Category: Print Publishing/Desktop Publishing

by Barbara Binder

In my 20+ years of laying out publications, I’ve learned a series of lessons:

Lesson One: People preparing documents for me to place into a page layout program add some very wacky things to their files. Besides being unable to resist formatting their word processing files (even though they hired me to format their files for them), they also add all sorts of double spaces, triple spaces, tab space space tab sequences, tabs in the middle of paragraphs, hard returns in usual places, and on and on. 

Lesson Two: Whatever strange thing someone is putting in their files, they tend to do it consistently.

Lesson Three: Nobody listens when I explain how I want the files to be prepared. Or people pretend to listen, and then do their own thing anyway.

So what’s a girl to do? Accept the files the way they are submitted, and then run a series of Find/Change sequences on them to clean them up and get them ready for my formatting. This works in just about any page layout program, from FrameMaker to QuarkXPress to InDesign. However, InDesign CS3 has added some particularly clever features to the Find and Change dialog box that really save some time.

Here are three of my favorites:

1. Multiple Space to Single Space. In lieu of running a series of searches to weed out all extra spaces, I can now just pick this one preset. The Find What line looks very scary, so just don’t look too closely. Basically, that string of characters is searching for multiple spaces of any kind (spacebar spaces, tabs, non-breaking spaces, etc.). Run the search and poof! All extra spaces are gone.



2. Multiple Return to Single Return. Another preset, this one pulls out all the extra hard returns.



3. Remove Trailing Whitespace. Trailing whitespace refers to one or more spaces at the end of a paragraph, between the final punctuation and the hard return. Most of the time these spaces don’t cause any problems, but sometimes they don’t fit on the same line as the punctuation and they force a new line or even a new page. For long documents, this can be a real nightmare.

Here’s my workflow: place all the files into my InDesign layout. Open the Find/Change dialog box from the Edit menu. Select each of these three queries in succession from the Query menu at the top of the dialog box, while setting the Search parameter to Document, so that you can clean up all the files at one time. Change All.

Next week: More on Find/Change to streamline your workflow.

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and was recently recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide for 2007. Barb will be your trainer for our virtual Adobe FrameMaker 8 and InDesign CS3 classes.

Which of These Powerhouse Print Publishing Applications is Right for You?

by Barbara Binder

You’ve been producing publications in Word for years, but are finding that your files are just getting too complicated and difficult to handle. You are ready to make the move to a professional page layout program and turn to Adobe Systems, the world leader in publications software. Adobe offers two programs specifically for publishing multi-page documentation: FrameMaker 8 and InDesign CS3. Which one do you choose?

The two programs share a number of features. For instance:

• Both allow you to design the page structure with master pages, including the ability to pull live data off the page to display chapter and section headings for quick reference
• Both programs support paragraph styles and character styles to make quick work of text formatting. If tables are prevalent in your publications, you’ll be glad to know that both programs offer table styles to quickly and uniformly lay out your tables.

So how do you determine which program to purchase and use for your work?

InDesign excels at:

• Shorter, multi-story publications such as brochures, flyers, newsletters and magazines
• InDesign is chock-full of high-end typography controls such as automatic ligatures, tracking, kerning, glyphs, baseline shift, hanging punctuation, drop-caps, and more
• FrameMaker can produce multi-story pubs like InDesign, but creating this kind of document is it is very cumbersome in FrameMaker

FrameMaker excels at:

• Laying out long, multi-chapter publications
• With the strong and flexible numbering options, you can make quick work of table, figure and section numbering
• You can add cross-references, equations, conditional text (for multi-version documents), all sorts of hypertext links, and user variables (for ever-changing product names and numbers).

Adobe states that InDesign has "robust" long document support. It does have some of the features mentioned above, but in my opinion, it InDesign falls short for the really long, complex technical documents.

If you are a technical writer, working on product documentation, I’d steer you towards FrameMaker. For the rest of you, the wide and varied features of InDesign will probably be a better fit. Or do what I do, buy both and then you can chose the best fit for each individual job!

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and was recently recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide for 2007. Barb will be your trainer for our virtual Adobe FrameMaker 8 and InDesign CS3 classes.

by Barbara Binder

Problem: You import a series of data tables into FrameMaker and they are a big mess, extending off the right side of the paper’s edge. Can we make quick work of the cleanup? Sure!

