file was saved! (this is not true for documents loaded in newer version of InDesign) So, where we can find that info?

It’s really easy. Simply go to Help menu and Ctrl (PC) / Command (Mac) + Click on About InDesign… menu item and info dialog will show up immediately.

This is a really good way to check your document if something goes wrong.

That’s it!

Temporary Sort Menus Alphabetically

Marijan Tompa (tomaxxi) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:15:09 +0000

What?! Yes, it’s possible, and it’s really useful!

I’m sure you already had that situation, when searching for something in menus, you knew where it was, but can’t find it! There is one awesome little feature (undocumented one) that allows you to display menus without separators and sorted alphabetically. This feature is available for a long time, starting with InDesign CS.

As you probably already saw on picture, it’s really easy to access this feature. All you have to do is to hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift (PC) / Option+Command+Shift (Mac) and click on menu. The menu will open, but it will be sorted alphabetically and without separators, like one big list This also works for panel menus and drop-down menus from Control Palette.

Cool, right?

Have fun!

Mastering Live Corners

Marijan Tompa (tomaxxi) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:17:25 +0000

Custom shaped corners are available from very first versions of InDesign, but, they were never really improved them till CS5. Now, we can set different diameters and shapes, and for me personally, biggest improvement is ability to modify them Live, without need to go to dialog box!

This cool new feature is called Live Corners, and I think, that was first think I noticed when opened freshly installed CS5 and created text frame. Live Corners feature is represented by yellow box on rectangular objects. Simply by clicking on that little yellow box you enter Live Corner editing mode, which will be represented by little rotated yellow box on every corner. Also, there is cool little Tip (shortcut) that will toggle Live Corner editing mode and that is key 4 (four) (not from numeric-keypad) (this is undocumented feature, but you can find it in keyboard shortcuts under “Object Editing -> Toggle Live Edit Mode”). But, there is so many more that we can do! Let’s take a look!

So, let’s say we have active Live Corner editing mode, and here is the list of all possible actions:

Action	Effect
Click + Drag	Change dimension of all four corners at once
Alt (Opt) + Click	Change shape of all four corners at once
Shift + Drag	Change dimension of selected corner
Shift + Alt (Opt) + Click	Change shape of selected corner
(at the end of post you can find screenshots with explanation)

Also, keep in mind that Corner Options are part of Object Styles, so don’t forget to Update/Redefine applied style!

And for the end, there is cool shortcut to Corner Options dialog box. Simply by Alt (Opt) + Click on Corner Option icon on Control Palette.
(See screenshot)

That’s it! Have fun!

[Gallery]

Rounding Numbered List Numbers

Marijan Tompa (tomaxxi) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:20:06 +0000

When creating numbered lists, sometimes we want to have rounded numbers with nice circle, maybe colored… But, how to achieve this effect? One of the ways is to find specific font, or maybe to anchor text frame with number. The most expected way would be to apply Character Style to Automatic Numbering and with help of Underline to achieve desired effect, BUT, it seems that InDesign has really bad BUG when it comes to underlining automatic numbering! Yes, you have read it correctly! There is NO way to underline Automatic Numbering! So, we need to find some workarounds…

As you can see from screenshot, I used Automatic Numbering, but, rounding is achieved with Paragraph Rules. It’s a bit tricky to get it to look right but when you do, it’s really great! In Character style you just set font color. First downside of this method is that Paragraph Rule is indented and when you change frame width rule will also change. Second downside is that rounding will not fit to bigger numbers, so you have to manually adjust them. But, if you have frames that are constant width, then you are good!

Another way of doing this is to do manual numbering, and apply customized underline. This is how it looks like:
You probably noticed spaces before and after numbers. You have to add them and apply Underline to them too. That’s because Underline doesn’t have option for indenting like Paragraph Rule does. Take a look at screenshot of Underline setup. There is a lot of fine-tuning, but the result is great!

Hopefully, Adobe will correct this BUG and it will work correctly in future versions of InDesign. If you want to report this BUG to Adobe, feel free to use this form: Adobe – Feature Request/Bug Report Form.

And for the end, here is Stroke style that I used in this example.

[UPDATE]

A day after the tip was posted I’ve got two emails from readers who gave suggestions how to avoid downside when doing rounding with Paragraph Rules. Thanks! It’s really easy and quick to do. Instead creating Stroke style as previously described, we just need to create single dot line as you can see on screenshot. Idea is to create Stroke style that has very big pattern length, but with very small length to get just single dot.

That’s it!

Have fun!