Podcast 94 Transcript
To hear the audio episode from which this transcript was made, or to comment on this episode, go to the InDesignSecrets Podcast 94 page.
[music]
Anne-Marie Concepcion: Welcome to InDesignSecrets, Episode 94. I’m Anne-Marie Conception and I’m here along with my lovely co-host, David Blatner.
David Blatner: Salam Alaikum!
Anne-Marie: What? Gesundheit! Sorry?
David: [laughs] Salam Alaikum is like “Shalom.”
Anne-Marie: Oh, right!
David: I’m practicing my Arabic because I’m going to Dubai. I’m doing an InDesign seminar in Dubai in a few weeks. So I’m trying to get up to speed here.
Anne-Marie: Very cool! Are you going to be like out on one of those islands that were built in the shape of a symbol?
David: Yes. It’s going to be an island. The entire island was designed for InDesign use.
Anne-Marie: [laughs] Is it shaped like the InDesign logo?
David: It is! It is! A giant ‘ID’ floating in the water. It’s very impressive. There’s dolphins that jump over it. No, I don’t know exactly where we’re going to be.
Anne-Marie: Dolphins shaped like topographer’s quotes, and all sorts of good stuff. That’s great!
David: [laughs] Exactly!
Anne-Marie: Well, Salam Alaikum.
David: Thank you, Anne!
Anne-Marie: Our podcast and blog at InDesignSecrets.com are the independent resource for all things in design.
David: …ine-ine-ine-ine-ine-ine-ine. It’s true!
Coming up on today’s show, we’re going to be talking a little bit about where we’re going to be, what the two of us are up to here and there.
We’re going to talk about a cool free script that you’re going to want. If you ever make tables you’ll really want to take a look at this.
In fact, we’re also going to talk a little bit about our New Year’s resolutions. Happy New Year everyone!
Anne-Marie: That’s right. Happy 2009! If you’re listening to this in 2012, right now it’s actually 2009, early January. It’s our New Year’s podcast.
David: We can say anything we want, really. We could say that this is 1861. We’re coming to you through the Inter-tube. [laughs]
Anne-Marie: I think there’s a date on the feed, so people might know.
David: Oh, really? You think they could probably figure it out?
Anne-Marie: Yeah.
David: OK, well there you go.
We’re also going to have a Quizzler that everyone listening can answer. Every single one of you knows the answer to this, or you could easily find the answer to this.
We’ve got several great prizes to give away this time, including a $250 OptiCAL Spyder3Elite, which is a display calibration device, which everyone here listening to this needs, if you do anything with color.
Anne-Marie: I want one! I want one! I’m going to win!
David: OK! All right. We also have four copies of Ben Schott’s new book, Schott’s Almanac, which is really cool and just way too much information. We’re going to be giving away four copies of that as well.
Anne-Marie: And it’s important to know he lays that thing out in Adobe InDesign.
David: That’s right.
Anne-Marie: He does a beautiful job. Incredible topography in that book.
David: And then the Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week eek-eek-eek-eek-eek: Smart Match Style Groups!
Anne-Marie: Yes! A new checkbox! CS4!
David: In CS4, pretty cool!
Anne-Marie: Hiding there.
David: It’s very obscure. I completely missed it. I just stumbled upon it.
Anne-Marie: All right, but before we go into all that, I want to welcome two new sponsors that we have for InDesignSecrets. Thank you so much for supporting us.
The first one is In-Tools, who many of you may know the genius behind the In-Tools company, his name is Harbs. That’s how he signs his posts on our comments and on the InDesign forums and listservs. Very helpful gentleman.
He’s come up with this very cool plug-in for InDesign called WorldTools, because InDesign CS4 has some built-in support for Hebrew and Arabic languages. You know, the right-to-left languages. You can’t really get to it unless you’re using a plug-in or a script.
He came up with this WorldTools plug-in that lets you do right-to-left publishing in the regular InDesign without having to purchase InDesign Middle Eastern version, ME version.
Not for whole Hebrew books, but if you need to include a paragraph or a call-out or a few words in right-to-left, that’s where WorldTools comes in.