Solution: Use the Resize Columns dialog box wisely.

1. Begin by selecting all of the table’s cells, even those you can’t see, with Edit > Select All of Table
2. Apply the CellBody paragraph format (press F9, then tap the letter "c" until the CellBody format appears in the lower left corner of the status bar, then press Enter)
3. Select the body cells of the first column, which is usually the widest column in a data table
4. Resize to the width of the selected cell’s content
5. Select all of the remaining body cells in the table
6. Resize the columns to equal widths by choosing Table > Resize Columns and selecting To Equal Widths Totaling



7. With the remaining body rows selected, just use the sizing handle to distribute the rows all the way across to the right margin



Voila!

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and was recently recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide for 2007. Barb will be your trainer for next month’s Adobe FrameMaker 8 virtual class.

When you create new QuarkXPress projects, you can elect to include an Automatic Text Box. You can then type as much text as you want into the text box, or you can import text via File > Import Text.

If there is more text than will fit inside an automatic text box, QuarkXPress will automatically add enough pages to accommodate the text). That’s great. But what happens if you’ve manually drawn a text box using one of the available text box tools and then add more text that will fit? Good question. Unlike automatic text boxes, the overflow text won’t have anywhere to go. When there is overflow text (also known as overset), an overflow marker will appear in the lower right of any text box containing overflow text.

If you ever come across a text box with an overflow alert, you essentially have four choices:

1. You can ignore the overflow and print your project (not a good idea since the overflow text could be a single character or many, many paragraphs)
2. Resize the text box until all of the overflow text appears and the red X disappears
3. Resize the text box until all of the overflow text appears and the red X disappears; then delete the text that was causing the overflow
4. Make the font size used by the story small enough for the overflow text to fit within the text box

Of course, none of the options above matter if you aren’t clued into the fact that one or more text boxes have overflow text. You wouldn’t be the first person to print a project with text boxes containing overflow text (it’s embarrassing but true).

Thankfully there’s a handy utility you can use to ensure that text box overflows don’t sneak up on you.

1. Choose Utilities > Line Check > Search Criteria

2. Remove the check mark from all of the available options except Text Box Overflow

3. Click the Count button

   

   This is one place where a score of 0 is a good thing. If you see anything greater than 0 to the right of Text Box Overflow, click OK and go on a seek and destroy mission. When you find a text box with an overflow alert, take any one of the actions mentioned above (except the first one).

4. Once the overflow marker(s) has been dealt with, run the Count again (Utilities > Line Check > Search Criteria) just to be safe.

Want to learn more about QuarkXPress? Click here.

Quickly Apply FrameMaker Paragraph and Character Formats

This tip comes from Barbara Binder, president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training, your trainer for next month’s Adobe FrameMaker 8 virtual class:

You can easily apply paragraph and character formats in FrameMaker by using the Paragraph and Character catalogs. However, using the catalogs can be very "mouse" intensive. And if the list of formats in your FrameMaker documents is extensive, you’ll find that it’s not practical to constantly scroll through the list of formats.

Instead, consider this time-saving keyboard shortcut:

• If you would like to apply a paragraph format called Zed to a paragraph, click in the paragraph and, on your keyboard, press [F9] to display the first format on the paragraph catalog in the lower left of your window
• Press the z key on your keyboard to select the Zed format
• Press ENTER on your keyboard to apply the Zed format to the paragraph

  Note: You could apply a character format called Zed using a similar technique… except instead of pressing [F9] to display the first format on the paragraph catalog, press [F8] to display the first format on the character catalog.

I’m a long-time FrameMaker user. While I teach and use all of the major print publishing applications (InDesign, QuarkXPress and, yes, even PageMaker), I use FrameMaker when I produce my "skills and drills" workbooks.

If you create long documents that contain complex numbering schemes, cross references, mixed orientation and lots of tables, I urge you to give FrameMaker a try. You can download a 30-day trial of the software by clicking here.

