InDesignSecrets

Font Priority in InDesign (What’s It Really Using?)

David Blatner — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:15:04 +0000

I posed a question to Thomas Phinney at Adobe recently (master of all things font-related) regarding the priority that InDesign considers fonts. That is, if you have four versions of Arial or Times or some other font on your computer, which one is InDesign really going to use? In some cases, the answer is “All [...]

Cool Frames from Photoshop Clipping Paths

Anne-Marie — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:19:01 +0000

As I mentioned (but didn't go into great detail about) in my May 2008 column for CreativePro.com, one of my favorite InDesign techniques is to lift interesting silhouettes from photographs to use as InDesign text, image or unassigned frames that I fill with a color or something.

For example, you can convert these three images (all from the Photoshop Samples folder, inside the Photoshop application folder):

Applying Expert Fonts to Numerals with Nested Styles

David Blatner — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:28:12 +0000

Nathan wrote: We use a font that has a SC (small caps) version and in our Body copy (which is regular) we would like all the numbers to be SC. Is there a way to use nested styles to change all the numbers to a different font or different character style inside a paragraph? Nested styles are [...]

Zap Gremlins in Problem Data Merge Files

David Blatner — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:03:01 +0000

I was having terrible troubles with Data Merge last week because I was getting this message about "the data source file you selected either has no records or is not a supported file format" every time I tried to choose the tab-delimited file that contained my data:

This was just a simple file exported from Excel! I opened the file back up...

HerGeekness Articles at CreativePro.com

David Blatner — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:39:16 +0000

My co-host here, Anne-Marie Concepción, is so modest and humble that she’s not going to stand up here and shout about the other work she’s been doing, so I figger I’d better do it for ‘er. Here’s the deal: If you haven’t been reading her new column at CreativePro.com (titled “HerGeekness Says”, you’re missing out. [...]

Converting Text to Outlines The Right Way

David Blatner — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:22:46 +0000

Why do so many people want their all the text in their documents converted to outlines? Don't answer that; I've heard the reasons, and they all make me sad. Nevertheless, some people do want all the text converted, and they find themselves up a creek because Type > Create Outlines doesn't always give them what they want. Specifically, paragraph rules (rule above/below) disappear. Bullets and numbering disappear. Underlines and strikethroughs disappear. All kinds of stuff disappears, and that's not good.

Fortunately, there is a better way to convert text to outlines...

First InDesign Conference in Canada Goes Great, Eh?

David Blatner — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:41:06 +0000

It’s late Wednesday night as I type, and I’m just buzzing with excitement about The InDesign Conference in Toronto this week. We had a great two-day event, with over 200 attendees coming from around Canada and the United States. (And elsewhere! I had a lovely chat with a woman who few here from Qatar.) Speakers [...]

Deadline Extended for ID CS3 Re-Certification

Anne-Marie — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:49:30 +0000

Adobe informed its trainers today that people who are InDesign CS2 Adobe Certified Experts (ACEs) have until May 31, 2008 to take and pass the InDesign CS3 re-certification exam and thus remain current with their ACE status. (Otherwise they lose their certification and have to "start over" with the the full exam, which is more expensive, longer, and can only be taken at a proctored location.) The new date is a full month past the original deadline of April 30, 2008.

When InDesign Ignores Your Leading Values

David Blatner — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:22:12 +0000

We’ve received two emails this week regarding leading — or, more specifically, InDesign apparently ignoring or changing the leading values of paragraphs. For example, G. wrote: …The problem arises when we copy and then paste a text frame into a new document — some of the text blocks (not all) change their leading. But this is the [...]

Obituary: GoLive is Dead. Long Live DW!

Anne-Marie & David — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:15:53 +0000

Le Roi est mort. Can software that was never the market leader be considered “the king”? Perhaps only in our hearts. GoLive had long been our personal favorite, when it came to HTML development, and we were deeply saddened when Adobe dropped it from the Creative Suite. We got a tad bit excited when Adobe [...]