David: You technically could do a whole publication using the WorldTools plug-in. Probably if you’re doing whole books, or a magazine, or whatever, you’re probably going to want to end up getting the ME version of InDesign. We talked a little bit about this in the last podcast.
The idea, if you just need a little bit of text here and there, or if you’re trying to mix and match English and Hebrew or Arabic or something, I think that the WorldTools is very, very impressive.
It’s only 99 bucks, or actually there’s a small discount for InDesignSecrets listeners and readers, so it’s $94. $94, really a very, very good deal if you have to do some publishing in right-to-left or in any of the Indic languages. It’s just amazing.
You do need InDesign CS4 for this to work, because it’s taking advantage of features inside CS4 to make this work. But with InDesign CS4 and this plug-in it’s quite good.
They also do sell InDesignME as well. The In-Tools folks, Harbs, sells InDesignME.
If you find that you buy the plug-in and you’re working with it and you say, “You know? It just doesn’t give me all the power I need. I really need the full version of InDesignME,” you can apply the cost of the plug-in to the full version of InDesignME if you buy it from him.
It’s actually a pretty good deal that way as well.
Anne-Marie: Or you can just get $50 off the price of InDesignME if you go to the URL that we’re going to be posting on our show notes.
David: Exactly, exactly.
Anne-Marie: A special deal just for InDesignSecrets users, and listeners, and thank you very much Harbs. Very cool. In-Tools WorldTools.
Anne-Marie: The other new sponsor is Flux Consulting. I love these guys. They’re based in New York. I’ve met a lot of the people who work for them, who work there.
They are a technology consulting firm. They are a K4 integrator. That’s the InDesign InCopy workflow system that runs on a dedicated server running a database.
Lots of big companies, like McGraw-Hill and Harcourt Brace, they’re using K4 systems. I think they’re one of the premier national integrators for that.
They also do lots of other cool stuff. They provide certified Adobe training and they focus on InDesign, Dreamweaver – what’s that? – and Flash.
[laughter]
Anne-Marie: They have a really cool free plug-in for InDesign and they just came up with a CS4 version of it called the EyeDropper tool plug-in.
It is a better EyeDropper tool plug in, if you’re used to the EyeDropper tool. Wasn’t there an EyeDropper tool in Quark that sort of worked like how this one works? It lets you pick up colors and formatting without having to switch tools.
David: Right. I do want to be clear that it’s not a free plug-in. It’s 30 bucks.
Anne-Marie: Whoops!
David: Yeah, oops!
I think they had a free version for awhile but they have a free trial. You can download the trial version of it.
But it’s $30 — $29.95 It is a very cool little plug-in if you use the EyeDropper a lot. The ability to grab the EyeDropper with a keyboard shortcut. You just hold down Control and Option. It is actually also Mac-only. It’s only a Mac-only version of this.
You hold down Control and Option on the Mac. You get the EyeDropper temporarily and you can click on anything. And it is a really cool way, whether you are editing text or you just want to quickly grab some formatting from some other object if you are doing object formatting.
So it’s neat. I think it’s well worth the price if you do a lot of layout because you constantly are needing to copy formatting from here to there and so on, right. It’s very cool.
Anne-Marie: And we will have a link to their website, to the web page, where you can download the free trial…
David: [laughs] There you go.
Anne-Marie: …of the EyeDropper plug in on their site. And thank you very much Flux Consulting for joining the InDesignSecrets.com team.
David: Indeed. So, OK, I just wanted to mention a couple of things that were coming up here. Those of you who are going to be at Macworld San Francisco next week, while Steve Jobs is not going to be there, I will be.
Anne-Marie: Yay! Are you doing the keynote?
David: They asked me to do the keynote, and I just couldn’t make it in time actually.
Anne-Marie: Oh, you don’t have a black T-shirt and jeans to wear.
David: [laughs] I didn’t have my mock turtleneck. It’s at the cleaners.
Anne-Marie: OK.
David: No, I am going to be there to be doing a short InDesign seminar. I will also be at the Peachpit Press Booth doing a little demo there. Both of those are happening Wednesday afternoon. If you are around, come on by. Say hello. I am signing books and this and that. So that will be lots of fun.
