Category: Print Publishing/Desktop Publishing

One of the biggest problems with working in a team environment is a lack of communication between the budget people, the designers and the print publishers. Any miscommunication during the production phase can manifest itself negatively by throwing your budget out of whack. For instance, let’s assume your printing budget is very tight. Every dollar counts. You can afford to print 5,000 copies of a four-page newsletter. And you can afford to use a few spot colors. As the art director for the newsletter, you type up the strict specifications and send the instructions, along with the assets needed to create the newsletter to your QuarkXPress expert.

The newsletter is completed and sent to the printer. All is right with the world. Until–you get the bill from the printer. The newsletter was six pages instead of four. And the layout "accidentally" used process colors instead of spot colors. As a result, your bill is significantly higher than you budgeted. Ooops!

Say hello to Job Jackets! You can create a Job Jacket that controls the specifications of a layout at the time it is created. And you can create rules in the Job Jacket that will evaluate the layout before it is sent to the printer and flag anything that doesn’t follow your specifications.

Create a New Job Jacket

1. Display the Job Jackets Manager by choosing Utilities > Job Jackets Manager
   
   Any Job Jackets previously created would be listed in the Job Jackets Manager. There are two modes: Basic and Advanced. By default, the Job Jackets Manager appears in Basic Mode.



2. Click the New Job Jacket button



The New Job Jacket dialog box appears.



3. Give the Job Jacket a name and destination
4. Click OK

Create a Layout Specification

1. Click the Advanced Settings button (in the lower left of the dialog box)

   The Job Jackets Manager splits into three panes.

2. From the Resources area, scroll down and select Layout Specifications

   
   

3. From just above the Layout Specifications area, click the New Item button

   

   An item named Layout Specifications appears.

4. Click Save

Set Resource Specifications

1. Display the Job Jackets Manager (choose Utilities > Job Jackets Manager)
2. Select your Job Jacket from the Job Jacket list at the left
3. Select Layout Specifications from the list of Resources

   The Layout Specification item you created earlier appears in the panel below.

4. Click the plus sign (or Triangle) to the left of Layout Specification

   Typical job specifications such as Page Count, Page Width and Page Height appear in a list.

5. Click the word Any to the right of Page Count and
   type 4
6. Click the word Any to the right of Top Margin and
   type 12p
   
   

   Any layouts based on this Job Jacket will now automatically contain 4 pages. Each page will also have a top margin of 12 picas (2 inches)

7. Click Save

Stay tuned! Next week you will learn how to create a Ticket based on a Job Jacket.

Want to learn more about QuarkXPress 7? Click here.

During the lessons that follow, you will learn how to create and use Table and Cell styles in Adobe InDesign CS3 that will allow you to quickly apply formats from one Adobe InDesign CS3 table to another.

Create a Table Style

1. First, create and format a table to suit your tastes
2. Using the Type Tool, select all of the rows in the table
3. Choose Window > Type and Tables > Table Styles to display the Table Styles panel
4. With the entire table still selected, choose New Table Style from the flyout menu on the Table Styles panel

   

5. Give the style a name.

   Because you selected formatted table rows before creating the new Table Style, you will see that the information in the Style Settings area reflects your selection.

6. Click OK

   The Table Styles panel should now have one new Table Style. The style is not yet being used.

   

7. With the table rows still selected, click your new table style from the Table Styles panel to apply your new table style to the table on your page

Create a Cell Style

1. Using the Type Tool, click in a cell containing formatting you would like to use over and over
2. Choose Window > Type and Tables > Cell Styles to display the Cell Styles panel
3. With your insertion point still in the row, choose New Cell Style from the flyout menu on the Cell Styles panel
4. Give the new style a name

   Once again, because you selected a formatted table cell before creating the Cell Style, the information in the Style Settings area reflects your selection.



5. Click OK
6. Using the Type Tool, click in any table cell and select your new style from the Cell Styles panel

   The cell should instantly pick up the attributes contained in the cell style. In particular, the cell color should be dark green like the first row in the table.

   Note: If there is a plus sign to the right of the style name, you need to remove the style overrides (an override occurs when you are not using 100% of the formatting contained within a style). You can clear the overrides by selecting Clear Overrides from the Cell Styles panel flyout menu.

To learn more about the new features in InDesign CS3, click here.

Our "Essentials of Adobe InDesign CS3" book is nearing completion. Order your pre-published copy of the book now and save 30%. Click here for details.

Click here to sample some of our 100% interactive simulations, including lessons on InDesign CS2.

You’ll find dozens of uses for InDesign’s Find/Change command (found in the Edit menu). By way of illustration, suppose you type (or Place) an article about dogs. Each occurrence of the word "dog"-and there could be thousands of occurrences-is bold. You decide to change the focus of the article to cats. You can use Find/Change to locate all occurrences of the word "dog" that are bold and replace them with the word "cat" set in italics.

