InDesignSecrets Podcast 026
Listen in your browser:
InDesignSecrets-026.mp3 (13.4 MB, 25:32 minutes)
or read the transcript of this podcast
• The Pleasures of CS2’s Spine Alignment (Align to/Away from Spine) feature
• InDesign Quiz Contest #2! (See note below)
• Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week: Convert to Profile/Assign Profile
Links mentioned:
• InDesign Magazine (Pariah Burke’s article on using spine alignments with anchored objects is in issue #8, Oct/Nov 2005)
Note: Comments were closed for 24 hours (to this post only) to give people a chance to listen to the podcast and figure out the answer to the Quiz. The comments are now open! The first complete and correct quiz answer posted here as a comment will win. We’ll officially declare the winner as well, via a comment like last time.
Listener Comment Line: +1-206-888-INDY (-4639)
Talk to us, baby: Leave a message!
David and Anne-Marie, thank you for yet another great podcast – you guys rock!
The answer to the contest question is:
Select the path with the Selection Tool
In the Pathfinder menu click on “Open Path”
then, click on “Reverse Path”
or
Select the path with the Selection Tool
Choose Object-Paths-Open Path
then Object-Paths-Reverse Path
David and Anne-Marie have not mentionned in the podcast that even a splitted table in threaded text frames can also be aligned to or away from the spine.
- Create a 3 column document with facing pages but without Master Text Frame
- On the pages, create a threaded text frame only on two columns on each page
- Insert a table that you will extend to 3 columns. Make this table very long so it is splitted in at least two text frames.
- Click just before or after the table and using the arrow keys on your keyboard place the cursor on the side of the table (you should see a huge text blinking cursor) : this way you can modify paragraph options of the table
- On the Control palette, click the button Align to Spine : the table is perfectly aligned along the spine even if splitted on left/right pages…
Congratulations, Raj! You win a free subscription to InDesign Magazine! Why the Open Path feature would suddenly allow you to use Reverse Path is a mystery to me, but it does.
Branislav, you are of course correct about tables (even tables that extend past the edge of the text frame) also adhereing to the Align To/Away from Spine feature. Thanks for mentioning that.
One reader from the Netherlands pointed out (in an earlier email) another way to make Reverse Path work with the Selection tool; perhaps he’ll chime in here. (Ed?)
> Why the Open Path feature would
> suddenly allow you to use Reverse
> Path is a mystery to me, but it does.
Well I think it’s logical and not a mystery. To reverse path, ID needs to select at least one anchor point. By opening the path it switches from a global selection with the Black Arrow to a structure selection with the White Arrow. By choosing OpenPath you just select the structure, even if that is not clearly visible and then you can reverse the path.
May I just add for the quiz that it’s better to assign keystrokes to the two features : Open Path and Reverse Path and then you just hit the two shortcuts when a path/arrow is selected and there you go.
Congratulations, Raj! Remember if you already have a sub, we can send you all the back issues… let us know.
And thank you to everyone else who participated by e-mail, knowing it wouldn’t win the contest, but just driven to provide the solution!
Not complaining here, but I think there is still a flaw in the system for the contests. The person who won submitted his answer at 12:17 PM on the 25th, yet I am writing this message at 7:25 AM on the 25th. What’s going on with the time zones here? Just Curious!
FWIW, I think this path behavior represents one or more bugs:
1. First of all, why is a two-point path considered something to which “Open Path” can be applied? It is, by definition, open, isn’t it?
2. Secondly, why are both “Open Path” and “Close Path” enabled at the same time? Seems wrong – only one should be enabled at a time.
3. Next, why is it that selecting EITHER “Open Path” or “Close Path” causes “Reverse Path” to become enabled? This is true of both already- open and already-closed paths.
4. Finally, when doing the reverse path “trick” on a line with dissimilarly-shaped “ends, InDesign on my Mac Book Pro does not refresh the screen correctly in cases where the visual bounds of the “before” and “after” are different. The “before” rendition is not erased before the “after” one is drawn. It does the same thing under Windows, so I don’t think it’s a Mactel incompatibility.
