This Week in InDesign Articles, Number 61
It’s amazing to me how InDesign has become an integral part of the graphic design market. I mean, sure, it’s the best tool out there, but I keep reminding myself that only a decade ago we were all using QuarkXPress and PageMaker. Of course, a decade ago I was on my Harley touring South America as part of a heavy-metal band. Okay, that’s not even close to true. But you get the idea. Things were different! Well, wherever you are, whatever your mode of transportation or choice of music to work to, you’re going to want to get better at InDesign. The way is clear: 1. Read, 2. Watch, then 3. Go and Play! Here’s some fodder for the first two steps.
- Having trouble typing special characters (glyphs) in InDesign? Read my article on the subject, originally in InDesign Magazine, and now free for everyone!
- This is a fun, short video retrospective of InDesign, by some of the core developers: The History of Adobe InDesign
- A few years ago I wrote up a piece about using InDesign for interactive/web wireframing. Here’s an article on the topic of InDesign for web folks, and here’s another piece on using InDesign for wireframing.
- Adobe has published a free 140-page PDF document called Adobe Creative Suite 5/5.5 Printing Guide (you can download the pdf by clicking here). It’s a combination of “what’s new in 5.5,” “why pdf is a good workflow,” and “stuff you ought to know about printing from the major CS programs (InDesign, Acrobat, Illustrator, etc.)
- Want to know “what all the fuss is about” regarding GREP? Ask Vikrant Rai!
- Want to create HTML5 animations but don’t want to code? (99.8% of people should answer yes to that.) The good folks at Adobe are clearly working on a solution for you, codenamed Edge.
- In case you missed it, RovingBird Publisher became Twixl Publisher. It’s one of the easiest and least expensive (and therefore coolest) ways to create interactive ipad apps with InDesign. I got a demo of their software at PePcon, and I was very impressed. You can get a look, too, by registering to one of their free webinars in August!
- Marc Autret updated his cool “special characters and metacharacters” PDF for CS4/5.
- Harbs keeps coming up with helpful scripts and plug-ins. Here’s a free script that lets you zoom to the width of your current text frame. Give it a keyboard shortcut in the edit > edit keyboard shortcuts dialog box, and you’ll be on your way to efficiency-ville!
- Last week, Adobe presented an AskaCSPro presentation on Creating Accessible PDF files. Here’s one screen capture from it. I’m still waiting to get the URL of the full recording.
- PDF/A-2 has finally been finalized! Pop open the champagne!
Enjoy!
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I have searched this site quite a bit and can’t find the answer to my question. There is a lot available about how to establish a book, TOC, etc. I am a novice user, have set up a flower ID book with front materials, color sections, back materials….. you get the idea. Now I am wondering how this is all going to look when it comes back together and how it has to be set up in order to provide what the printer needs so it will come out looking the way I expect. To be absolutely sure, do I have to recombine all the sections into a single document? And if so how to do that? Any help as to where to go to find this info would be greatly appreciated!
@pat4141: I would suggest posting question on the forums (click Forum in the navigation section) to put it in front of more folks; you’ll need to sign up for a free membership to do that. Also, you probably want to get some training, such as a book from peachpit press or video training from https://www.lynda.com/trial/indesignsecrets
After you make the book, you can see how it will look by exporting a PDF (from the book panel menu). That is also typically what you’d want to send to your printer.