Chartwell Font - Automatic Graph Creation

Create your graphs right in InDesign with Chartwell, an OpenType infographic font that converts your data into simple pie graphs, bar graphs and line graphs using ligatures. It's all live text so it's completely editable. Neat!

Importing InDesign Workspaces and Keyboard Shortcuts from Version to Version

I'm finally setting up InDesign CS 5.5. With some testing and research I've discovered the secret place where InDesign stores your customized workspace and keyboard shortcut files. So now I can easily copy and paste the shortcut or workspace files from InDesign CS 5 to CS 5.5 and be up and working in CS 5.5 in no time.

The location: Users > "Your Name" > Library > Preferences > Adobe InDesign > Version 7.0 (choose your version — 7.0 is equivalent to CS5) > en_US > InDesign Shortcut Sets or Workspaces.

How to Generate a QR Code

If you don't know what QR code or if you've seen these around but don't know what they were called, here is a good description from wiki:

A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) that is readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera telephones. ... The information encoded may be text, URL, or other data.

Here's how to generate a QR code:

1. Open your web browser and navigate to your favorite QR code generating website. This free QR code generating site from Kerem Erkan came highly recommended. The better sites will allow you to create the file in vector .eps format—definitely preferred!


2. Select a Code Action which will most likely be "Browse to a Website" but there's a whole drop down menu of options.


3. Select Code Type: QR Code


4. Select Output Type: Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) (vector data is preferred because it's crisp at any size)


5. I left the defaults for the rest. URL Shortening: None, Error Correction Level: Low, Block Size in Pixels: 10, Margin Size in Blocks: 1, Foreground Color: #000000, Background Color: #FFFFFF, Transparent boxes unchecked



6. Click the Generate Code button and the file will automatically begin downloading


7. Insert the code into your Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator document. QR codes will be hard to read at sizes smaller than .59 inches (15 mm). A good standard QR code size is around 1 inch or 25-30 mm.

Indesign and ePub Resource List

I attended an excellent 1 day seminar on InDesign to ePub recently. Erica Gamet, the seminar presenter, has a great list of ePub resources on her website. It includes lists of:

• Desktop ePub readers
• Publishers and aggregators
• Reference books and websites
• Software for testing and working with ePub files
• InDesign scripts and plug-ins
• Useful code snippets

What Does Highlighted Text in InDesign Mean?

If you've ever opened an InDesign document and seen text highlighted in pink, yellow or green, here's what those colors mean:

Pink highlight = font or glyph is missing or wrong
Yellow highlight = H&J Violations or other violations
Green highlight = manually applied kerning or tracking

To turn off all highlights, uncheck all Highlight options in the Preferences panel > Composition. Or if possible, fix the original problem, especially in the case of missing font.

More on this from InDesign Secrets

PDF Export and Background Tasks in InDesign CS5

For those of you using InDesign CS5, you may have noticed something happened to the pdf export. There's no longer a status bar/dialog box. Exporting a pdf now happens invisibly as a background task, allowing you to continue to work on your document (which seems completely illogical to me).

People either seem to really like it or really dislike it. I'm in the dislike camp on this one. So if you also find it frustrating to not know when your pdf is done and you can close the file, there is a solution! Here are two places to watch the status of background tasks:

The first place is the minuscule vertical Background Tasks indicator bar that appears in the Application bar. It's below and to the right of the word "Type" in the following screenshot. It appears and moves only when a background task is active — it disappears when that background task is complete.


The second place is the Background Tasks panel. Turn it on by choosing Window > Utilities > Background Tasks. Now you will be able to see what percentage of the pdf export is complete.


Note: The one upside I've noticed about background task pdf export is that you can have multiple pdf exports happening at once. Sometimes I need to provide a spreads layout pdf and single page layout pdf, which I can now do one right after the other, with the pdf processing happening simultaneously.

Paste It in InDesign

Copying and pasting bits of text is even more efficient when you take advantage of all the Paste options InDesign has to offer. Most of the time, when I'm pasting in text, the box or the text area I'm pasting into already has a style applied. I want to make sure the text I'm copying takes on the new style, leaving any previous formatting behind. The following options help keep that formatting in place while pasting text.