Same drawing issue on a 2003 PowerBook G4 17″.
Adam, you’re right … the time zone thing is confusing. I think it has to do with how WordPress sets the time of posts. David and I are still working on the best (fairest and clearest) way to handle submissions, probably the next contest we’ll collect answers by e-mail and do a random drawing after a set period of time.
Like we’ll just throw a dart at the screen and see which e-mail subject line it sticks to. We can use David’s computer for that I think.
Peter, I assume you’re right on all counts. We’re taking advantage of a dusty little corner of code oddities.
We didn’t say the solution would be a pretty one!
time zone thing….
the posted time shown is in GMT.
Thank you, Anne-Marie, for volunteering my computer for the dart-throwing. Fortunately, I’ve been having enough troubles with my computer recently that I’m quite inclined to start throwing darts at it myself. Or bricks.
Peter, I completely agree with you: I think we’re dealing with somewhat obscure bugs here. But bugs can be fun, too.
As for the time stamp: It’s based on UTC (universal time, which used to be called Greenwich time). Sorry for the confusion. I agree with Anne-Marie that we need to further refine the contest. Perhaps the first person who brings us an ice cream sundae with the answer written on a napkin?
Yea, that time-zone thing. And we got no less then 31! of them on this ball of dirt. As Dave mentioned about ten comments ago, i opposed some goofy way to undim ‘reverse path’ At such an introduction i can not deny you my solution.
Usually all graphs of the same kind I place on one layer. (In an environment of different companies using one logo, but their own color scheme) So when I activate a layer and select al, ‘reverse path’ is no longer dimmed.
Having said this, i admit i do not use those arrows a lot…
That Raj’s (Please accept my congratulations) solution might be a bug, i can only support. Clicking several times on open and close path (with an arrowed line as in the question selected) my line in the process got on both ends the arrow AND the dot. At first i thought it was a redraw/refresh glitch as mentioned before, i moved the object, and on both ends of that line, both end-caps moved along…
Ed.
Thanks, Ed! Yours is also a weird but good solution: Select All apparently selects all the points on every path, so Reverse Path works. Unfortunately, it also reverses every path on the spread, which may or may not be what you were aiming for.
Why don’t you simply insert a visual countdown ? With JavaScript or Flash I think ready made exist on the Internet.
A way to solve the original problem (get those arrowheads to the other end) without reversing the path would be to start out by making the arrow settings part of an object style.
Then make another object style with the arrows the other way around.
Now delete the first object style and replace with the second.
Dave
Of course, for my trick to work, you had to remember to make the first object style at the beginning of the job.
I understand about the time thing as I use WordPress also, but the point is that even someone on the east coast might have a shot at it before I would, unless I get up in the middle of the night!
Might I suggest a drawing? There are usually at least a handful of people who get the question correct, right? Why not throw those names in a hat and pick one? That’s what I do on my podcast, Rookie Designer (http://rookiedesigner.com) *truely shamless plug*. Would probably be safer than the dart idea too!
Oh yeah, here was my method:
Select the arrow line segment with the selection tool. Make sure that the Reference Point is in the center, and rotate the object 180 degrees. Only problem here is that the line segment must be straight. If it is a line curving up, this method will result in the line curving down.
Or you could just flip it horizontally…
Oh my… !!!!!
Did Alexandra just found THE trick ? Just Rotate 180° !!!
Of course this will work only on straight lines but that’s even easier !
You can even assign a short : Palettes’ menus > Transformation > Rotation 180°
Rotation only works with straight lines, but Flip Horizontal does work with curved lines and all…
Of course, if the path is not symmetrical, the result won’t be perfect…
Flip Horizontal doesn’t work with lines on an angle (which most of my arrows are). Rotate 180 doesn’t worked with curved lines (which many of my more artsy arrows are). My feeling is, why bother with either when Reverse Path works every time?
They should have a “Swap Position” button in the Strokes palette by the Start/End dropdowns, in my opinion.
Anne-Marie, most of the arrows around graphs and illustrations are straight so Alexandra trick is perfect. I think.