The InDesigner

Launch day for Adobe's Creative Suite 5 is here, and so is my first podcast episode dedicated to the newest version of InDesign. In this episode, I take a look at a number of very cool new features in InDesign CS5. There's a lot more in the new version, but I've focused on some of my favorites, including span/split-column paragraphs, multiple page sizes, simplified transformations, metadata captions, the new Layers panel, and new animation features. This episode is kind of a a long one, but I've included chapter markers so you can quickly jump to the section of the episode you want to see.

Checkboxes and radio buttons and comb fields…oh my! In this episode, I take a look at adding form elements to an InDesign layout to create Acrobat-friendly checkboxes, radio buttons and comb fields, all of which can be achieved with a little help from anchored objects, GREP find/change and tables.
You may also notice new feature added to the podcast starting with this episode: chapters. You can now jump right to a specific part of the lesson using the chapters built into the video file.

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of work designing forms, which present their own unique design challenges, one of which is that more forms are being completed digitally as PDFs. As we’ll see in this episode, when you’re designing a form to be as Acrobat-friendly as possible, the same principles that make for a clean, function, well-organized form on the page also lend themselves to fast and easy form field recognition in Acrobat.

Inspired by a question from a podcast subscriber about creating a text frame that looks like a folder tab, and with the help of a technique suggested by another subscriber, this episode builds on the potential of Paragraph Rules revealed in Episode 49. By combining Paragraph Rules with First Baseline Offset options, a fully-editable, single-object tab-topped text frame is easy. But it gets easier and more interesting when Object Styles and Effects are added to the mix.

Most of us are familiar with the two types of Paragraph Rules, but in InDesign, despite their names, a Rule Above can easily appear below your text, and a Rule Below can just as easily appear above it. This ability to bend the rules, so to speak, can produce some very interesting and flexible type effects that don't require drawing extra frames, grouping anything or relying on anchored objects. This episode covers the rules of paragraph rules (and a bit about underlining) to showcase how flexible and versatile they can be.

At last month's InDesign Conference in Miami, an unexpected blackout cut my typography session short, so my demonstration of OpenType features never saw the light of day (no pun intended). In this episode, I bring that missing part of the presentation to all of you and take a look at several useful OpenType features including Ligatures, Discretionary Ligatures, Contextual Alternates, Small Caps, and Titling Alternates.

A subscriber's question about moving and copying layers led me to peel away the layers of the Paste Remembers Layers setting and discover a few things about how it behaves that I wasn't aware of. This episode shares that little discovery with all of you, while providing context for the overall behavior of Paste Remembers Layers, and ending with a tip for combining this feature with Snippets to accomplish something InDesign won't let you do by default.

OK...Christmas has already come and gone, I know, but it's still technically the holiday season, and the title of this episode is the title of a Christmas CD project I recently designed. That's the project I showcase in this episode, in which I demonstrate a holiday grab bag of InDesign goodies including: starting a document on a left-hand page, using the Slug area and Text Variables, placing InDesign documents inside of other InDesign documents, using frames to crop and manage vector shapes, inserting Column Breaks and other special break characters, and setting up looping Nested Styles.

Normally, I pick one InDesign feature and build a whole episode around it. However, this is the second anniversary of the podcast, and I wanted to demonstrate that combining InDesign features is far more powerful than using them individually. In this episode, I use six different features -- Anchored Objects, Frame Fitting, Object Styles, GREP, Paragraph Styles and Multi-file Place -- to eliminate all of the repetitive tasks from a layout.

Who says data and design are mutually exclusive? Not InDesign, that's for sure. Under the right circumstances, data-driven layout is the way to go. Unlike XML, which makes designers run from their computers, the Data Merge feature in InDesign is an easy way to accomplish fast, flexible data-driven layout creation and updates. Using a subscriber's files as an example, this episode takes a video look a topic that was tackled way back in the audio-only days of Episode #7.

