Oz Creative Pro

Ecksemell revisited

The last time I blogged about XML it was rightly pointed out that the XML information on the Adobe website was looking a little long in the tooth. That has now been rectified. There is now details such as a new technical reference on XML in InDesign CS2 and XML use in the real world. Well worth having a look at!

Regards Steve

Many Happenings

A lot has been happening since my last blog entry. Adobe, as I am sure you are aware, have completed our acquisition of Macromedia. Now we have so much more to learn! I have to get up to speed with new technologies such as Breeze and Flex. My vocabulary is quickly gaining a whole new set of acronyms, not the least of which is RIA (Rich Internet Applications). If you haven't yet heard the term I am sure you will be hearing it a lot more! Andrew Muller has posted on his blog a number of interesting links to RIA web sites.

I was excited to see the release of The Production Studio last week. This release is excellent in many ways but for me the most amazing feature is Adobe Dynamic Link. With Dynamic Link you can now drag an After Effects 7.0 composition unrendered directly into Premiere Pro 2 and Encore DVD 2.0. Any changes to the After Effects composition are automatically updated in Premiere or Encore, amazing!

This week we have the launch of Acrobat 3D which allows users to publish from CAD applications with the secure collaborative capabilities of Acrobat.

So much more to talk about!

Regards Steve

A little more scripting

I would like to return to scripting InDesign (a favourite topic!). Scripting InDesign is a perfect way to avoid repetitive tasks. A common request from users is a way to print individual pages to PDF or EPS from InDesign. The new InDesign CS2 scripting guide has these useful scripts and far more!

I have recently been showing automation tasks for quick layouts for pages including a javascript for taking XMP Metadata attached to images and using this in a layout. Basically this involves InDesign reading the Metadata for a selected image, taking this and placing it in a text frame and formatting it with an object style automatically formatting the text... nice!

For those interested in playing with this, the script is below. This text can be copied into any text editor and saved as a text file with a file extension .jsx into the Applications > InDesign CS2 > Presets > Scripts folder. To run select and image and double click the script from the scripts palette (Windows > Automation > scripts).

if(app.documents.length != 0){
if(app.selection.length != 0){
if(app.selection[0].graphics.length != 0){
var myFrame = app.selection[0];
var myBounds = myFrame.geometricBounds;
var myX1 = myBounds[1];
var myY1 = myBounds[2];
var myX2 = myBounds[3];
var myY2 = myBounds[2]+10.5;
var myGraphic = app.selection[0].graphics.item(0);
var myLink = myGraphic.itemLink;
var myLinkXMP = myLink.linkXmp;
try{
var myAuthor = myLinkXMP.author;
var myTitle = myLinkXMP.documentTitle;
var myDescription = myLinkXMP.description;
var myTextFrame = myGraphic.parent.parent.textFrames.add(undefined,
undefined, undefined, {geometricBounds:[myY1, myX1, myY2, myX2],
contents:myAuthor + '\r' + myDescription});
myTextFrame.textWrapPreferences.textWrapType = TextWrapTypes.contour;
//this assumes an object style named Picture Caption
myTextFrame.applyObjectStyle(app.activeDocument.objectStyles.item("Picture Caption"), true);
}
catch (myError){
alert("Graphic does not contain the requested XMP information.");
}
}
}
}

Steve

Getting Help

The latest update (2.1) to the Adobe® Help Center application is available from the downloads page (look under Help Center). The Adobe® Help Center is a free, downloadable application that provides Help navigation for Adobe CS2 related software products, Adobe Photoshop® Elements 4.0, and Adobe Premiere® Elements 2.0 software.

Why would I want to update my Help Center? Look no further than the Home Page for an applications Help. It may not appear straight away as it is an online service, but entries which appear under the home page bookmark will in Help will include Recent Support Documents and Top Issues, very helpful!

Steve

Expert Experiences

Follow this link (down to the bottom of the web page) to a series of movies featuring Sandee Cohen, Deke McClelland, Anne-Marie Concepcion and David Blatner who share their experiences with InDesign on topics ranging from Why InDesign? to How does InDesign help me work quickly?

Steve

Barcodes

Ever needed a barcode in you InDesign layout? Have a look at BarcodeMaker 1.0 from Teacup Software.

Steve

digichicks!

Scrapbooking is a booming industry and digital scrapbooking sites are popping up everywhere. Photoshop Elements is a natural starting point for people keen to be creative with their growing catalog of digital images. With a large (and growing) number of tutorials on the web there is plenty for the budding scrapper to kick off with!

I have got to know at my own cost how huge this industry is, my old home office has been taken over by my wifes' scrapbooking shop...at the very least she didn't call her business the digi chick!!

Steve

Ecksemell

If an InDesign user were to accidently click on the little double triangle symbol next to the view percentage in the bottom left hand corner of the main window they would be presented with the Structure pane. I have been asked on a number of occasions - what is it, how do I get rid of it and should I know more about it?!

What it is: The structure pane will display an XML structure for your document, by default only the displays.