You can also use Find/Change to search for nonprinting symbols (Hidden Characters) such as hard returns, tabs and multiple spacebar spaces. In your placed text file, the text was typed with two hard returns after every paragraph and two spaces at the end of each sentence. Typing two hard returns after every paragraph is not the correct way to control the amount of white space between block-style paragraphs. You control spacing by specifying a Space After amount in the Paragraph panel. Typing two spaces at the end of a sentence is correct on a typewriter, but incorrect for typesetting on a computer. On a computer, there should be only one space after a sentence.

Because you’ll find yourself finding and changing the same problems over and over, you will appreciate the fact that you can now save your Find/Change searches for future use in any InDesign document.

Use the Find/Change to Remove Extra Paragraph Breaks

Here’s how I used InDesign’s Find/Change command to remove several extra end of paragraph marks in a document.

1. First I selected Edit > Find/Change to display the Find/Change dialog box
2. On the Text tab, I clicked the Special characters for search button (the arrow to the right of the Find What area)
3. I selected End of Paragraph

   The special character ^p appeared in the field.



4. I typed another ^p into the Find what area
5. Then I typed ^p into the Change to area

   My Find what and Change to areas looked like the picture below.



6. I clicked Change All
   
7. I was alerted that 14 replacements had been made

After fixing the problem in the document, it occurred to me that I’d run into this same problem the next time I imported text from the same author. I decided to save the Query I’d just run so that I could use it again down the road.

Save a Query

1. I displayed the Find/Change dialog box again and made sure the last find/change I’d run was still in the dialog box
2. I clicked the Save Query button

   The Save Query dialog box appeared.

3. I typed Replace 2 End of Para with 1 into the Name field and clicked OK

   

   Now that the Query has been saved, I can quickly run the Query in the future and take care of this problem in any other InDesign documents.

To learn more about the new features in InDesign CS3, click here.

Click here to sample some of our 100% interactive simulations, including lessons on InDesign CS2.

Adobe InDesign sports a nifty Quick Apply utility that will make quick work out of such mundane tasks as finding and applying styles, menu commands, scripts, and variables-almost anything that can be accessed with your keyboard.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to wade through a long list of styles before finding the one I needed. Now all I have to know is the name of the style or other InDesign feature I want to use and let the Quick Apply list do most of the work for me.

Here’s how Quick Apply Works

Let’s say you want to create a new InDesign document and you cannot remember the command is available via File > New Document. All you can remember is you want a file.

1. Access the Quick Apply list by either clicking the Quick Apply button located at the upper right of the InDesign window or press [control] [enter]
2. Start typing the name of the command you would like to access. For instance, instead of choosing File > New > Document to display the New Document dialog box, you can type Fi to display File menu commands in the Quick Apply list
3. Press the down arrow key on your keyboard a few times to highlight File Menu:New > Document in the Quick Apply list
4. Press [enter] and Bam! The New Document dialog box appears.

Okay, maybe that’s too much work for you to display the New Document dialog box. Who am I to argue? But how about this?

Quick Apply a Style

Let’s say you have a style in your document called Headlines. Here’s how the Quick Apply button will help you get your work done faster, without having to remember the keyboard shortcut for applying the Headlines style (if there was a shortcut assigned to the style). Using this technique, you don’t even have to know where the Paragraph Styles panel is–you only have to know that the Headlines style exists in the document.

1. Using the Type Tool, click in a paragraph that you’d like to format with the Headlines style
2. Press  [control] [enter] to display the Quick Apply list
3. Type Hea for Headlines

   Hey look, the Headlines style is in the list

4. I’d press Enter and then, Bam, Bam! You’ve got style! Headlines, that is.

To learn more about the new features in InDesign CS3, click here.

Click here to sample some of our 100% interactive simulations, including lessons on InDesign CS2.

Our InDesign CS 3 workbook is under development. The book should be available in the next 4-6 weeks. In the meantime, here are the new features that get our "That’s Cool!" vote. (Of course there are many more features than those listed below, but these rock! We’ll have lessons to support these features in the new book.)

Multi-file Place

Now you can select and place multiple text and images at one time. Imagine a layout with 4 text frames and 4 image frames. Instead of having to use the Place command 8 times to add the individual assets to your document, you can select all 8 assets at one time and place them, rapid-fire, throughout the document.

Advanced Find/Change

You can now search for change properties of objects, even across multiple documents (that includes master pages, footnotes, and locked or hidden layers). And you can save your searches–perfect if you find yourself searching for the same things week in and week out.

Table and Cell Styles

InDesign already had text and object styles, allowing you to apply consistent formats and quickly change the appearance of text and objects throughout a document. Now you can create styles for both tables and table cells.

To learn more about the new features in InDesign CS 3, click here.

