Speed Up Your Image Workflow With CC Libraries

Monica Murphy

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Sound familiar? You draw an image frame, apply an object style, place an image, resize it, add a caption box, position the caption box a specific distance away from the image frame, flow in the caption text, and then resize the caption box to fit the text. If you were keeping track, that was eight steps. If your layouts have a lot of images, this process could be very time-consuming.

Here’s an easy way to simplify the process:

1. Draw an image frame. Make it the exact size you will use (or an average size). Either way, it can be easily resized when placed into your layout.

2. Create an object style (if it needs to be different than the Basic Graphics Frame style) with a text wrap defined for the distance from frame to caption text. In this example, the object style contains a text wrap defined for the top and bottom of the image frame, as it will have top and bottom caption box options. Apply the style to the image frame.

3. Draw caption boxes the exact width of the image and position them butting against or behind the image frame. Because there is a text wrap applied to the image frame, the caption box can be positioned either way and the caption text will be the correct distance away from the image.

4. Create object styles for both caption boxes. The styles should contain Text Frame Auto Size Options as shown below. The Caption Box Bottom style has the height-only auto-size option set with the top anchor proxy selected, and Caption Box Top style has the bottom anchor proxy selected.

Caption Box Bottom object style

Caption Box Top object style

5. Select the Caption paragraph style in both Caption Box object styles as well, so in the event text is typed directly into the box, the correct style will be applied. And if text is copied and pasted, the Paste without Formatting option can be selected.

6. Group the three boxes together (select all and choose Object>Group or Command+G) and add them to your CC Library. The new asset will be added to the Graphics section of the library.

7. Right-click on the asset in the library and choose Place Copy from the contextual menu. Position the loaded place gun and click to place the asset onto the page. The grouping can be resized, an image placed, and text flowed into a caption box that will automatically resize to fit the text. Note: Delete the unused caption box.

Although this may seem like a basic tip to some, perhaps it will spark some ideas for how to further automate your workflow process. When you have the ability to automate any task while creating your layouts, you should take full advantage of it.