Anne-Marie: That’s wonderful.
David: And also as I mentioned earlier, I will be in Dubai, at the January 21st and 22nd in Dubai. If you are anywhere in the Middle East, please fly over and come to the seminar there. It is a two day InDesign training seminar. It is going to be very in-depth, very cool, lots of tips and tricks.
Anne-Marie: Seriously, what kind of venue is this going to be in? Are you in like an auditorium or is it a classroom or is it a company. What is it?
David: I think it’s actually in an auditorium style thing. But I don’t know. I have never been there before. It’s all a new adventure. I think they’ve got me on a camel. And I am going to be in the auditorium doing camel racing.
Anne-Marie: That’s good.
David: And you are going to be in a little black booth.
Anne-Marie: Yes, that’s right. While you are having fun at Macworld, I am going to be in a sound booth waiting for the next earthquake like what happened last time.
David: [laughs]
Anne-Marie: I go in for punishment. I am going back out to lynda.com headquarters in Ventura, California to record Acrobat tips and tricks, which has become my latest obsession. I am just so amazed by Acrobat. I have been a huge fan since…I don’t know, I have been using it since Version 3.0, I think, when Acrobat Exchange or something like that, whatever it was called.
And, Acrobat 9, I been using it quite a bit and doing a bunch of seminars on it. And I thought “Well, I can put all these together in a bunch of new videos.”
David: Excellent.
Anne-Marie: That’s what I will be doing. I will be recording with the good people over there. Actually it’s a lot of fun going over there. They are very nice.
And Ventura, California versus Chicago, Illinois first full week of January. I don’t know. What do you think?
David: [laughter] You are going to be out there on your surf board?
Anne-Marie: Oh yeah, right, me and my surf board. Yes, I will be.
David: Excellent. And then you are working on the more videos, I will be doing a few more videos with them later in the year. But in the meantime, I have to finish Real World InDesign CS4. Olav Kvern, my co-author, is breathing down my neck going “David…David…David…”
So I apologize to everybody. But Real World InDesign CS4 will be out, hopefully, in February.
Anne-Marie: Good.
David: We are trying to get it done this month. Get it to the printer. Get it out in February. And so that’s good news as well. All right. Cool.
Anne-Marie: Hey, since this is New Year, I would like to know if you have any resolutions. It doesn’t have to be InDesign related. Any resolutions for the New Year?
David: I do. I do have some New Year’s resolutions.
Anne-Marie: OK.
David: I have 1024×768….
Anne-Marie: Oh, shut up.
David: I am trying to get away from 640×480, moving up a little bit. Little higher. Little more of [crosstalk]
Oh, you mean…
Anne-Marie: Shut up.
David: …like resolutions, not image resolutions. You meant like what I want to do in the New Year.
Anne-Marie: Yeah.
David: Oh! No, I don’t have any resolutions.
Anne-Marie: Are you not a believer in resolutions?
David: [laughs] I am a believer, but I like to keep my options open.
Anne-Marie:-huh.
David: And so I haven’t decided yet.
Anne-Marie: You can’t commit.
David: I can’t commit. What I am hoping is by the end of the year I will have figured out what I had done and then use those as resolutions.
Anne-Marie: Have you ever made a resolution, a New Year’s resolution?
David: I have but I don’t remember any of them, because after about a week I have lost track of them. So it’s almost like they are fun but…I need a paper. Maybe if I wrote them down on a piece of paper, and my resolution would be: Don’t loose this piece of paper.
Anne-Marie: [laughs]
David: That’s like my life right there.
Anne-Marie: I make resolutions once in a while and start things on January 1st. And a few things I have carried out. One that I remember, I think, like, when I was in my early 20s, was I will never buy another issue of Cosmo Magazine.
David: [laughs]
Anne-Marie: I don’t know why, it was like an addiction. I keep buying it at the grocery store and then I read it. And then I am like “Why am I reading this trashy thing,” you know. I used to take all the quizzes and stuff. And finally I am like “This is ridiculous. They are so expensive. I am not going to buy another one ever.” And that was it, I haven’t.