Click here to sample some of our 100% interactive InDesign simulations.

Everything you work with in QuarkXPress, be it a text box, picture box or line, is an item. Items can get in the way of other items. You may need duplicate items. You may need to align them. Learning how to control items is key to mastering QuarkXPress. You can duplicate any selected item via the Item menu. But if you duplicate, you have little control of where the duplicated item will appear, and only one duplicate item will appear at a time. If you need multiple items and you know where you want them, consider the Step and Repeat command.

With the Step and Repeat command (Item menu), you can create several duplicate copies of an item and control where the duplicates appear on the page. Using Super Step and Repeat, you can control such things as the size, shade and angle of each repeated item.

Use Standard Step and Repeat

1. Create a new project (File > New > Project)
2. Draw an item using any of the drawing tools (such as an oval or rectangle)
3. Modify the item (Item > Modify) and change the Width and Height to .5 inch (one-half inch)
4. Ensure the item you just drew is selected and choose Item > Step and Repeat
5. The Step and Repeat dialog box appears.

   The Horizontal Offset controls how far each successive item moves left or right (positive numbers will move each item right; negative numbers will move each item left). Similarly, the Vertical Offset controls item position north and south on the page (positive numbers will move items down the page; negative numbers will move items higher on the page–yes, higher).

   

6. Change the Repeat Count to 3
7. Change the Horizontal Offset to .25 inch
8. Change the Vertical Offset to .25 inch
9. Click OK

   You should have a total of 4 items moving diagonally down your page. They should each overlap by one-quarter inch.

Click here to sample some of our 100% interactive simulations, including lessons on QuarkXPress.

The largest page size you can define in InDesign is 18 feet (216 inches). That’s really nice-but how do you expect to print a page that big? If you are like most people, your printer is not capable of printing pages larger than legal or tabloid size.

To print a proof of a larger page, you can take advantage of two things: InDesign’s ability to tile your pages when you print and the zero point area of the page rulers that lies at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical rulers.

To print Tiles

1. Choose File > Print
   
2. Select the Setup tab

   You will see the Tile checkbox options at the bottom of the dialog box. If you choose Auto tiling, InDesign will print your large document as tiles (pages) with an overlap and print as many tiles as necessary until the entire document has printed.

   If you choose Manual tiling, InDesign will print only one page. The part of the document that prints depends on where the zero point is set.

   

3. Click Cancel.

The Zero Point

You can control the zero point by dragging the zero point to the part of the page you want to print. When you print with Manual tiling, the single sheet of paper that prints will contain anything below and to the right of the zero point.

Spend a minute or two dragging the Zero Point (shown circled in the picture above) to different positions on the page to change the zero point.

Double-click the intersection of the horizontal and vertical rulers to return the zero point marker to its default location (top-left corner of the page).

Want to learn more about InDesign? Click here.

There are plenty of people who know InDesign well, but are at a loss to explain the roll of a Master Text Frame. Read on and that won’t be your problem…

When you create a new InDesign document, you are given an opportunity to create a Master Text Frame in the New Document dialog box. When you select Master Text Frame, InDesign automatically draws a text frame on your page. As you add more pages to the document, every page will have an identical text frame because the text frame is actually on the master page.

Use a Master Text Frame when you want every text frame on every page to contain a color. It is easier to go to the master page and change the color of the Master Text Frame–which would change the color of the text frame on every page of your document. Without the benefit of a Master Text Frame, you would have to go to every document page and change the color of the text frames one at a time.

Create a document with a Master Text Frame

1. Using InDesign, create a new document (select any options you like, however, ensure Master Text Frame and Facing Pages are selected)
2. Click OK

A Master Text Frame is invisible by default. You cannot type directly into it while you are on a document page without first selecting it. You can select the master page’s text frame by [command] [shift]-clicking on the page. Then select the Type Tool, click inside the selected text frame and begin typing.

Place text into the text frame

1. Press [command] [d]
2. Open any text file on your computer
3. Move the mouse over the page

The Master Text Frame is invisible, but it is on the page. The loaded text cursor, when moved over a frame, looks like a parenthetical shape. This is a visual indicator that you can flow text into the existing Master Text Frame.

4. Press [shift] on your keyboard
5. Click anywhere within the page margins
6. Release [shift]

The text flows onto the page and, if there’s enough text, the text flows onto more pages. The text has also flowed into Master Text Frames that are being controlled by the Master Text Frames on the master page. You will see how this can pay off next.

Modify a Master Text Frame

1. Show the Pages palette (Window menu)
2. On the Pages palette, double-click the words A-Master

You are now looking at the document’s master page. Because you selected Facing Pages when you created the new document, there are two sides to the master page, left and right.

3. Using the Selection tool, click one time in the middle of the left master page (not the thumbnail on the Pages palette, but the actual page)

The left Master Text Frame should now be selected.