When pasting into InDesign from outside of InDesign (email, web, MS Word, etc), make sure your preferences are set up correctly to strip away any extraneous formatting. Under Preferences > Clipboard Handling, check "Text Only" in the "When Pasting Text from Other Applications" box.


When pasting within InDesign, from one text box to another, use Edit > Paste without Formatting (Shift-Cmd-V).

Easy Navigation between Master Pages

Quick tip: To easily navigate between master pages in Indesign, just hit the page up or page down keys. Even though the master pages don't appear connected, they are! (On a regular page when you zoom out you see the previous and next pages—it's not like that in master pages.)

Keyboard Shortcut Solution for [None] Character Style

It's been a pet peeve of mine that I can't apply a custom keyboard shortcut for the character style [None] to remove all character formatting from the text in InDesign.

I finally googled it and there is a work-around, creating your own character style of "none" and assigning a keyboard shortcut to that. Here are the instructions at InDesignSecrets.com.

7 Powerful Free Plugins for InDesign

I was searching for the auto-expanding text plugin for InDesign and found this awesome list of free Indesign plugins from Lynda.com. Here are my favorites:

1. Autofit Allows you to have dynamic auto expanding (and shrinking) text boxes and set size relationships between text boxes.


2. ImageLibraryLoader See a floating library-palette filled with images that are automatically retrieved from one or more folders.


3. Keyboard Shortcuts Easily search, edit and assign keyboard shortcuts.


4. LikeFindsLike Ever wish InDesign had a Select Similar option just like Illustrator? This is it.


5. MultiDo Perform multiple undo or redo operations in one step.


6. PatternMaker Create patterns directly in InDesign.


7. TextExporter Better text exporting to rtf, txt and InDesign tagged text.

Extracting the Original Photos from a Word Document

This is my favorite "use-immediately" tip from the InDesign conference I attended last week in DC. I literally needed to use this technique the first day I was back at work. The InDesign conference was awesome - I'll be sharing my favorite tips from the conference in the weeks to come.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who receives Microsoft Word or PowerPoint documents from clients with photos I need embedded in those documents. In the past, I've tried to copy and paste them into Photoshop which only yields a low res copy. Then I have to go back and ask the client to track down the original jpg or tif files which takes a while. Sometimes the originals are lost and I'm out of luck.

Now I finally know how to properly extract those original photos thanks to Anne-Marie Concepcion of Seneca Design and InDesign Secrets. Of course, garbage in, garbage out - if the client inserted a low res photo all you're going to extract is that original low res photo but at least it's something!

1. Open up your Microsoft document. If it's a Word doc, you're ready for the next step. If it's a Powerpoint file, open a blank Word document. Copy all of the photos from Powerpoint into that new blank Word doc and save the Word doc.


2. Open a new InDesign document. Choose File > Place (Cmd + D), select the Word document, make sure the "Show Import Options" check box is selected and click Open. In the Show Import Options dialog box, check "Import Inline Graphics". Click OK and place the file.


3. Go to your Links panel and select all of the placed photos. Click on the Links panel's flyout menu and choose Unembed Link. In the dialog box that comes up, click No. You will be prompted to select a folder to place the embedded photos. Decide where you want the photos and click Choose. The original photos will be extracted to that file location.

Type Around a Sphere and Other Type on a Path Tips

I don't know how long it has existed but I only discovered the Type on a Path dialog box recently. That's the Adobe suite for you - there are always a couple different ways to create the same effect and the easiest, most efficient way is sometimes hard to find. At least I know about it now. These tips work in both Illustrator & InDesign.

Arcing Text around a Circle

I used to create this effect with two circles of different sizes and visually and manually align them so they looked even. This way is much easier:

1. Open a new document and draw circle (hold down Shift while drawing to keep it proportional).


2. Select the Type on a Path tool and click on the circle. Type in your text and center it. With the hollow point arrow tool, move the text center line to the outside top of the circle.