Who wants to see the home videos from my vacation? Before you run for the exits, let me rephrase that: Who wants to learn about how to add and work with videos in InDesign, create buttons to control them, export PDFs that will play them. In this episode, you'll learn how to put these great features to work, what limitations to be aware of, and how to turn your PDFs into rich interactive experiences by taking advantage of multimedia options in InDesign.

How would you like to have all versions of your (or your client's) logo available in one placed file and never have to worry about re-positioning them in the frame in your layout? In this episode, I share the tip I presented during the closing "tip extravaganza" session at last week's InDesign Conference in New York. It's a technique I plan to use all the time, and it builds on the topic of the last episode -- Object Layer Options -- but with Illustrator CS3 files this time.

It's time to get back to the original mission of the videocast -- real-world examples of InDesign in action to help you work better, smarter and faster. In this episode, I take a look at a feature that debuted in CS2: Object Layer Options. Not only does InDesign understand the native Photoshop format, it also understands Photoshop's layers and Layer Comps. Using one layered image from the opening spread of a magazine feature, I turn its layers into separate backgrounds, headers and pieces of spot art throughout the rest of the layout.

Icons and panels and docks...oh my!
At long last, the wait is over and the veil of secrecy is lifted. In this first look at InDesign CS3, I give a glimpse of what the new version looks like, because Adobe has given it -- and all of the Creative Suite applications -- a new user interface. Goodbye palettes (technically)...hello panels and docks. Here's a very brief glimpse at what users can expect to see when they finally get InDesign CS3 in their hot little hands.

Continuing with the very long series on long document features after a long break, this episode finally tackles the feature that is the bane of many an InDesign user's existence: Indexing. This first of two indexing installments covers the basic principles of indexing as they apply to InDesign, including some up-front advice about what to expect and what not to expect the software to do for you. Also, I go through indexing basics such as working with the Index palette, creating Topics, References and Cross-References, Topic Levels and sorting. And that's only the first half!

Picking up right where the last episode finished, I continue to edit and adjust my Table of Contents, demonstrating the "proper" way to make changes, the flexibility of updating a TOC, how to fix mistakes, and how to get around certain (unfortunate) limitations of the feature. Finally, the big payoff...using the TOC features to generate a fully bookmarked and hyperlinked Table of Contents when exporting a book to PDF.

After a long wait, here's a long episode about working with long documents in InDesign. This first installment in a three-part series covers the the Book palette and how to use it to manage, update and output multiple files that make up a single book. Thrown in for good measure are a few quick methods for using section markers and Find/Change to quickly modify chapter numbers and names on title pages and folios.

It's the one-year anniversary of The InDesigner podcast -- a year that exceeded all of my preset expectations. This episode both looks back on the past year and presents an in-depth video look at the very first tip I gave in the very first audio episode -- taking advantage of Presets. From Document setup to Print settings to PDF export options, I show how to create, edit, and share presets that will eliminate repetitive tasks and save you time every time you use InDesign. Also, the winner of the anniversary contest is announced.

No, this isn't the white space you learned about in design school. Rather, this episode takes an in-depth look at all eight (yes, eight!) different types of white spaces available within InDesign. What are they, where are they, and how do you use them? Find out in this latest episode...and also find out about the very first InDesigner contest, to celebrate the upcoming one-year anniversary of the show.

InDesign boasts a robust and powerful Find/Change feature that incorporates its even more powerful Paragraph and Character Style features, allowing you to limit searches to specifically-formatted text, apply styles as text is replaced, and much more. In this extra-long episode, I take an in-depth look at the power of Find/Change...starting with the basics, revealing the hidden extras, and building up to completely formating a three-page layout using only Find/Change operations.

The first InDesigner episode as an official member of the InDesignSecrets team, this installment is all about building photographic compositions on your InDesign page instead of relying on doing it in Photoshop like we've all become used to. Photoshop is great, but under the right circumstances, InDesign can be faster and more flexible. Using three examples, I showcase InDesign's ability to build layered, seamless compositions that rival the accepted Photoshop approach.