David: Really?
Anne-Marie: Yeah.
David: Good for you. Well done.
Anne-Marie: I haven’t read a copy since 20 years ago. And for 2009, and I am serious about this, I bought books and everything about it.
David: OK.
Anne-Marie: Is that I am going to mindfully enjoy and take pleasure in the journey. Because, you know, I get so caught up in all the 10,000 projects that I am involved with, that I often will cancel dinners with friends. Cancel going out seeing my mom. Not have time to call people. Not have time to get involved in other things. And then I am miserable, right.
David: Yeah.
Anne-Marie: And I am not rich, so something is not working. So that’s what I have decided after really serious introspection. I am going to just enjoy it.
David: Wow!
Anne-Marie: Enjoy the work.
David: Enjoy the journey. I love it.
Anne-Marie: Enjoy the journey.
David: I love that.
Anne-Marie: And also try to get a little more balance. I didn’t tell you this but I did actually commit to…I am taking a jewelry making class at a little street art gallery here in Chicago at the Ravenswood neighborhood.
David: Nice.
Anne-Marie: Every Sunday for three hours for five weeks. Not an inexpensive class – metalsmithing.
David: Wow.
Anne-Marie: How about that? Working with copper, silver and brass to make jewelry.
David: That is very analog.
Anne-Marie: I am very excited about it. Something creative that has nothing to do with the mouse and a computer.
David: That’s right, that’s right.
Anne-Marie: Doing stuff with kilns and all sorts of things.
David: You know the problem with that is there is no undo.
Anne-Marie: [laughs] I think that’s the exciting part of it.
David: OK. Well, you will enjoy the journey with no undo.
Anne-Marie: You know you inspired me? It was actually an InDesign conference attendee.
David: Yeah. Oh yeah, of course…
Anne-Marie: Nancy.
David: Yes.
Anne-Marie: We have become sort of good friends. She is like a production manager at… what is that? I always forget the name of her company.
David: Was she at…
Anne-Marie: Southern….Southern something.
David: Yeah.
Anne-Marie: Southern…I want to say Southern Living.
David: Southern Progress.
Anne-Marie: Southern Progress. I called it Southern Comfort during one of our live broadcast. [laughter] Very sweet woman and she had beautiful silver jewelry on. And I said “Where did you buy that?” And she said she made it. And I am like, “Get out of here.”
So she is taking art classes. And while she is working with computers all day and solving PDF issues and all that kind of stuff, she goes out, and she’s got like a studio in her basement. And she is taking classes. And while she’s working with computer all day and solving PDF issues and all that kind of stuff, she goes out, and she’s got like a studio in her basement. She is taking classes. She became like a certified trainer to work with something they call art clay, which is pure silver suspended in a rice clay kind of mixture.
David: Wow!
Anne-Marie: You form it like clay and then you fire it. And the rice suspension burns away and you are left with something made out of pure silver.
David: Wow!
Anne-Marie: That’s what she gave me, a piece of jewelry made like that, which is very sweet of her. And I am like, “I must learn how to do these kinds of things.” Part of my resolution is that I am going to do stuff other than computer stuff and enjoy it all.
David: Yes. A shout out to Nancy for being inspirational and for you for doing something analog and getting away from the mouse. Wow!
Anne-Marie: So everybody now can expect to receive presents of hideous jewelry for the next year and a half.
David: [laughs]
Anne-Marie: Are you ready? You wear cuffs, right, David? Belt Buckles? [laughter]
David: Do I have to answer that?
Anne-Marie: All right.
David: OK. Now back to InDesign because I think what we are supposed to talk about today…
Anne-Marie: Yes sir. Those are our resolutions.
David: I like your resolutions very much but we still need to talk about InDesign.
Anne-Marie: OK. We wanted to talk about that cool free script about tables, all right.
David: Well. I had done this post about tables. Somebody emailed us, asking, how do you get a calculation in a table? You make a table in InDesign and bunch in numbers, and you want to sum it up at the bottom. How would you do that?
