September 2009 Archives

Adobe has an agreement with Adobe Press and Peachpit Press that allows me to request excerpts from books to be published on the web. Once these excerpts are made available, I link to them from the related Help topics. If you can't find the information you need in the Help topic, you may be able to answer your question in these books.

In September 2009, several excerpts from the great InDesign CS4 Real World book were made available.

Here's an updated list:

New white paper can be viewed here. Here's the Introduction:

"As eReader devices like Amazon's Kindle increase in popularity, Adobe InDesign users are asking how to prepare their eBook documents for reading on the Kindle and selling on the Amazon.com Kindle Store. This paper describes how best to accomplish this task. Generally, InDesign users must first export an InDesign document into an EPUB file. Then they must convert it using open source software into the MOBI format to view on a Kindle reading device or to sell on the Amazon.com Kindle Store."

Click here to view the InDesign to Kindle white paper.

This is a long article that's only going to get longer as I find more and more text effects to add to the gallery -- and this is only a small sample of the many ways in which you can manipulate text in InDesign.

To skew the text like this, I selected characters on the left side of the word and applied a negative skew value, and then I selected characters on the right side of the word and applied a positive skew value. See Skew type in InDesign Help.

Here's another buried treasure from the Help files. By default, documents you create with facing pages include a single-page spread to begin the document, like this:

How do you start a document with a two-page spread, like this?

If you try to delete the first page, the other page numbers just move up, and page 2 replaces page 1. The Start a document with a two-page spread Help topic gives the answer:

Start a document with a two-page spread

Instead of beginning the document with a right-facing (recto) page, you can delete the first page and begin your document with a left-facing (verso) page that's part of a spread.

Important: Because of the settings that make it necessary to keep a left-facing page as the starting page, it can be difficult to insert spreads into a document when following this method. To avoid this difficulty, it is best to work in the document with a right-facing page starting page (which should be left blank). When you have inserted all of the pages needed in the document, delete the first page by following the steps below.
Make sure page 1 of the document is blank.

1. Choose File > Document Setup. Be sure the document contains at least three pages and that the Facing Pages option is selected. Click OK.

2 In the Pages panel, select all the pages except page 1. (The easiest way to do this is to select page 2 and then Shift-select the last page of the document.)

3. In the Pages panel menu, deselect Allow Selected Spread To Shuffle.
Select page 1. In the Pages panel menu, choose Delete Spread.

TIP: To add a spread to a document that starts on a left-facing page, first make sure Allow Selected Spread To Shuffle is deselected and Allow Document Pages To Shuffle is selected. Then, insert three pages, and delete the extra page.

It's show and tell time. I'll show you pictures of tabs and indents, and I'll tell you how to create the effect. Or, at least I'll point you to the Help topic that tells you how to do it.

When you press the Tab key, the insertion point moves to the next tab setting. If you haven't manually entered any tab settings, default tab settings appear every 3p. These tab settings don't appear on the Tabs ruler.

1. Choose Type > Tabs to display the Tabs ruler (also called the Tabs dialog box).
2. Click above the ruler where you want the tab setting to appear.
3. On the left side of the Tabs ruler, click to indicate which type of setting you want (Left, Center, Right, or Decimal).

See the Tabs and indents Help topic.

"How do I align the periods in a bulleted lists?" I've seen a variation of this question asked repeatedly in user forums. Here's an example of one such forum thread.

See how the periods don't line up after the numbers? The simple answer is to use right alignment and increase the First Line Indent value by increments until the numbering is aligned.

Here are the detailed steps:

1. Select the numbered paragraphs.

2. Alt/Option-click the Numbered List button in the Control panel.

3. In the Bullets & Numbering dialog box, select Preview.

4. Choose Right from the Alignment menu.

5. Increase the Left Indent value to create a buffer.

6. Increase the First Line Indent value gradually until the periods are aligned.

Of course, if your numbering goes past 100, you'll have to add even more space. This same method works when you're editing a paragraph style that uses numbering.

Are you going to MAX?

Join Adobe reps for snacks, drinks, and a sneak peek at the version of Community Help that will make its debut in InDesign CS5. We'd love to get your feedback on the all-new AIR interface and exciting new features.

The sessions will be held, at MAX, at these times:
• Monday 10/5/09 11:30 am - 1 pm
• Tuesday 10/6/09 4:30 pm - 6 pm

Please contact Tanya Knoop at tknoop@adobe.com if you think you can make either of these sessions. Tanya will send you details.

If you're a Mac user and you've upgrading or are thinking about upgrading to the new version of Mac OS X 10.6 (called Snow Leopard), you may run across a few issues, which are not specific to Adobe products

Applications crash when saving to file servers through SMB protocol (Mac OS X 10.6)

Files may not open in original authoring application (Mac OS X 10.6)

Firefox 3.x crashes when trying to use the Adobe Downloader (Mac OS X 10.6)

Acrobat 9 "Save As Adobe PDF" Support in Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6)

(For more details on this PDF issue, see Steve Werner's article: Acrobat's Adobe PDF Printer Replaced in Snow Leopard)

Here's the Snow Leopard FAQ.