November 3, 2008 – 11:18 pm
Have you ever had to set up a catalog, a set of coupons or ads that are basically repetitive and have data stored in a database or spreadsheet?
If you’re currently working on this type of project, you are so in luck because InDesign will automate the creation of these sections of data! All you need to do is set up the source properly and create a template for the data in InDesign. Keep reading to find out just how easy this is and why you’ll never go back to Mail Merge in Word again!
October 29, 2008 – 10:01 pm
I have a simple but essential tip to give you for working in InDesign.
Learn to love the Control/Command key!
Here’s why: Scale Objects Quickly, Select Objects Below, Create Spread Guides While Zoomed In. Read more to find out exactly how to do these.
October 10, 2008 – 7:00 am
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to get out into the blogiversosphere. Maybe it’s been too long for you too? Jump back in with these fantastic design posts from the past few weeks, including some announcements of InDesign CS4 features! Woo!
October 6, 2008 – 7:00 am
I received an email from a reader recently. For any of you that are also new to InDesign, I thought you might benefit from my response, below, a little more organized than my response to her.
In this post I’ll cover Paste in Place, a little bit about InDesign Layers, a few InDesign shortcuts, adjusting the stacking order of objects, the Step and Repeat function, contextual menus and more beginner articles on Creative Curio.
If you have any questions about InDesign, be sure to check out this article and post a comment!
September 26, 2008 – 7:00 am
Do you want to be an ACE? I do! And that’s why I’m studying to take the Adobe Certified Expert exam for InDesign.
There is so much to this program that I never knew! I’ve been using it fairly regularly for at least a year and I thought I had a pretty firm grasp of it. There are so many little ways that InDesign can help you out by automating layout elements. Let me share a few I’ve learned this week, specifically setting document defaults for all new documents (and what you can set as a default), working with sections, and autoflow text.
August 29, 2008 – 7:00 am
Back when I wrote the Quark for InDesign Users articles, I was approached by Markzware, a company that makes several Quark and InDesign plugins. I know the folks over at InDesign Secrets love their plugins, but I’ve never used any myself. Markzware kindly agreed to give me a copy of their plugin to try out and I thought I’d share with you some of my thoughts!
QuarkXpress and Adobe InDesign are the two main layout programs used in the graphic design industry. Quark was the leader—and almost the only game in town—until about 2002 when Adobe released InDesign. At that time many Quark users were irritated that their needs were not being address and InDesign really came in at the perfect time. Many Quark users quickly jumped over to InDesign. Adobe was really smart in practically giving in away free if you bought the Creative Suite—basically a bundle of Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat—the core programs in any designer’s arsenal.
But Quark is still hanging on and indeed, will probably never go away, so it’s good to at least be comfortable working in both, even if you prefer one over the other. Last time I told you about the Tools palette in Quark, and also pointed out some helpful shortcuts you can use. It’s important to know the differences between Quark and InDesign in terms of working with images.