The InDesigner - Episode 46 (VIDEO): Baby, It’s Christmas Time!
December 29th, 2007Written by Michael Murphy
OK…Christmas has already come and gone, I know, but it’s still technically the holiday season, and the title of this episode is the title of a Christmas CD project I recently designed. That’s the project I showcase in this episode, in which I demonstrate a holiday grab bag of InDesign goodies including: starting a document on a left-hand page, using the Slug area and Text Variables, placing InDesign documents inside of other InDesign documents, using frames to crop and manage vector shapes, inserting Column Breaks and other special break characters, and setting up looping Nested Styles.
Download it now or watch it in your browser:
The InDesigner - Episode 46 (23:25 mins. | 41.6 MB)
Thanks Michael,
Nice to see those little (and well not so small) tips in action.
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It is nice to see them used on an real project. (thats one of the things i like of your video’s and also the details you show on the stuff your explaining).
Hope to see more of your videos next year. Thanks
A great show, Michael, thank you! I especially approve of your rapid-fire presentation, which doesn’t waste any of the viewer’s time. If I miss something, it’s trivial to replay that part. Many a video-tutorialist could learn from you in this regard.
Merry Xmas!
This was a very helpful episode, Michael. I’ll be sure to use these techniques in an upcoming yearbook project. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for all your tutorials. They teach such great techniques and have greatly improved my ability in InDesign. I, too, appreciate your presentation style—direct and to the point. I look forward to the training you provide in 2008.
Thanks, Michael, for a great episode.
What, if any, advantage is there to setting up the pages panel in the way that you did (turning off the shuffling options before repaginating)?
Since there was no content on any of the pages yet, I would have just selected the first right-hand page and changed the page number to 4. Then I would have selected the second page and started a new section at 1.
Wouldn’t this accomplish the same thing? Is there an additional advantage to making the changes in the way that you did?
Mark — You’re correct that your method would accomplish the same thing for this particular four-page layout.
However, there is an advantage to using my method in other cases, specifically for spreads that contain more than two pages. If this project had been a 6-page gatefold brochure, I could not have set up the three-page spreads if the shuffling options were on.
Also, since a six-pager would have required different page numbering (5,6,1 for the outside spread and 2,3,4 for the inside spread), you couldn’t rely on the page numbering change to position the pages properly.
I opted to show the “bullet-proof” method in the episode rather than the quicker method you describe (which is entirely appropriate in the right circumstances).
Michael,
In replying to Mark perhaps you meant to say 6-page trifold brochure instead of 6-page gatefold brochure. In the former the pages are usually all the same size, while in the latter, the end pages are usually narrower(but not necessarily equal) and fold in to meet somewhere in the middle of the center page. This seemed worth mentioning in the context of teaching design ideas.
Al
Al,
I prefer to call the 6 page brochure a 3-panel brochure rather than trifold. There are only two folds on a 3-panel brochure. Trifold implies 3 folds to many folks, which result in 4 panels/8 pages.
Jak
Point well taken, Jack. I should have been more careful. I was focused on the peculiar characteristics of the gate fold, which an ordinary 3-panel piece lacks.
Al
Great show, Mike
I have a question though. I often find myself designing book covers. They consist of three parts — front (placed on the right side), back (left side) and spine (between them). Since I cannot set up InDesign to have a three-page spread, but with a different size of the middle page, I do everything on a single page — placing fold lines and such. There’s not much InDesign can help me with here. Or is it? At least creating automatic folding lines would be helpful 
Pawel — Check out Dan Rodney’s Make Book Jacket script ($20), which is well worth the price if book covers are something you do a lot. You can find more info about the script at:
http://www.danrodney.com/scripts/makebookjacket.html
I have an excel file, which I sent into InDesignsecrets a while ago, you just insert the page total and follow the table that is created to get your spine width.
Usually I just a make document with 2 columns and my gutter width is the width of the document. So an A4 (European A4) size is 210 x 297, the cover width for a 7 mm spine would be 210 + 210 + 7 mm = 427 and my gutter width would be 7 mm.
It’s worked great for me for years.
Also what I see a lot is people just designing a cover at 210 x 297 mm with 2 pages and then creating a separate document for the spine. Obviously then the spine width is controllable in the second document because you can easily resize the page.
Obviously having a second document makes it hard to get images that wrap around a spine, if you’re doing that.
