Indesign Secrets

We’re happy to announce that our new “sister” site, InCopySecrets.com, is live and on the air!

InCopySecrets.com provides news, links, tips, and techniques for people working in an Adobe InDesign/InCopy workflow: editors, writer, designers, and production staff and management.

Sarah wrote,

Just wondering if InD (CS3) has anything that will search for overset text? I know when you export it to a pdf it will notify you, but is there a search within InDesign?

There’s a way to search for overset text in an InDesign file, but it’s not on the surface … that is, there’s no user interface for it, like a checkbox in

In an earlier post I presented a workaround for entering non-native language diacritics (like the grave accent in à la carte) by using InDesign’s built-in spellchecker, which can add them for you. It’s a slick solution, but it requires some set-up — you have to enter a word incorrectly and have InDesign correct it.

I recently learned of a better way to insert any difficult glyph into the text flow, correctly, on the fly: Peter Kahrel’s compose.jsx script for Adobe InDesign (Mac/Windows, CS2/CS3, donationware — download instructions are at the end).

We’ve talked about the usefulness of the Story Editor many times in the blog and in the podcast, but I’ve just learned something new about it, courtesy of an observant student in an InCopy class I taught yesterday. (Story or Galley view in InCopy is similar to InDesign’s Story Editor view.)
In InDesign, choosing Edit > […]

Here’s a quick tip for changing the font of text quickly in all versions of InDesign and InCopy—and without ever touching the mouse.
Let’s begin by establishing two facts: First, CMD+T/CTRL+T opens or closes the Character panel/palette. Second, we know that typing into the Character panel’s Font Family field causes InDesign to try to match typed […]

I field this question (see above) a lot — almost every day, in fact. That’s because there are plenty of “InCopy-curious” art departments in the world that use InDesign CS2. They’re not quite ready to move to InDesign CS3, or simply have no plans to do so, at least in this fiscal year… CS2 does everything they need to do.

The problem is that while Adobe recommends that InCopy workflow users keep InCopy and InDesign at the same version level, Adobe stopped selling InCopy CS2 back in April, when CS3 started shipping.

If you use Adobe InCopy — or you’re considering using InCopy alongside InDesign — I strongly recommend that you check out Anne-Marie Concpeción’s new title at lynda.com: InCopy CS3 + InDesign CS3 Integration. InCopy is a great editorial tool which has replaced MS Word in many departments, but until now it has been surprisingly difficult to get quality instruction and information about it. This video title is likely the most clear and helpful explanation of how InCopy and InDesign can work together that you can find without having a trainer come to your company for a day or two for customized training. (Of course, if you do need customized training, be sure to contact us for a recommendation.)

Remember that you can get a free one-week trial to Lynda.com if you’re not already a subscriber.

With CS1 or CS2, an InDesign/InCopy workflow works best when everyone (design and editorial) has read/write access to the same local file server. If an editor working from home wants to use InCopy to edit stories in the layout, the best you can do is to e-mail him a mess of files (assuming you can figure out which files to send them), hope that he doesn’t rename or rearrange any files at their end, keep your fingers crossed that he sends you back the right ones and hope you remember where to put them.

That’s all over with in CS3. Both InDesign and InCopy now offer a spiffy “Package” command in their Assignments panels that take care of automating all of the above, and more. In fact, with CS3 it’s possible to run a completely virtual workflow if you want: One designer, umpteen remote InCopy users, all keeping each other up to date with e-mailed Packages. Let me show you how the new remote workflow works in four simple steps!

Teacup Software, makers of a bunch of cool plug-ins for InDesign, just released their TypeFitter plug-in free to InCopy users. If you work in an editorial department using InCopy and you need to get text to fit some allocated space, you should definitely take a look at it. Here’s their recent press release:

Teacup Software releases […]

Are there people at your workplace who don’t use InDesign but occasionally need to open native InDesign layouts — perhaps to check the filename of an image it uses, to make a print-out or PDF, or pick up some copy from an old project for pasting into an e-mail or Word file?
Install InCopy CS2 on […]