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This article is from November 3, 2008, and is no longer current.

Free InDesign Video Tutorials

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Looking for a one-stop shop of all the free InDesign CS4 video tutorials (produced by Adobe) available online at the moment?  Bob Bringhurst just posted links to them. He also has links to many other InDesign CS3 videos and general online resources, including our favorite, InDesignSecrets.com. :-)

Bob Bringhurst is the lead documentation writer for InDesign and InCopy. Like Tim Cole’s Back Channel, Bob has his own blog called InDesign Docs. It was moribund for many months ?I guess he was busy writing the CS4 documentation!?but it looks like he’s back in the saddle, posting new articles every couple weeks or so.

One of the best ways to encourage blog writers to keep at it is to respond to their posts with comments, letting them know you’re out there. If you find Bob’s post helpful, let him know! (And throw a comment or two Tim’s way, too … he’s been posting some great content over there.)

By the way, you’ll notice David did some of the free InDesign CS4 tutorials that Bob links to. Way to go David!

Anne-Marie “Her Geekness” Concepción is the co-founder (with David Blatner) and CEO of Creative Publishing Network, which produces InDesignSecrets, InDesign Magazine, and other resources for creative professionals. Through her cross-media design studio, Seneca Design & Training, Anne-Marie develops ebooks and trains and consults with companies who want to master the tools and workflows of digital publishing. She has authored over 20 courses on lynda.com on these topics and others. Keep up with Anne-Marie by subscribing to her ezine, HerGeekness Gazette, and contact her by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @amarie
  • Eugene says:

    Wow, just checked out the Cross Referencing video and one or two others.

    Cross reference is powerful. Does this mean I can say goodbye to the TOC feature? Because the Cross Reference looked great.

    I can’t wait to get into more of these videos and hopefully I’ll be on CS4 soon.

    Well done on the videos.

  • Thanks, Eugene. We’ll have to go into more details on x-refs in a future podcast or blog post, but right now I feel that text variables should be used for running headers, layout > table of contents should be used for a list of paragraphs (such as a TOC), and x-refs should be used for… well, just for x-refs inside a paragraph.

    I suppose you could use x-refs for a TOC or even an index, but I have a feeling that it wouldn’t be nearly as efficient as using a feature that is better designed for it.

    It’s a great question to ask someone from Adobe at the ID conference next week. I’ll see if we can get it answered.

  • Eugene says:

    I totally agree that xrefs are there for a specific reason and not TOC and Index and Running Heads. It was just something that popped into my head, finally a visual warning letting me know that it needs to be updated. TOC at the moment has no visual warning, nor does it have a panel :(

    I’ve been longing for xrefs and they look great, they seem to work very well. I can’t wait to update all our publications with xrefs, it will be a long process, but I think it will be well worth doing.

    I look forward to the write up on the feature and the full extent of it’s power.

  • Kelly Vaughn says:

    I’ve heard that ID does not allow you to have more than one TOC. In my current FM workflow, I have a TOC, an LOF (List of Figures) and an LOT (List of Tables). How would I accomplish the same thing in ID?

  • @Kelly: You can do this with the Layout > Table of Contents feature. Set up the dialog box, then click Save Style to save it (one for list of figures, one for list of heading, etc.)

  • Kelly Vaughn says:

    Sweet! Thanks. That’s much more elegant than the FM way. No more reference pages!

  • Kelly Vaughn says:

    Is there a way to get an ID’s TOC to create hyperlinks AND bookmarks in one fell swoop? I have a TOC at the beginning of my document and I need it clickable (like cross references).

    I opened up the PDF in Acrobat and there actually do appear to be links there. The first one was Link to Named Destination: p0. What??? I didn’t make that named destination and I don’t know how to edit it. It appears that ID does not make the links correctly… or am I missing something?

  • Kelly Vaughn says:

    Well shoot… I tried it again and it worked. So I guess that p 0(zero) refers to page 1. (Since I think that Acrobat page numbers start at zero. So named destination p 17 takes me to page 18. I don’t know why it didn’t work earlier when I tried.

  • mai ali says:

    i generated the TOC and i need it also d I need it clickable (like cross references), but when i test the link on the PDF the links goes to the page not to the title
    is there any solution for that matter
    i wanna change its destination from page to its title like cross references

    thank you;
    Mai Ali

  • @Mai Ali: You want the link to take you to the place on the page where the text is? You may have to use hyperlinks that point to a Text Anchor instead.

  • mai ali says:

    i did that i generated the TOC that is the only way the links go the title not to the page but that is so hard if the TOC is too big so i want another solution fix that bug in indesign which is not exist in frame maker

  • mai ali says:

    no i want the link takes me to the a specific title not the page
    and that doesn’t happen when i generate and link the TOC automatically

    • @Mai ali: You have have to create buttons (with the Buttons panel). If you use a Go to Text Anchor action, it lets you specify the zoom level, including Fit Width. Or, you could open the pdf in Acrobat Pro and edit the links there in the TOC to adjust the view zoom.

  • mai ali says:

    thanks Mr.David Blatner
    that prove there is no automatic solution to solve that matter

    thanks again

  • Ehi everyone! I desperately need a suggestion to resolve a problem with InDesign CS4 Digital Editions. I want to esport for digital editions a file in which there’s also a video, and when I export, it doesn’t appear in the epub file. How can I put a video in a epub file for e book? I know readers as IPad read videos without problems … Can somebody help me? I can’t find an answer anywhere … :-(
    Thank You all,
    best regards,
    Fra from Milan

  • @Francesca: This is a good subject for the forum (click Forum above to post your question there). However, I don’t think anyone knows what the iPad will do, because it has not shipped yet. However, I do not think video is supported in InDesign’s ePub export.

  • lhanske3 says:

    Hi,
    Just finished photoshop and illustrator cs4 at college and last fall did quarkxpress-I’m on the web graphics side not print. I have full cs4 with Indesign. College classes don’t cover Indesign for some reason. Looking for best way to get started in learning cs4 indesign.
    Thanks
    New Member today!
    Lee Anske

    PS- Love the website colors and layout!

  • lhanske3 says:

    Me again- forgot main question. Best book to use for adobe indesign >

    Thanks
    New Member today!
    Lee Anske

  • juny fan says:

    links does not work anymore.
    I could not find any cs4 indesign vedio

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