Learn GREP and Explore Free Scripts at Lynda.com (two new titles)

Well, it’s that time of the year again, when the blossoms start blossoming (at least here in the northern hemisphere) and the videos start being released! Lynda.com has released two new video titles that I think you’ll find interesting:

InDesign CS4: 10 Things to Know About GREP is a quick (just over an hour) introduction to GREP in InDesign, but contains some very helpful tips and tricks that anyone can use for find/change and formatting.
InDesign CS4: 10 Free Must-Have Scripts introduces you to 10 awesome scripts that you have to know about, including CalendarWizard, LayoutZone, IndexMatic, and more!

By the way, while both of these have “CS4” in their titles, about 80% of the material is applicable to both CS3 and CS4 users.

Both of these video titles are available to anyone with a subscription to the Lynda.com Online Training Library. It’s only $25/month for “all you can eat videos,” including 20 hours of beginning and advanced InDesign training, and more… so it’s kind of a no-brainer! Go for it!

(As I type, Anne-Marie is down in California recording even more titles for Lynda.com; we’ll let you know when those are available, too.)

Anne-Marie Concepcion says:

April 30, 2009 at 5:02 pm

Hey this is AM reporting from deep inside the bowels of the lynda.com recording studio … ;-) I can tell you David’s titles are AWESOME! And David did you already mention that your other two “top 10” videos are available too? (couldn’t find a mention in the site) …

I watched the “InDesign CS4: Top 10 Must Have Free Plug-Ins” this morning in between recordings. I couldn’t figure out why the Soduku Plug-in was a must have, but dadgumit, your video convinced me! LOL

MarcusStringer says:

April 30, 2009 at 5:44 pm

none of those scripts are even in my top 50 list. I’m sure they maybe useful for short document people making simple One page things, but not really helpful to long documents.

PDF multipage importer
Text Counter
Proper fractions
Inline graphic importer (for math)
Adjust endnote numbers
Adjust endnote letters

etc etc. these are all free as well.

Eugene says:

May 1, 2009 at 1:23 am

Well each to their own on their favourite scripts, as we each do all types of different work.

The free scripts that I use all the time are

Addpage.jsx – this adds a page when working on a document with multiple master pages. I found that when I was at the end of a section that ended on a verso and used the Add Page from the Layout Menu that it added a page after the spread. This script bypasses InDesigns guess work and inserts the current master page directly after a recto or a verso.

PDFplacer.jsx – a script that places all the pages of a pdf into a document. It’s fantastic because sometimes I need to this a lot.

Preservelocalformatting.jsx – my favourite. I work on magazines and I receive word files. I import the word file, map all the styles, run the script (it makes all the character styles for the text) hit the paragraph override button – it’s done in a jiffy.

SmartTitleCase.jsx – Again something that indesign can’t do, in the script you can insert conjunctions that you don’t want capitalised when you choose Title Case. It’s smart.

Oh and I’ve used

Textstylereporter.jsx – for generating a text document with details of all your styles and the settings you’ve used. Very customisable too.

David Blatner says:

May 1, 2009 at 5:40 am

I certainly did not mean my “10 scripts” title to be comprehensive — the series editor insisted that I only pick 10. I love hearing about all these “must have” scripts that people use. I encourage everyone to list them here. I’ll try to compile them all into a single place to download sometime.

May 1, 2009 at 5:47 am

Cool stuff David, if you have any problems finding any of the ones I listed just ask and I’ll forward them on to you.

In the meantime if I come across any more I’ll post them here too.