When you complete 4 full-page ads, 19 charts and graphs, and 123 page layouts in 24 working days, you really see how InDesign's features make a big project much more manageable. Having just completed a 256-page magazine, I decided that this episode would take inventory of some of the ways that InDesign streamlined the process, allowing me to complete a huge volume of work without sacrificing creativity and quality.

I usually stick to things that can be done automatically within InDesign, but every now and then, you can't avoid the fact that some things just haven't made it into the product yet. In this episode, I demonstrate two methods for getting a solid-to-transparent gradient into your layout. It should be a lot more simple than this (Adobe, are you listening?), but where there's a will...there's a workaround.

When you actually read the InDesign User Guide cover-to-cover -- which I did to study for my recent Adobe certification exam -- you actually find a lot of things you didn't know InDesign could do. In this episode, I take a look at Automated Jump Lines -- a feature that was new to me and that I immediately started using at work every day. It's not one of InDesign's sexier features, but it's one of those smart and useful touches that are always such a treat to discover.

The second installment of the Tables series gets down to the smallest details. This "intermediate" episode covers the settings you can apply in the Table Options and Cell Options dialog boxes, how InDesign differentiates between Header, Footer and Body rows, how to automate Alternating Fills and Strokes, threading a table across multiple frames and pages, and just what the difference is between the "Exactly" and "At Least" options.

If you haven't already discovered InDesign's robust table-creation feature, you're going to be quite impressed by what it can do. If you're familiar with tables, but haven't used them that much, you're going to find that the level of design control you have over tables -- and the ways in which you can use them -- is FAR BEYOND what you might have expected. This episode is the first of a two-part series where we explore how good tables can improve your design and good design can improve your tables.

There are no simple questions when it comes to InDesign. I prove that in this week's episode in which answering a listener's simple question about how to align an object to the page leads me to demonstrate three possible ways to do it and introduces the concepts of math operations InDesign can perform for you, using the proxy image and reference points in the control palette, and even installing and running scripts.

How does a person go about learning InDesign? What's the best way? What resources are available? Where do you you start? Do you take a class? Buy a book? Hire a training consultant? There are a number of different approaches, none of which is any more or less valid than any other. But certainly some of them are more or less expensive than others. This episode discusses different, inexpensive ways start building your InDesign knowledge.

One of the most long-awaited featues for a page layout program has been transparency support -- and InDesign's got it. But making the transparency you see on the screen translate to the printed page requires a process called Flattening. This episode discusses Transparency and Flattening in InDesign and the steps you should take to prevent unwanted flattening results from causing problems with the printing of your work.

The end of one year and the beginning of another is a time of change in many ways...giving us a chance to make a fresh start. As a designer, I feel that InDesign has given me that fresh start. A chance to learn new things, fix past mistakes, break habits, solve problems and explore options in a way that the old regime software made difficult to the point of frustration. In this episode, I'll talk a lot bit about making some resolutions -- to switch to InDesign in a strategic, productive way, to break old habits from old applications, and to take advantage of the time you'll save to explore new and better design options.

As a designer, you know that when you get all the necessary elements onto your page, you can make something great, but getting those elements on that page was a pretty inflexible process back in the Quark XPress days. The fifth episode of the podcast runs down the many options for getting text, tables, images and more onto the page quickly, easily, cleanly and with the flexibility you always wanted.

In the second installment of "Get Out of Photoshop Free", I cover the good, bad and ugly about drop shadows -- how easy they are to create and how to make yours more effective -- within InDesign. Also, how to avoid creating clipping paths whenever possible by taking advantage of transparency and text wrap options, and I reveal my own technique for creating what I call "poor man's lighting effects" within InDesign.

Since it's a four-day Thanksgiving weekend, I thought I would spend some time covering four things in InDesign that I'm thankful for. In this podcast, I cover (1) text formatting without having any text selected, (2) InDesign does math, (3) better bolds and italics, and (4) keyboard navigation through dialog boxes. They're not too sexy, but they save a lot of time and I use them just about every day.