Comments on: Making E-Mail Blasts from InDesign Documents

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:59:22 +0000

Vanessa, to create live links in the .pdf file, use Acrobat to edit the .pdf file after you’ve exported it from InDesign. Acrobat lets you embed links in .pdf files.

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:38:24 +0000

Sorry, Vanessa, I don’t any way to do that. I think sticking to HTML is probably a good idea.

By: Vanessa

Vanessa — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:44:55 +0000

Is there a way when you embedd the PDF into an e-mail to still have the links work? I want to incorporate the links in the piece, but i’m not sure how to get that to work! Thanks!

By: Klaus Nordby

Klaus Nordby — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 23:15:55 +0000

Exporting a PDF from ID and rasterizing it in PS really sucks. For one thing, you can only specify the graphic’s DP resolution (72, 96, 300, etc,) — which is utterly useless for all web/email graphics, as only absolute pixels size (100×200, 600×800, etc.) are relevant units. (No folks, contrary to what we read all the time, there is ***no*** DPI for web/scren graphics, neither 72, 96 or any other number — there are only absolute H/V pixel numbers, which browsers display at 1:1. “Resolution” is an utterly meaningless and irrelevant concept in this context.) Furthermore, the anti-aliasing PS does when rasterizing text from a PDF is waaaaaaaaaaay inferior to the anti-aliaasing which ID uses for it’s crystalline, razor-sharp screen display (at max. display quality, natch). So any screengrab of ID graphics pasted into PS for GIF/PNG/JPEG export will be vastly better in type quality compared to PS rasterizing of PDFs. Just test this yourself with some small, subtle typographic elements and be astounded at the difference!

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:06:28 +0000

Everyone, thanks for all the input. It seems from what most everyone has said, InDesign does not have a dedicated feature for this type of project.

I’ll look at some 3rd party services.
I appreciate the help.

Gary

By: Dave Brown

Dave Brown — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 16:30:30 +0000

Hi there,
I would strongly recommend using third-party services. I’m a big fan of ConstantContact.com. I put out a Weekly Ezine and use a modified template to do so. You can use their templates, or pay to have it tailor-made for you.
Enjoy. Dave

By: Greg Gaspard

Greg Gaspard — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:35:50 +0000

On view: what Bob said. It helps to read all the way to the end before posting.

By: Greg Gaspard

Greg Gaspard — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:35:08 +0000

If quality is a concern, why not export as PDF, then open the PDF in Photoshop (where you have the choice of rasterizing with or without anti-aliasing)? No compression artifacts to be found, and you can experiment with different formats and settings without initial image degradation.

By: Bob Levine

Bob Levine — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 13:41:05 +0000

David, I think it’s worth pointing out that your screen capture is from CS3. In earlier versions the biggest weakness in exporting to JPG is that you couldn’t specify a resolution. All you get is 72 ppi. Certainly okay for email blasts but not for much else.

That’s why I never used it. I far prefer to export a PDF and rasterize it in Photoshop where there’s much more control over quality.

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 12:52:10 +0000

Joseph: oh I see what you mean. Yes, Export is on the right. I added a screen shot of the dialog box to the post above.

Dave: I think this is probably browser specific. Safari apparently has that feature, as long as Mac OX X Mail is set up as your default mail program. I use Firefox and Eudora, so those features aren’t available. Just something to keep in mind.