This Month in InDesign Articles, April 2017
Here’s a fun “throwback Thursday” story about me: In the early 1990s I was a hard-core QuarkXPress user (after all, InDesign didn’t exist back then!) and I was invited to Japan to teach. There I was, on stage in Tokyo, Japan with the wonderful Diane Burns, and a translator. You have to understand that Diane was the first person to really “bring” the concept of desktop publishing to Japan, and she was widely known as “DTP no haha” (which, to my perpetual amusement, means “the mother of DTP”… not “really serious DTP”)
So there I am on stage with Diane, and they introduce her as DTP no haha… and then, in a very kind effort to be equal and make me feel welcome, they introduce me as DTP no chichi (“father of DTP,” which certainly wasn’t true about me). So you just have to imagine the moment that Diane and I look at each other on stage, pause while thinking about what they’re staying about us, and then bust out laughing. We have been dear friends ever since, and I’m so glad we have a rare opportunity to be on stage together again next month at The InDesign Conference.
OK, now for some fun articles and links and videos that… jeez, you just have to check out!
- If you don’t use add-ons (such as plug-ins or scripts), you’re missing out on a whole world! See how Adobe Add-ons can help freelance designers!
- Did you see this article by Ilene Strizver called “Finesse Your Type with Three Great InDesign Scripts“
- Erica Gamet is back with a great video on How To Eliminate Text Orphans and Widows (Runts)!
- Holy mackerel, have you seen all the free InDesign scripts that the folks at Kerntiff are giving away!
- If you’re a print geek (like you work in a prepress dept), then you need to know that PDF 2.0 (which was announced almost a decade ago), is finally coming out. Here’s some cool stuff about PDF 2.0. More stuff here. (Note this is totally different than the secret Camelot2 project that I wrote about here.)
- Here’s a terrific interview with one of our PePcon 2017 speakers, Nellie McKesson, about print and digital publishing.
- It’s always fun to come across developers who are giving away or selling new solutions they’ve built. Bookmark this one!
- Want to hear directly from one of Adobe’s product managers about why they made the choices they did in 2017.1? Check out Wayne Hoang’s new blog post!
- Do you want to use the Japanese features with and English UI? Here are the steps you need for installing via CC.
- Do you export InDesign documents as HTML with in5? Do you use WordPress? If yes, you have to see this great new WP plug-in from Ajar Productions!
- Speaking of HTML, here’s a fascinating new script that lets you import HTML into InDesign. It’s still rough (consider it beta), but it’s a cool idea!
Enjoy!
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That’s a great story about you and Diane David! Anyone who has the chance to see Diane at The InDesign Conference should—she’s the best.
Oh chi chi! Those were the days. Ha ha!
There is a link in this list to Mars Premedia software that has three scripts that are donationware, but one is of particular importance to prepress operators like me. Anyone who has the unenviable task of having to break readers spreads or printers pairs for imposition from supplied PDFs will fully appreciate the script that has been made that is dedicated to this task.
It’s simple – with no documents open, run the script, choose the PDF to fix, determine if readers spreads or printers pairs are to be broken and recombined into a working order, and click OK. Done. I have several ways of doing this but they are tricky and always find myself referring to my notes. Some RIPs now do this, but for those who don’t own proprietary RIP software such as Fuji XMF, then this solution is definitely for you.
As someone who is always on the lookout for new scripts and mods to make InDesign better, I don’t know how I ever missed this one. Thank you David for popping that link into this month’s articles.