Posts by Michael Murphy

The thrilling conclusion of the Long Documents series is finally here! In this episode, I wrap it all up with some last indexing shortcuts, generating an index (and how it differs from generating a TOC), formatting and updating an index, and making your index interactive in a PDF.
Download it now or watch it in your [...]

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 [...]

Picking up right where the last installment finished, I continue to edit and adjust my Table of Contents, demonstrating the “proper” way to add and remove entries, 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 [...]

Some “technical difficulties” in producing an iPod version of The InDesigner Videocast have cropped up since Apple began its movie download service a few months ago and implemented a change in the specifications for the iPod video format. This has raised a number of questions and comments on the blog that I wanted to address [...]

Continuing the Long Documents series with the same book files used in Episode 33, this installment covers how to create an automated, dynamic Table of Contents for an InDesign book. Along the way, I emphasize the unique and critical relationship between an InDesign Table of Contents and Paragraph Styles, without which none of this would [...]

In a comment about my last episode on the Book palette, Alexandre asked:

“…when you did that monstrous job with the two-hundred-and-something-page magazine, did you use the book feature?”

My response was about three times longer than is allowed for comments (I do go on!), so I thought it warranted a post of its own. The “monstrous [...]

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 [...]

While I’m getting my next (overdue) videocast finished, I’ve been answering a lot of questions by e-mail, so I thought I’d step out of my little corner of InDesignSecrets.com and contribute one of these answers to the blog.
Brendan said:

“I have a inherited a job where I need to cut and paste photographic images from existing [...]

It’s the one-year anniversary of The InDesigner podcast — a year that has exceeded all 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 one year ago — taking advantage of Presets. From [...]

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.
Also…get the inside scoop about the [...]