Anne-Marie: You would think that any program that has a table feature would have those simple things.
David: You would think so?
Anne-Marie: I wrote about this in Indesign Giggle a while ago. My solution was to export the sucker out to tab limited text and open it up to…actually, you can just copy and paste it to word. Because, word, you can select the column numbers and calculate the sum.
David: Oh, I forgot that. You are right. You can do that in word. Very cool. But that’s still kind of… yeah, that’s still kind of painful.
WoodWing has a plug in called Smart Styles, which really has nothing to do with doing spreadsheets and calculations. But for some reason someone there must have decided that it was a good idea to sneak that in. So they added a feature in Smart Styles to let you do calculations in tables. And that was cool.
Anne-Marie: The whole part of Smart Styles is smart table styles.
David: Well, yeah, but that’s all about formatting, not actually doing the math for you. No, I think it is great that they did it. I was very impressed. So I did a little blog post pointing that out. And then someone – I think it was Jean-Claude Tremblay who said, “Oh yeah. Dave Saunders has a script, a free script, that will let you do that as well.”
So we posted Dave Saunders scripts. And then script should do that. And then Harbs – one more thing this is the official Harbs podcast, I guess – Harbs said “Oh well, I just took Dave’s script and I improved it a little bit, ” because one of the main problems of Dave’s script was that it couldn’t deal with anything that had non-numeric data. So if you had a dollar sign or something, it kind of freaked out.
So Harbs took it and quickly rewrote it and uploaded it for us all. Again, it’s a free script. And it will do a sum of all the numbers in a selection. You just select a bunch of table cells and say “sum that up for me” with that script – double click on that script. It’s very, very nice. Really, lovely little feature.
So it is not automatic. You still have to double click on the script or make a keyboard shortcut for the script.
Anne-Marie: That’s right.
David: But it’s very clever, it’s free and it’s a nice solution for that. Cool?
Anne-Marie: Thank you very much, Harbs. OK, let’s go on to the Quizzler.
David: OK.
Anne-Marie: The good stuff.
David: Yeah.
Anne-Marie: We got a ton of great prizes to give away, and everybody will be able to answer this Quizzler. All right. So you want to say the Quizzler?
David: Well, you know, the thing is everyone’s doing their top ten this and top ten this and that.
Anne-Marie: And we thought about it.
David: Yeah. We were thinking about that. And one of the things…we just couldn’t quite pull off our own top ten, like, you know, blog posts of the year. So we thought instead we would ask you, the listener, what is your favorite. You don’t need to do top ten, just one. What is your favorite blog post of 2008?
Anne-Marie: You mean indesignsecerts.com?
David: Yes, indeed. It has to be from indesignsecrets.com.
Anne-Marie: [laughs]
David: So just go back through the archives. In InDesign Secrets you just go up to…where’s that? Up in the upper left corner, you can click on all the secrets. And under all the secrets there’s a link that says “archives”. And if you click on archives, it will give you a list of all the blogs, all the way back to like 2006.
Anne-Marie: If you can’t remember the name of it, but you know, “Oh, it’s that’s one that Ann-Marie wrote on discovering the width of a table row” then just type in our search engine — which is working great; I use it all the time — just type in table row or whatever it is that you are looking for in the search engine. And it will come up with a list of all the blog posts that deal with those key words.
David: Yeah. There were a lot of blog posts in 2008. We had a lot of great contributors doing all kinds of cool stuff.
Anne-Marie: Yes.
David: So just go back and check it out. Read it and see what you think. Figure out what your favorite blog post is and email us at info@indesignsecrets.com.
And we will then take random drawings from everyone who emails us. And the first four that we pull randomly will get a copy of Schott’s Almanac by Ben Schott. Who just did this amazing…you know, Almanac’s….
Anne-Marie: It’s actually called Schott’s Miscellany: An Almanac.
David: Oh, is it? OK.
Anne-Marie: It’s a New York Times bestselling author. I am looking at the 2009 edition now, which covers 2008.
David:-huh.