4. Show the Swatches palette (Window menu)
5. On the Swatches palette, ensure the Fill box is selected
6. Click Yellow on the Swatches palette

The fill color of the Master Text Frame changes to yellow.

7. Change the fill color of the right Master Text Frame to Cyan (C=100, M=0, Y=0, K=0)
8. Leave the master page by double-clicking the thumbnail for page 2 on the Pages palette
9. Scroll through the document. Notice that the text frames on the pages alternate from cyan to yellow

Want to learn more about InDesign? Click here.

Unless you have protected your PDFs against changes, anyone with Adobe Acrobat can open your PDF and either make changes or copy your valuable content.

To prevent users from making changes to the PDF, you can save the PDF with an appropriate level of file security.

Before learning how to turn on Acrobat’s security features, perhaps you’d like to learn how to make an editorial change to a PDF using Acrobat? Good, read on.

1. Start Adobe Acrobat 7 and then open a PDF
2. Choose Tools > Advanced Editing > Touchup Text Tool

   The Advanced Editing tools are used to make changes to the PDF file such as creating buttons and form fields, inserting movie clips, and making minor corrections to the text.

3. Using the Touchup Text Tool, select any word in the PDF and replace it with another word
4. Select the Hand Tool on the Basic toolbar and click in the document

   The word you selected has been replaced.

Set Adobe Acrobat File Security

1. Choose File > Document properties
2. Select the Security tab

   

3. Choose Password Security from the Security Method drop-down list
4. Select Restrict printing and editing of the document and its security settings from the Permissions area
5. Type a password into the Permissions Password field
6. Select High Resolution from the Printing Allowed list
7. For Changes Allowed, select Commenting, filling in form fields, and signing existing signature fields
8. Click OK
9. Click OK to the message about third-party software
10. Retype the password when prompted and click OK
11. Click OK to the message about when the changes will go into effect
12. Click OK to close the Document Properties Security dialog box

    The PDF with the new security settings is open in Acrobat. The new settings will not take effect until the PDF is saved and closed.

13. Save and close the PDF
14. Reopen the PDF (you can select the file from the recently used list in the File menu)
15. Test file security of the PDF for review by choosing Tools > Advanced Editing. Try to select the TouchUp Text Tool

    While you can select the tool, you will be unable to use it to make any changes to the PDF.

Want to learn more about editing with MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7? Click here.

1. Open an existing layout or create a new one and save it as you normally would (this file will be referred to as the parent file as you move through the following steps).
2. Using either the Item or Content tool, select a text or picture box
3. Choose Item > Composition Zone > Create
   
   The words Layout 2 will appear on the item you selected. You have essentially split the layout into two: the main layout and the Composition Zone.

   Since the item is now a Composition Zone, you can’t edit the contents of the item directly on the page as you normally would. Instead, you will edit the Composition Zone in its own window.

   Next you will learn to edit the contents of a Composition Zone.

Internally Edit a Composition Zone

1. Select the item you used to create the Composition Zone and choose Item > Composition Zones > Edit

   The Composition Zone appears in its own window.

2. Make a change to the content.
3. Save your work and close the file.

Share a Composition Zone

1. Using either the Content or Item tool, click one time within the Composition Zone
2. Choose Item > Share

   The Shared Item Properties dialog box appears.

3. Change the Name as you see fit
4. Change the Availability to All Projects
5. Click Make External
6. Change the File name as you see fit (this file will be known as the child file)
7. Click Save and then click OK

Externally Edit a Composition Zone

1. Choose File > Open > Open
   and open the file from Step 6 above (the child file).

   The Composition Zone opens in its own layout, just like it did when you internally edited the zone. The difference now? The zone is open completely independent of the parent layout. If you had saved the zone to a network drive, anyone with access to the drive and QuarkXPress 7 could open and edit the zone.

2. Make changes to the Composition Zone
3. Save your work
4. Close the layout (File > Close)

   Next you will manually update the parent layout.

Update a Composition Zone

1. Open the parent file you created at the beginning of this lesson.

   Notice that the changes you made to the child file have not yet been updated in the parent file.

2. Choose Utilities > Usage

   The Usage dialog box appears.

3. Select Composition Zones from the list at the left

   Notice that the Status column indicates that the Composition Zone has been modified.

4. Click one time on the words Layout 2 to select the Composition Zone
5. Click Update

   Now the Composition Zone Status reads OK.

6. Click Done

   Notice that the Composition Zone in the parent layout has been updated.

You have just learned how to set up and share a Collaboration Zone so that team members can work on specific areas of your layout over a network. Then you learned to manually Update the shared portion of the layout so you received the updated region. Got it? Or are Composition Zones as clear as mud? Click here for an interactive demonstration that should clear things up for you.