But generally I just have one document, once I know the page total, I can create a flat cover for the use of creating a cover with a spine.
Usually then I would keep all text or objects I need from the edge of the spine, usually about 5mm or something.
If the the cover has a got flaps then I usually just include that in the size of the overall document, including the gusset if I need it, depending on where it appears, front, back or both, and then using the slug area to indicate folds. I usually create guides as to where it will fold so that I can easily set in fold marks in the slug area, using the registration colour and etc.
I know a lot of people have their own method, but mine works for me and I’ve never had a problem with it.
Another useful thing I have seen is the Page Control plugin, I have never used it, but you can create documents with multiple sizes, I don’t know how that reflects if you were to put the pages side by side, or even if you can have a 210 x 7 x 210 document as spreads using this.
I might need to add to the start of that (once you know what weight and stock you are printing on you can use the spreadsheet to give the spine width)
JUST PLAIN AWESOME!!!!
••• THIS IS INCREDIBLE. MAN DO ANOTHER ONE WHERE WE CAN WORK ALONG WITH.
Hey Michael,
I just watched my first podcast of theindesigner (#46) after subscribing and was completely blown away by how much I learned in just this one episode. I found myself muttering things like “this guy really knows his stuff” and “I can’t believe how much I’m learning in just this one video.”
I’ve been using InDesign professionally for a while now but had kind of plateaued in my user know-how. Not any more! #46 has made me hungry for more.
Thank you also for using such a practical “real world” approach that I can immediately apply to my current projects.
I’ll join in the congratulations. I just watched the show this morning and I really appreciated the holistic approach.
I was surprised by your choice of a break character to get the credits into their columns. I’d have used a Start in Next Column attribute for the Performer Name paragraph style.
Other than that, no quibbles at all and your artistic skills are inspirational!
Dave
Excellent point, Dave! That never even occurred to me. Time to go back and update my files for future reference. Thanks…and Happy New Year.
Time for my usual “me, too.” Great job and happy new year!
Loved it! I really liked the step-by-step of how you created the backgrounds too. (The randomly skewed rectangles.)
Looked like a fun project, too! Hope this gets you more of the same … you should put links to the video in indie music sites or something.
I know I will be learning something useful whenever my iTunes inbox shows a new InDesigner episode waiting for me. Thank you for the podcasts.
I’m confused about the creation of the background rectangles, though. I understand option-dragging to copy the boxes and hitting the “s” key to select the scale tool. The podcast seemed to indicate random width generation. How is that accomplished?
Sorry for the confusion, Dean. Actually, it was me holding down the option key while dragging (to create the copies), typing “s” to switch to the scale tool, and quickly scaling each rectangle horizontally. To make the whole process less painful for the viewer, I accelerated everything in the video, so that probably wasn’t clear.
Similarly, the rotating of each object required switching from the selection tool to the rotate tool and back again every time to select the rectangles, rotate them, then select the next one.
And thanks for the great feedback about the podcast, Dean.
Watching you manipulating those rectangles had me thinking that I could write a script to do that, but this is not a good time for me to be thinking about even more scripts.
Dave
Hmmm. Michael, I figured you were using the Free Transform tool (E) so that you could scale and rotate without changing tools.
I thought you were pretty clear that you sped it up; though I was thinking you should’ve kept mum and let people think, my GOD the man is a machine!!!!
At first when Mr. Murphy said he was speeding up, I didn’t believe him. I just didn’t. There has to be a trick there!!! One thing though, I’m surprised that Transform Sequence Again could not have been utilised. Selecting every odd, and then every even rectangle.
Could have helped? I don’t know I haven’t tried it.
I enjoyed the use of compound path. I had little use and often dismissed it as a poor-mans grouping. Hark, how I was wrong.
Powerful stuff and simply put. How do I get people to come to Ireland to teach this stuff? Answers on a postcard please.
As ever an excellent podcast. I have a quick question on the page shuffling technique. When I print the shuffled document using the “Print Document…” command the printed pages are not in the correct order. Is there a setting I have missed or is that just how it is. I guess I can get around this by making a pdf, shuffle the pages and print the booklet from there.
Again, thanks for all your hard work.
I think you have to print the pages in Ranges, something like this,
4,1,2,3
and keep the spreads together.
I’m not sure if that’s accurate as it’s been a while since I had to do anything like that.
