June 11 2007 • 7:54 PM

InDesignSecrets Podcast 052

Listen in your browser:
InDesignSecrets-052.mp3
(26.6 MB, 56:43 (!) minutes)
or read the transcript

Recorded live at the 2007 InDesign Conference in New York City!

  • Intro to the podcast, how it’s usually created (when not in front of a live audience)
  • News: This conference, New plug-ins for CS3, New InDesign user group in London, UK
  • Who in the audience travelled the furthest to the conference?
  • Q&A from the audience: Converting CS3 to CS2 and CS2 to CS1, Editing .inx files
  • Live Quizzler: How many ways can you duplicate an object in InDesign? (answers below)
  • Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week: Convert to Text

Links mentioned in the Podcast:
Audacity open-source audio recording software
Teacup Software (PatternMaker and BarcodeMaker plug-ins)
Typefi (free AutoFit plug-in)
London InDesign User Group
Brazilian InDesign Blog
PitStop Professional from Enfocus Software
Adding the Notes plug-ins to InDesign CS2

Quizzler answers!
From our genius studio audience:
Cut/copy paste, Step and repeat, Alt/Option-drag, Cut/copy Paste in place, Cut/copy Paste into, Duplicate, Transform > Move (with Copy button), Duplicate a layer containing the object, Alt/Option-drag the object’s layer proxy to a new layer, Export snippet and place it back in, Drag it into a Library and drag it back onto the layout, Use it in PatternMaker, Duplicate the page or spread containing the object, Use it on a Master page and then override it on the document page, Option/Alt-arrow key.
From David: File > Export to .inx then copy and paste the call to the object elsewhere in the .inx file, save it and then open it in InDesign.
From Anne-Marie: Paste object into first row of table, convert row to a Header row, then continue table into a new frame and the object gets duplicated in the second frame’s Header row.
Two more from David: Hold down the Option/Alt key when pressing Return/Enter after editing any transform field; or Copy object to clipboard, then use Find/Change text (Find: any character or string, Change: Clipboard contents).

Wow! Who knew there were so many ways? Listen to the podcast to learn who won the contest.

Listener Comment Line: +1-206-888-INDY (-4639)
Talk to us, baby: Leave a message!

6 Responses discussing this post. Add yours below.

  1. Brad Walrod
    June 11th, 2007 • 10:55 pmLink

    That was a lot of fun to listen to (and a hell of a lot easier on my feet ;-).

    The whole InDesign Conference was great, and it was nice meeting some of the regular contributors to this board (Branislav and Marco come to mind).

    Brad

  2. Newcombe Baker
    June 15th, 2007 • 1:14 pmLink

    Very useful discussion of CS3 to CS2 conversion. Thanks to all-

  3. Fred Goldman
    June 17th, 2007 • 2:56 amLink

    David,

    The auto-Fit plug in sounds very interesting.

    Since you’ve been throwing in all these Yiddish words, I’ll ask you straight out, do you know what a Gemorrah or Talmud is?

    Do you think this plug-in would be useful in trying to lay out this type of work?

  4. David Blatner
    June 19th, 2007 • 12:28 pmLink

    Hi Fred; yes, I know what they are (see some of my other books). Would AutoFit be helpful for this? Yes, I suppose so, but I have no idea if this plug-in works with the ME version of InDesign.

  5. Vectorbabe
    June 26th, 2007 • 5:31 pmLink

    I’m listening to the live quizzler from the NYC conference. How many ways to make a duplicate of an object.

    I liked David’s tip that you can duplicate an object by pressing the Option/Alt key with any of the Control panel transform fields

    And a previous person said you can copy an object with the Move dialog box by pressing Copy.

    But you all forgot that you can duplicate a object using any of the Transform commands such as Scale, Rotate, and Shear. Just enter 0 as the offsets and click Copy.

    You can also use the Scale, Rotate, and Shear TOOLS with the Option/Alt key to make a duplicate.

  6. September 4th, 2007 • 5:41 pmLink

    Fred; AutoFit currently is NOT compatible with InDesign ME. We are hopeful that we’ll get the support from WinSoft that we need to ship an ME-compatible version in the future.

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