Anne-Marie: It’s about 370 pages long with just incredible list and very interesting. Very interesting reading. I don’t even want go through it because there is too many things to talk about. But it is exactly what the title is: Schott’s Miscellany. And it will be hit of your next trivia contest or it’s just something interesting to read.
David: No, I have to say that my copy of this is called Schott’s Almanac. [laughs]
Anne-Marie: Are you looking at the 2009 edition?
David: Yeah. Schott’s Almanac, 2009.
Anne-Marie: Mine’s is Schott’s Miscellany, 2009, and it has got this very cool drawing. Then underneath there it says “an almanac”.
David: How fascinating. Well you got the cool version, obviously. And what’s interesting about this is there is a British version, a US version and a German version – in German in fact. We are going to give away four of these. And the winner of the Quizzler can pick which one they want – the US, the UK or the German, in German. So that will be very cool.
There’s just lots and lots of graphs in there and charts and data. And I love flipping through this book. It’s really just a fun book just to flip through. And the fact that he did it all InDesign to me is even a better kick because I find myself interested in the info and suddenly getting distracted by a “how on earth did he do that table?”
Anne-Marie: That’s right.
David: There are so many tables in this thing. [laughter] It’s just crazy to think about having to produce this myself. I would not want to do this. But it is fun to read.
Anne-Marie: So he wrote it and he type set it.
David: He’s produce it.
Anne-Marie: Yeah. It’s beautiful.
David: It’s great. So that’s kind of fun. And then, the final person…
Anne-Marie: The fifth person.
David: The fifth person…and that person will win a Spyder3Elite. It’s a display calibrator for professional photographers and studios. You need a color calibrator, you need one of these things. It’s one of these things that you put on the front of your screen and it characterizes your screen. It makes you a color profile, ICC color profile for your monitor. You can share it with all the other people in your workgroup, put your name on it so you make sure you get it back from them. But, it is really a great one. So the Spyder3Elite from OptiCAL. I think, officially, it’s Datacolor.
Anne-Marie: It’s one of those things that you like to hang right on the front of the monitor, right?
David: Yes, yes, yes, exactly.
Anne-Marie: It looks like a spider. It looks like a manta ray or something that you hang there.
David: A little octopus.
Anne-Marie: Right. Forget about fiddling around with gray levels and trying to do it manually just from what you’re looking at with these. Using an actual, mechanical calibration device is the best way to go. I believe it also works in LCD projectors, too, so it will work on your laptop.
David: Yes. It’s a good one. Datacolor makes a very good color calibrator. This thing is, I want to say it’s a $270, $260 value. So, definitely, if you…they have a cheaper one as well.
Anne-Marie: According to Amazon, $324 is the list price.
David: OK. It’s a great value of $324.
Anne-Marie: It works on PCs and Macs, by the way. So, my platform.
David: Yes. So, definitely, check that out yourself if you don’t win one.
Anne-Marie: You need to email us your favorite blog post. If you can’t remember the title or don’t know a link, just sort of describe it, at least.
David: Yeah. You know that thing about InDesign? That’s the one I like.
Anne-Marie: That Anne-Marie wrote? Yes.
David: That Anne-Marie wrote. That one.
Anne-Marie: Alright. Time for…yes?
David: Yes it is.
Anne-Marie: Time for our favorite Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week. David, you discovered this one. It was while you’re working on Real World InDesign CS4?
David: It was, actually. I was working on the Real World InDesign CS4 and I was taking screenshots. I saw this Checkbox which is not…I don’t think it’s in the Documentation.
Anne-Marie: It is. I’m sorry.
David: It is?
Anne-Marie: Yes, it is.
David: Oh, it is in the Documentation but it’s not in anything that Adobe had sent out about what’s new.
Anne-Marie: That’s correct. It’s not right, not there at all.
David: Yes. So, it’s just called Smart Match Style Groups. You’re right. I did find it in the Docs, but just by doing a Find in Live Docs. It is an interesting little feature. It has to do with long documents. It has to do with the synchronize feature in the Book Panel. So, when you have a bunch of documents in a Book Panel and you synchronize them, one of the options in the Synchronize Options dialog box, which you get to by choosing Synchronize from the Book Panel File menu, is Smart Match Style Groups. Style Groups are those folders that you can make inside the Character Styles panel or Object Styles panel. Basically, you can make folders of styles and hide your styles inside them. That’s kind of clever and it’s useful for organizing things.