3. With the text still highlighted, double-click on the Type on a Path tool in the toolbar to bring up the Type on a Path dialog box. Select Effect: Rainbow, Align to Path: Center and click OK.


4. Copy the text, Paste in Front and move the text to a new layer. Move this text's center point tot the bottom center.

Wrapping Text Around a Sphere

1. Open a new document and place your world graphic or other round object. Draw a long oval as shown.


2. Select the Type on a Path tool and click on the oval. Type in your text and center it. With the hollow point arrow tool, move the text center line to the inside bottom of the oval.


3. With the text still highlighted, double-click on the Type on a Path tool in the toolbar to bring up the Type on a Path dialog box. Select Effect: Skew, Align to Path: Center and click OK.

Creating Running Heads with Text Variables

This "how to" is very handy for books and other long documents. I was delighted once I learned how to use text variables to automatically generate running heads and maybe you will be too. So much time saved. So many master pages eliminated. No more worrying if I remembered to change the running heads when the chapter title was revised. I'm sure I've only just touched the surface of text variable capabilities and I'm looking forward to exploring more. Here's how to use text variable to create running heads:

1. Open your book or long document in InDesign.


2. In my example, I have a paragraph style called "chapter number" applied to the chapter number and a paragraph style called "chapter title" applied to the chapter title. Make sure your document has a paragraph style(s) applied to the text you want to use to generate the running head.


3. Select Type > Text Variables > Define. You can either modify the available options or click the "New" button. In this example, I clicked New.


4. To create the chapter number text variable: I named my text variable "Chapter Numbers" and chose Type: Running Header (Paragraph Style), Style: the paragraph style named chapter number, Use: First on Page. I inserted a colon and and space in the Text After field. Click OK. Click Done.


5. To create the chapter title text variable: I named my text variable "Chapter Title" and chose Type: Running Header (Paragraph Style), Style: the paragraph style named chapter title, Use: First on Page. Click OK. Click Done.


6. Go to your master pages and create a new text box for your running heads. Select Type > Text Variables > Insert Variable and choose Chapter Numbers. Select Type > Text Variables > Insert Variable and choose Chapter Title. Apply paragraph and character styles to format your text as desired. Make sure the width of the text box is large enough to fit your longest chapter title.

Creating an Interactive Table of Contents

Here are two ways to create an interactive table of contents in InDesign. By interactive, I mean that by clicking on Chapter 1 or page 11, the pdf document jumps to the beginning of Chapter 1 on page 11.

The easy way
If your document is straight-forward and you are able to auto-generate a table of contents, great! This is the easiest way to create an interactive table of contents, by letting InDesign do it for you:

1. Once you've complete the layout and style application for your document or book in InDesign, you're ready to automatically generate a table of contents. You will need to have a paragraph style applied to the chapter titles. This style will be used create the table of contents.


2. Click on Layout > Table of Contents to bring up the Table of Contents dialog box.


3. Add the chapter titles paragraph styles to the left box. Select an entry style for your table of contents (you can create it later if necessary and re-generate the table of contents).


4. Still in the Table of Contents dialog box, under Options, make sure the Create PDF Bookmarks box is checked. Click OK.


5. When exporting a pdf, under the General tab, be sure you check the boxes for Bookmarks, Hyperlinks and Interactive Elements.

The manual way
If for some reason you can't auto generate a table of contents or want to add a "go to page" command to another piece of text unrelated to the table of contents, use these steps to make your text interactive. I'm using hyperlinks because I find them simpler and easier to use than bookmarks.

1. Open a document in InDesign.


2. With the text tool select your point of origin text (the text you'd like a user to click to jump to another page). With this text selected, go to the Hyperlink panel fly-out menu and select New Hyperlink.


3. In the New Hyperlink Dialog box, under the Link To: drop down box, select Page.


4. Type in the page number you'd like to jump to, set the Appearance Type to Invisible Rectangle and click OK.


5. Repeat steps 2-4 as needed.


6. When exporting a pdf, under the General tab, be sure you check the boxes for Bookmarks, Hyperlinks and Interactive Elements.