How I get rid of it: You can't, but if you no longer wish to view it you can of course click the same button to close it (or choose View>Structure>Hide Structure).

Yes, you should know more about it! This link is a good place to start to understand more about XML and its application in InDesign. Our website has a useful tutorial with sample files to get you started understanding the power of XML.

Steve

InDesign Sudoku generator free plugin

Martinho at Rorohiko has just released a cool Sudoku generator for InDesignCS and CS2.

Sudoku - for those who don't read newspapers - is a puzzle game that ... well, you can look it up in the Wikipedia, but essentially it is a "logic based placement puzzle ... The aim of [which] is to enter a numerical digit from 1 through 9 in each cell of a 9×9 grid made up of 3×3 subgrids (called "regions"), starting with various digits given in some cells (the "givens").

Generate your own before the craze passes you by!

Hungry for More?

InDesign users are always hungry for information, tips, tricks and techniques for using their favourite page layout application. There are many great sources available. One such is the InDesign Magazine. With articles from industry heavyweights such as David Blatner and Sandee Cohen, this bi-monthly pdf magazine is an excellent read.

Visitors to the InDesign User Group website will be rewarded with an amazing array of news, information, tips and links (including a link to our esteemed local guru Nick Hodges' website).

Having attended the recent Creative Suite Conference in Sydney and learnt plenty I can testify that there is always a lot more to learn!

Steve

Tender Memories

Newspapers and magazines have a long history with dealing with complex editorial workflows. InDesign and InCopy are integral to many of the solutions. But it is not Newspapers and Magazines I wanted to talk about, rather Corporate organisations.

In my previous life (before Adobe) I was fortunate (unfortunate?!) enough to work on plenty of tenders. Inevitably this would involve many overworked, overstressed, overtired people working massive hours up until the very last moment. Obviously anything that can be done to streamline processes to produce the final product is invaluable.

Designers/production artists have fought for many years to receive final copy, usually a losing battle. One reason was that is easier and quicker to layout an entire document than to make many small changes.

We no longer have to fight the losing battle, we can use InCopy. A series of articles running currently articulates this beautifully at quarkvsindesign.com. I can attest to the overtime hours required for tenders, I well remember seeing the sun rise and people returning to work wondering why you are in the same clothes!

InCopy gives writers access to the stories and layout without the ability to change design. Designers can fix layout issues while the editor(s) finalise copy. With the addition of features such as anchored objects, object styles and align to spine to InDesign CS2, InCopy and InDesign CS2 becomes the perfect proposal generating applications.

Steve

Elemental!

With the recent release of Photoshop Elements 4, it was time to reaquaint myself with this excellent program. What amazing value you get with Photoshop Elements! For tutorials of the latest features have a look what Philip Andrews has put together.

Anyone with a digitial camera and thousands of unsorted, unfixed family photos will love this application. Automatic red-eye removal on import, realistic skin tones, face tagging, Magic Selection Brush... cool!

Steve

Fear of Scripting

On the surface scripting applications such as InDesign and Photoshop sounds pretty scary. The thing that really turned me on to scripting and therefore overcome my fear, was a calendar script I came across on the Adobe Share Studio. The original (I believe) was created by Jan Suhr then adapted by Robert Cornelius. It automates the generation of a calendar using tables, character and paragraphs styles, for an excellent result. With InDesign CS came the ability to write a user interface to scripts. I went to work to add a front end dialog to this script, making it a little easier to use. With a few adaptions and a translation into JavaScript, to make it cross platform, this is great example for how scripting can avoid repetitive, boring tasks.

There is a wealth of information available regarding scripting Creative Suite applications such as InDesign. There are dedicated user forums for scripting the Creative Suite 2 applications.

I have seen some amazing uses of scripting including Shane Stanleys' AppleScript that would take all the Photoshop images in an InDesign document, crop, rotate (if necessary), resize, rename and replace, optimised for the layout. Brilliant!

InDesign CS2 now can access image Metadata via scripting - meaning metadata such as photographers name and photo caption can be retrieved from the image and placed into your layout.

The possibilities are endless.

Regards
Steve

DG Portfolio is looking for imagery...

The Design Graphics Porfolio issue has come of age and is now its own stand-alone publication to be known as DG Portfolio.

As before, DG Portfolio will showcase a wide range of images from around the world. The search is on for top flight graphic design, digital illustration, photography, image manipulation, new media, computer graphics, packaging, logos, fonts and typography, 3D, television graphics, television comemrcials, movie titles and effects... this is a great opportunity for exposing your work to a broad audience.

Entries close 31 October.

For more information or enquiries http://www.designgraphics.com.au or portfolio@designgraphics.com.au

Long Document Features in InDesign

In our recent Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne InDesign presentations we were able to spend more time focusing on some of the excellent long document features of InDesign. Of course it is always hard to take in all the information presented.

The following links are to tutorials for some of the long document features such as creating a book, automatic Table of Contents generation, Index generation, using Layout Adjustment as well as search and replace to format text.

Regards
Steve