November 21 2009 • 12:58 PM
By:
Anne-Marie Concepcion and David Blatner
InDesignSecrets Podcast 113
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The transcript of this podcast will be posted soon.
- InDesignSecrets Membership — free with benefits!
- All about the InDesignSecrets forums
- Guide to the InDesign ACE Exam eBook by Mike Rankin
- Interview with Mike Rankin!
- Recent Adobe layoffs
- Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week: Choke
News and special offers from our sponsors:
>> Rorohiko (“Slash the time it takes!”) has a number of cool plug-ins for InDesign users that slash the amount of time it takes to get something done! In this episode we take a close look at their new Mac/Windows utility called Soxy ($19 US) that helps you open files (InDesign, and others) in the correct version of the program when you have more than one version installed. Special for InDesignSecrets listeners: Use the coupon code INDESIGNSECRETS113 (that’s “one one three” at the end) in the Rorohiko.com store to get 25% off the Soxy utility.
>> UK-based Certitec, an Adobe Authorized Training Center, is giving away one free 2-day InDesign class to a lucky InDesignSecrets.com listener. Classes will be held in Cardiff or London, U.K. To enter the drawing for the free class, go to http://www.certitec.com/indesignsecrets.html and fill out the form. Quick! You only have 14 days from the date of this podcast to enter the drawing. If you don’t win, you can always register for any 2009 class at Certitec for 10% off if you mention “InDesignSecrets” when registering.
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Links mentioned in this podcast:
> All about the new free membership program for InDesignSecrets
> InDesignSecrets forum
> The InDesignSecrets Guide to the InDesign ACE Exam eBook (PDF, 150 pp, $9.95) by Mike Rankin
> Download a sample chapter from the eBook (11-page PDF, 3.7MB)
> Mike’s personal blog, Publicious.net
> Adobe’s Certified Expert instructions and links
> InDesignSecrets forum
> The InDesignSecrets Guide to the InDesign ACE Exam eBook (PDF, 150 pp, $9.95) by Mike Rankin
> Download a sample chapter from the eBook (11-page PDF, 3.7MB)
> Mike’s personal blog, Publicious.net
> Adobe’s Certified Expert instructions and links
Some extra info on Soxy: one of the ‘big’ features of the 1.0 version is that Soxy now is pretty much invisible when it does its job – after it’s configured to your heart’s desire you can simply double-click .indd files and they’ll open in the right version of InDesign.
Cheers,
Kris
Ah, thank you, Kris, for reminding us of that. There is a LOT of good stuff in Soxy and too little time to talk about it in the podcast!
I already have InDesignProxy (also from Rorohiko) and have sent them a donated cup of coffee as requested. I find it very useful as I have CS2 CS3 and CS4 on my hard disk and frequently produce files for clients who have, say, only CS2. If they want me to make changes, it makes sense to make those changes in the appropriate version for them.
Why don’t they upgrade? Money, I guess. Some of them use InDesign so infrequently that it is not worth it to them to pay the upgrade price.
How much more does Soxy do than InDesignProxy? Is it worth the extra cash?
Contrary to what has been said in the podcast, I have had a GREP formulae question in my InDesign ACE test !
Thanks for the mention in this InDesign Secrets Podcast. Truly appreciated. Cheers,
Rufus
@Branislav: In the CS4 exam?! It may have discussed grep, but there is no way it would have asked you to actually known any grep codes. That would be crazy, becuase InDesign itself does not require you to know any codes. You can do all the “coding” you need by choosing items from the @ flyout menu.
Rufus, you’re our hero! The star of Adobe TV! We’re hoping Adobe comes to its senses and finds an even better position for you.
I am maybe crazy but the question was something like : “What is the GREP code for lower case letters ?”
Maybe it was CS3 then…
Soxy has been awesome for me, especially as I spent a good day last week digging through old files and archiving them more correctly. I just did a quick video about it, explaining the basic features: http://dirtywords.tv/2009/episode_007/
I remember seeing a GREP question as well. It was only on the Upgrade test, but I can’t remember if it was CS3 or CS4.
On the GREP topic: There should be no questions that require you to know any GREP codes on the CS4 exam. You just need to know how to construct expressions using the menus.
The testing objective specifically states, “Create a basic GREP expression for find/change or GREP styles without having to write code.”
Hi Furry,
InDesignProxy is Soxy’s poor cousin – we won’t be enhancing InDesignProxy any further.
The differences are:
- Soxy supports additional file formats – PDF, Illustrator, (dare I say it) QuarkXPress, ExtendScript.
- With Soxy, there is no need to use the ‘Get Info…’ dialog in the Finder to re-map extension – Soxy does that for you. Soxy is much easier and quicker to reconfigure.
- Soxy has much more better custom icon handling
- Soxy has more configuration options
- Soxy does a great job making ExtendScripts a lot easier to manage.
Try it out; we have a free 20-day demo – and if you find Soxy does not add value for you compared to InDesignProxy, you can simply go back to InDesignProxy.
This might also be of interest: it’s a little movie I made about Soxy and PDF file icons:
http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/2009/11/23/soxy-fights-an-army-of-unknown-pdf-files/
The next version of Soxy (upgrades are free), due soon, will also have a new option ‘Always Ask’. When you configure a file format that way, a little selection dialog with all available apps that can open a document will appear each time you double-click such a file’s icon in the Finder.
Cheers,
Kris