Tips for Speedy and Efficient Graphic Design - Part 2

So you want to be a faster graphic designer? More tips for speed:

Clean Up Your Text Before You Start Designing
(InDesign)
It's such a pleasure (and it's more efficient) to design with clean text but let's face it: designers rarely receive perfectly ready and clean text. There's always some issue: the bullets don't convert properly, the hyperlinks cause issues, there's all sorts of invisible trash (extra spaces, paragraph marks, tabs, etc.). For those pesky hyperlinks from Microsoft Word: Select all of the text in Word and hit Cmd-6 which strips out all of the hyperlinks (and hyperlink formatting!). In InDesign, use Find & Replace to get rid of the invisible extras: double spaces, extra paragraph marks, tabs and other document trash before you start designing. It will be that much easier to hit the ground running with your design.

Master Selecting Objects and Selecting Tools
(InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator)
Do you know the quickest way to switch from inside a text box to the Selection tool in InDesign? (Hint: hit Escape.) Can you draw and modify a shape in Illustrator without ever selecting a tool with the mouse? Learn the keyboard shortcuts to all of the tools and be able to select, move and modify an object using keyboard shortcuts whenever possible. Those little side trips to the menus and toolbar really add up over the course of a day.

Organize Your Files (Computer & Paper)
It doesn't matter if your desk looks perfect or if it looks like a cyclone hit it. The true measure of organization is function: if you can find a document or file you need in 10 seconds or less, you're doing great. If you can't find your files that fast, you might need a better system. My main organization inspiration comes from Julie Morgenstern's books and Zen Habits. I analyzed my own workflow and tested out different methods until I found the one that worked best for me.

Think Like a Race Car Driver
Race car drivers drive safely at dangerously high speeds (at least most of the time). How do they do it? Training, practice, focus. The same principles apply to designing faster:

1. Training. Know your design programs backwards and forwards. The more familiar you are with the programs, the less time you spend figuring out how to do something. You just do it.


2. Practice. Practice, practice and more practice. The more you do something, the better you get at it (at least usually). Also remember to practice skills that don't get used daily in your job. For example, if you rarely work in Illustrator, do something for yourself for fun in Illustrator to keep you skills from getting rusty.


3. Focus. The research is becoming clearer and clearer: multi-tasking doesn't make you more efficient, it does exactly the opposite. Intense focus for periods of time, focusing only on a single task and ignoring distractions like email and phone calls, is a more efficient and productive way of getting things done. It's also more pleasant! So do whatever you can to help you find that single focus.

Tips for Speedy and Efficient Graphic Design - Part 1

Speedy design is a bit of an oxymoron. It's important to be able to design quickly and efficiently but you also need enough space and leisure to be able to explore and generate quality ideas. Here are some tips for speedy and efficient graphic design when you already have that quality idea:

Keyboard Shortcuts
(Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator)
"The first thing I do when I walk in is pick up the mouse and turn it upside down." I heard these words from a design efficiency expert years ago at a design conference and they've stuck with me deeply ever since. The message: the mouse is the slowest tool in your repertoire. If you want to be fast, you have learn (and use!) keyboard shortcuts. If a common command you use doesn't have a keyboard shortcut, assign your own custom keyboard shortcut. Make it a game to avoid the menus. Here are keyboard shortcut guides for Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator.

Templates
(Photoshop, InDesign)
Take the time to create templates (or download templates) for whatever you create a lot of and/or have as a recurring projects. Create the templates in the programs you commonly work in. For example, if you often use Photoshop and InDesign on brochure projects, create brochure tri-fold.psd and brochure tri-fold.indt. Make your template file the right size, adjust margins, add guides and bleeds, add basic text styles, etc. I recommend locking your template files (make them read only) and your templates folder so you won't accidently overwrite your original template files.

Actions
(Photoshop)
Actions are awesome. I don't know how I could be a designer without Photoshop actions, especially batch processing (File > Automate > Batch) using actions. I use actions for everyday operations like converting to 300 ppi CMYK and saving as tif or converting to grayscale. Whatever I find myself doing often, I create an action. I also use actions for project specific tasks like applying a special sepia photo effect or adding photo edges. For even more speed, I assign keyboard shortcuts to my most commonly used actions.