Anne-Marie: Basically you just set in CS3 a way to organize them in order to keep them nice and neat. You can have a folder for body styles and a folder for sidebar styles. What is weird is that you can name them exactly the same if they’re in different folders.
David: Yes.
Anne-Marie: Which is, actually, kind of dangerous if you ever need to call in a script. If the script ever needs to call in one or if you’re exporting and importing, it sort of breaks down at that point, unfortunately.
David: Yes. The main reason I, personally, do not use Style Groups, those Style Folders, is because of import and export. There’s no good way to export your document as, let’s say, RTF and import it again because the style names get all screwed up and the styles don’t map properly. It’s one of the things that Adobe really fell down on with the whole styles and Style Groups feature. So, that’s really important, so I found myself not using Style Groups very much.
Anne-Marie: But if you don’t do a lot of exporting and importing. I know a lot of people who use Style Groups. They can be lost without it.
David: Absolutely.
Anne-Marie: So, that’s what this feature is for.
David: Yes, and you’re, absolutely, right. So, basically, what this feature does is you have style groups and you move styles from one group into another. Or, it wasn’t in a style group, it was kind of just free floating in the panel. You put it into a style group, one of those folders. Then, this feature, if you turn the Checkbox on, it will look for those instances. It will move the styles in the other documents as well.
So let’s say in Chapter 1, you’ve decided to clean things up a little bit and you’d make a bunch of groups. Then, you put all of your styles into those groups, into those folders. You want to match those groups in all of the other documents. So, you make Chapter one your master, your style source, as they say, and you synchronize. It will go through and match that same layout in that same grouping in all the other documents.
So, it’s pretty clever, it’s very nice. By the way, it will not work, at all, if in the instance that you pointed out, Anne-Marie. You have different groups but the same style names in different groups. Let’s say you’ve got body text inside one group and then body text inside a different group, which InDesign lets you do. But this feature will not work out. Smart Match Style Group just turns itself off. It goes, “Oh, I don’t know what’s going on here.”
Anne-Marie: You know, I saw that in the documentation. I was trying to like force that to happen. The only thing I did discover…and I couldn’t force it to happen, though I’m sure I didn’t try hard enough. I made two documents, and one document I made a style group called “Colors.” I put a character style in there called, “Red.” The colors of the text is red. Then the second document, I didn’t have any style groups. I just had one style called “Red” but that turned the text green. Then I set the document number one as the master and said, “Synchronize and match the style groups.” In the second document, it made a folder called “Colors.” It put the red style in there and made it match what the red style did in document one. So instead of turning it green, it turned it red.
David: Yes.
Anne-Marie: I thought that was pretty neat.
David: That’s just what it should do. Yes, perfect. It synchronized it and matched the style group, and it did it smartly.
Anne-Marie: Is that a word, smartly, smart?
David: Yes. Smartly matched that style group. So, it’s perfect.
Anne-Marie: It did what it said it sounded like. OK, good.
David: So, that is pretty obscure. It is obscure, but it is…
Anne-Marie: Pretty obscure. Not heralded at all, an unheralded new feature in CS4.
David: It’s an Obscure InDesign Feature of the Week.
Anne-Marie: I believe that wraps it up for Episode 94 of 2009 New Year’s podcast. I hope everybody has a wonderful 2009. Be sure to check out the show notes on our blog in InDesignSecrets.com, where we’ll have links to all the places we mentioned. Make sure to submit your Quizzler to info@InDesignSecrets.com with your favorite blog post and InDesign Secrets in 2008. Remember, there are five winners this time.
David: Also, the sponsors. Make sure you check out WorldTools and the EyeDropper tool plug-in for InDesign from Flux Consulting.
Anne-Marie: Yes. Thank you In-Tools and Flux Consulting. Until we meet again. This is Anne-Marie Concepcion and…
David: David Blatner for InDesign Secrets.
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