Here are the top new FrameMaker features according to Adobe:

Unicode support (New)

Edit and create content in multiple languages, and author content for global audiences with dictionary and hyphenation support for more languages

DITA support (New)

Use a prebuilt DITA application to author, publish, and distribute topic-oriented information in XML and create DITA maps

Rich media support (New)

Create more engaging online documentation by incorporating 3D models, rich Adobe® Flash® Player compatible animations, and simulations created with Adobe Captivate™ software. Generate Adobe PDF files with live 3D models. (Windows® only)

Text edit tracking and multiple undo (New)

Highlight, accept, and reject text changes and undo multiple changes with a single click using the History palette.

Conditional output (Enhanced)

Effortlessly single-source variations of the same document for different channels and purposes. Use conditional tags and build complex Boolean expressions for defining output filters in structured and unstructured mode, and easily distinguish multiconditional text through improved color coding.

Attribute-based output (New)

Use attribute values to control conditional output in structured mode.

Conversion tables

Migrate existing content to XML and structured content with minimal manual touch-up.

XML roundtripping (Enhanced)

Preserve comments, variables, and conditional text when importing and exporting structured content and migrating XML content. Now you can roundtrip web-based graphics in XML workflows.

XML Schemas (Enhanced)

Use XML Schemas as an alternative to DTDs for defining the structure of your content.

XSLT support

Incorporate XSLT scripts into your editing workflow. Automatically transform your XML content when you open it in FrameMaker, or save it out from FrameMaker with XSLT scripts.

Migration guide

An introductory migration guide outlines the basic steps required in migrating to XML and structured content.

Microsoft Office 2007 support (New)

Import content created in Microsoft Word 2007 and Excel 2007.

During the past few issues of this newseltter, you have learned how to create job jackets and rules. If you missed the past few issues, you can use the Newsletter Archive link at the left to read those artilces.

1. Create a new Project based on a Ticket by choosing File > New > Project from Ticket

   The New Project from Ticket dialog box appears. Here you can see the Job Jacket and Ticket you created during the previous articles in this module.

   

2. Select CreateOurNewsletter from the list of Tickets (you learned how to create this ticket a few weeks ago)
3. Click Select

   Your new project is created. There are a few interesting things to notice. First, if you show the Page Layout palette, you’ll see that the project already contains 4 pages. The top margin of every page is 12 picas (or two inches). And the page size is exactly what was specified in the Ticket, which is based on the Job Jacket.

4. Insert a few pages by choosing Page > Insert,
   typing 2 into the Insert field and clicking OK

   

   According to the Job Jacket and Ticket you used when you created the project, your page count was supposed to be 4. By adding the 2 additional pages, your page count is 6. While you did not create a Rule to check your page count and compare it to the ticket, when you have the layout evaluated, this problem will be flagged.

5. Select the Orthogonal Line Tool and draw a line anywhere on page 1
6. Select the new line and use the Measurements palette to modify the line (specifically, change the Width to 8 pt and apply a right-pointing arrowhead)

   

   You learned to create a rule last week that specifically prohibits lines with right arrowheads. But there you go, not following the rules. It was interesting to see that you were able to draw the forbidden line type. It will be even more interesting to see if you get away with it.

Evaluate the layout against the settings in the Ticket and Rules

1. Choose File > Job Jackets > Evaluate Layout

   The Layout Evaluation dialog box appears.

2. Click the Evaluate button

   According to the results, your layout failed two Rule Descriptions: Layout Specification and NewsletterRules. You can tell if you passed or failed by looking in the Cases column where green check marks agre good, red slashes are bad.

   At this point, you would need to bring the document under compliance (in this case, you would need to delete the two extra pages and that pesky right-hand arrow). Then you would evaluate the layout again. This time, you would hopefully see green check marks in the Cases column.

   

3. Click Done

You have learned about Job Jackets and Tickets during the past few issues of this newsletter (if you missed the articles, search my BLOG using the Newsletter Archive link at the left of this newsletter.

Next week you will learn how to create a project based on a Job Ticket. That’s going to be great. But what happens if a team-member starts a QuarkXPress project based on a ticket but then fails to follow several corporate specifications such as page count, page size, the use of color, etc? QuarkXPress provides the ability to Evaluate a Layout. The evaluation is based on Rules you create and attach to the ticket. If a team member does not follow the set of rules, the problems will be flagged when the project is evaluated. Very cool!