Michael,
Do you really have to select all of the pages in the pages panel before turning off allow pages to shuffle? I think it works without having all of the pages selected.
You’re right, Al. It’s not necessary to have all pages selected for the first part of that (Allow Pages to Shuffle), but since my next step was to turn shuffling off for each spread and “lock” them together, I just selected everything first. Good catch.
Thanks for the latest episode, Michael. As always, a treat.
Your videocasts remind me of a cooking show where everything works flawlessly and the end product looks delicious. But then I also can’t help but wonder about what’s not shown. For example, how long did you deliberate before deciding on the compound-path-inside-a-frame method for your wallpaper pattern? Was that the first solution you came up with? If so, I’m even more in awe than usual. Lift the curtain, oh Wizard!
Aaron — How perfect that you say the videocast reminds you of a cooking show. I’ve always thought of them exactly that way: identifying the basic ingredients, putting them together, and always having the dish already finished in the oven. I hope people take away from it what I take away from cooking shows, which is the fundamentals of what ingredients work together, and why. And that they then go mix them up their own way to produce something totally unique.
Regarding your specific question, the compound-path-inside-a-frame solution came to me after having already pasted the silhouette figures in a frame to better manage moving that artwork around and cropping it. The first thing I did was group it, but realized almost immediately that it would quickly become cumbersome, couldn’t be cropped, and would require another frame behind it to create the contrasting color. A compound path popped into my head as an alternative to grouping (for easy selection), and working with the silhouette figures earlier in the design process had that in my head already.
The rest is videocast history.
Bravo! Brilliant as always. Thanks for the excellent show.
Michael,
As a designer I appreciate your page reordering method. But as a printer it throws a wrench into our automated imposition system, and, likely, InDesign’s own imposition system.
Is there a way to export the document so it retains the logical page sequence but still allows the designer to see the spread as it will be printed?
hello michael,
yet again, another incredible episode. my goodness, i wish i could be a fly on the wall and watch you as you work at your job.
i love your method of teaching…you are articulate with your words and make learning fun.
ever given thought to joining the bandwagon of professionals that teach online such as all those guys at photoshop user/layers magazine like: scott kelby, corey barker, rc concepcion, dave cross? if you set up a tutorial website with weekly tutorials on indesign, photoshop, illustrator, etc….i’m sure you’d have quite the following of people willing to pay for your teaching services! I SURE WOULD!!!!!!
btw….happy new year to you!
maritza
Maritza, Michael is definitely a great teacher… If you can make it to The InDesign Conference (the next one is Feb 28 in Miami), you can see him in person!
Wow. I’m blushing. And just had to pull myself away from my deadline to respond and say thanks to Maritza (and David) for the kind words. If anyone’s looking for more up-close and personal teaching from me, then look into the Adobe InDesign CS3 Master Class for Designers I’ll be teaching 6 times this year in the greater D.C. area.
i wish i could make it to miami and away from all this NEW ENGLAND snow (thank goodness for the patriots!!!!)….but i’ll have to wait until michael comes to the boston area although i may be able to make a sacrifice of some sort to check out the classes in DC!!! very cool!
and mr. david blatner, i have some of your books and lemme tell ya, your a great teacher as well. truly you are! and so is anne-marie…goodness, you’re all people i admire highly and respect in this industry.
thanks
have a nice evening fellas!
-maritza
Michael, I loved this videocast. As you mentioned above, this works great for a 6-page layout. I am in the process of designing such a gatefold brochure.
What do you about the inner page size. As you know, the inner page should have a shorter width than the outside two for folding purposes. How do you deal with that? Is there a way to make them a different size without affecting the other pages? Do you use the slug area to put in a trim mark?
Tim — In the event of a six-page layout, I would do either of two things:
1) I’d make each three-page spread a single page, and use the slug area to put in the proper fold marks. This would be good for a smaller piece (i.e. a CD booklet) that could be accommodated for proofing on an 11×17 page; or
2) I’d create a three-page spread and use guides and the slug area to put in a corrected crop mark and design the page with that small difference accounted for.
InDesign doesn’t inherently support different-sized document pages, but DTP Tools’ Page Control plug-in adds that functionality if you want to work that way.
Thank you. That’s the way I have done it traditionally. The piece will be 10″ x 22-1/2″ folding to 10″ x 7-1/2″. The idea of being able to print the individual pages was intriguing. I’ll check out DTP Tools.