Paragraph and Character Styles
(InDesign)
Paragraph and character styles are powerful, flexible, easy to apply and vitally necessary for most InDesign projects. For ease of use, create folders for your styles and organize them by hierarchy (ie. organize them in the order that you apply them in the text: headers first, then subheads, text, bulleted lists, numbered list and the rest). For greater speed, I apply keyboard shortcuts to my styles so header might be Cmd + 1 and subhead Cmd + 2.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Creating One or More Rounded Corners

Want to create only one or two rounded corners in InDesign? Here's the trick: Download the free Adobe javascript plugin from here and follow these detailed instruction from InDesign Secrets. In short:

1. Download the free InDesign script called CornerEffects.js. (You'll need to sign in with your Adobe ID.)
2. Load the script into InDesign.
3. Open InDesign document and draw a rectangle (or other shape) or select a photo.
4. With the shape or photo selected, double-click the CornerEffects script. A dialog box pops up and you can choose which corners you'd like to round.

Note: Since this script manually creates the points for the rounded corner shape, the final corner effect not flexible/editable like InDesign's built-in rounded corner effect. Therefore, I would highly recommend you make a copy of your original photos onto a separate layer before applying the rounded corner script.

Update: InDesign CS5 now has the "round any corner independently" option built right in!

CS4's Rotate View Feature

Right up there with my other favorite Photoshop and InDesign features is the new CS4 Rotate View feature. Rotate View is an invaluable tool that allows non-destructive rotation of an InDesign spread or an image in Photoshop. It's great for CD/DVD digipak designs, complicated multi-fold brochures, really anything that needs to be rotated temporarily.

Photoshop
Photoshop's Rotate View feature allows free rotation to any angle. This is especially convenient for visually straightening crooked photos before cropping. To use the Rotate View feature:

1. Open an image in Photoshop and select the Rotate View tool (it's the hand with the rotate motion).
   
2. To freely rotate the image, click on your image and drag the image in the direction you'd like to rotate it. A compass appears and shows both true north and the current rotation.
   
3. To rotate your image an exact amount, enter the amount in the Rotation Angle box.
   
4. To clear the rotation, click the Reset View button.
   

InDesign
InDesign's Rotate View feature is limited to 90° CW, 90° CCW and 180° rotations. To use the Rotate View feature:

1. Open a document in InDesign and select View > Rotate View and choose 180° or one of the other angles. In the Pages panel, the rotated page or spread will display a little symbol next to it, confirming that spread is rotated.
   
2. To remove the rotation, select View > Rotate View > Clear Rotation. The Rotate View command is also available on the fly out menu on the Pages panel.

Another huge CS4 improvement is Photoshop's sharp preview at any zoom size. It's not always as perfectly sharp as advertised, but it's so much better than before and another of my favorite CS4 features.

Getting to the Real Adobe Help Files

When I go to for help in InDesign, I want to search the official Adobe InDesign help document to find my answers. It's not so simple anymore.

The default InDesign help search takes you to Adobe's website where your search gets clogged with extra (and often irrelevant) results from community and other Adobe site sections. So here's how to get to the REAL help files. Once you set this, you'll never have to worry about it again.

1. Click on the each of the following links to open the original help document search pages for CS4: Photoshop, InDesign, Illustator
2. Up top near the search box, check the box marked "This Help system only" and at the bottom check the radial button "Help on the Web (product Help system only)." This will set your Help preferences for all future searches.

Setting Your Own New Document Default Presets

If you're like me and you find yourself annoyed with your new document in InDesign because you have to turn off facing pages, remove the extra master page and setup the bleed amount, be annoyed no more. Here's how to make your new document always appear just the way you'd like it:

1. Open InDesign but don't open a new document.
2. Click File > Document Presets > Default.
3. In the dialog box that comes up, adjust the document setting as you like. Click OK. All new documents will now use those settings you've specified.

You can also use the Define option (File > Document Presets > Define) to create multiple new document settings for different types of documents.