Each Rule you create can test one thing. For example, a Rule might state the lines drawn in the project cannot contain arrowheads. Or that a text box can never use background colors. The type of rules you can create goes on and on.

Here is the general process for creating Rules:

• Create Rules and add them to a Rule Set.
• Associate the Rule Set with a layout via a Ticket.
• Evaluate the layout to ensure the rules are followed.

Below are the steps I took recently when creating a Rule for a Job Jacket that would look for lines using arrowheads and flag them as a violation of our style guide. (I don’t really have anything against arrowheads… I used arrowheads for demonstration purposes only.)

Create a Rule

1. Display the Job Jackets Manager
2. Select a Job Jacket
3. Select Rules from the Resources list
4. Click the New Item button from the bottom panel

   The Edit Rule dialog box appears.

5. Change the Name (in this example, I changed the name to NoArrowheads)
6. Select Lines from the Subject list
7. Select Arrowhead from the Condition list



8. Click Next

   The Search for all Lines where screen appears. This is where I defined what I wanted QuarkXPress to look for.

9. Select Right Arrow from the list



10. Click Next

    The final screen allowed me to set the Rule’s Policy and the instructions team members will see should they not follow the rule.

11. Select Prohibited from the Policy list
12. In the Instructions field, type Sorry, but we do not like right arrows to be used in the newsletter. Please remove the arrowhead from all lines.




13. Click Finish

Next I wanted to create a Rule Set that used my new Rule.

Create a Rule Set

1. With the Job Jacket selected, select Rule Sets from the Resources list
2. Click New Item from the bottom panel

   The Edit Rule Set dialog box appeared.

3. Change the name to NewsletterRules
4. Select NoArrowheads from the Available column
5. Click the Include button



6. Click OK



7. Click Save

Add the Rule Set to a Ticket

1. Dispaly the Job Jackets Manager, select a Job Jacket (4 Page Newsletter in the picture below) and a Ticket (Create Our Newsletter in the picture below).
2. Select Layouts (1) from the Resources list
3. Click the plus sign (or triangle if you’re on a Mac) next to Layout 1 (in the Layouts panel)
4. Scroll down and select Rule Sets
   
5. Select NewsletterRules from the Rule Sets list



6. Click Save

Next week: It will all come together when you learn to create a project based of a Job Jacket, use a Ticket and then use the Rule you just created to Evaluate the project.

Want to learn more about QuarkXPress 7? Click here.

In the last episode of this newsletter, you learned how to create Job Jackets in QuarkXPress that controls the specifications of a layout at the time it is created.

So now what? From Job Jackets, come Job Tickets. Each Job Jacket can have multiple Job Tickets. And each Ticket can contain Resources that can be applied to a Quark project.
Here are some of the Resources you can include in a Ticket:

Project settings: Style sheets, colors, output styles and color management settings

Layout definitions: A Layout Specification (page size, orientation), Output Specifications, Rule Sets, Medium type (Print or Web), Color management settings, and Proofing specifications (Proof Output)

Create a Ticket from a Job Jacket

1. Display the Job Jackets Manager.
2. Select a Job Jacket from the Job Jacket list at the left
3. Click the New Ticket Template button



The new ticket appears with the default name, "Ticket."

4. Highlight the Ticket name (it may take 2 clicks to highlight the name)
5. Change the ticket name and press [return]

Set Ticket Resources

1. If necessary, click the Advanced Settings button (if the Basic Settings button is displayed, you are currently viewing the Advanced Settings)



2. Select Layouts from the Resources area of the ticket you created earlier
3. Click the New Item button on the last panel

   A new layout item is created with the default name.

4. Click the plus sign (or triangle) at the left of the item name to expand the item
5. Select Print from the Medium type list (at the right of Medium type)
6. Scroll down and select Layout Specification from the Layout Specification list (you learned how to create the Layout Specification last week when you were first introduced to Job Jackets in QuarkXPress)
7. Select a Layout from the Layouts area



8. Click Save

Next week: Creating Rules for Tickets

Want to learn more about QuarkXPress 7? Click here.