The InDesigner

A brand-new, two-part video series I recorded for Adobe TV launched today. It takes an in-depth look at the new features in InDesign CS 5.5 (and some improved older ones) that make the entire InDesign-to-accessible-PDF process faster, easier, and more reliable.
Part I explores the new features that greatly reduce the time and number of steps involved in creating accessible PDFs—setting up a content order in the new Articles panel, creating anchored images within a text flow, applying “Alt” text and tagging instructions to images, and mapping paragraph styles to PDF tags.

Part II starts with the finished InDesign document, exports it to a PDF, and show how well all the new InDesign CS5.5 features pay off in Acrobat X Pro. It also demonstrates how to further speed up the process using Actions in Acrobat X Pro.

If you watched the accessibility video I did last year, using CS5, you’ll be amazed how much work has been done by the InDesign team to take all the pain out of the process and enable real communication between InDesign and Acrobat.

Posted in Accessibility, Acrobat, CS5.5, Layout, Styles, Workflow | 12 Comments » |

Launch day for Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 is here, and so is my first podcast episode dedicated to the newest version of InDesign.

In this episode, I take a look at a number of very cool new features in InDesign CS5. There’s a lot more (see the full list below), but I’ve focused on some of my favorites, including span/split-column paragraphs, multiple page sizes, simplified transformations, metadata captions, the new Layers panel, and animation features (hinted at in my last post).

This episode is kind of a a long one, but I’ve included chapter markers so you can quickly jump to the section of the episode (there are five demo segments) you want to see.

Watch the episode here (36:46 | 70.1MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.

Here’s a (just about) complete list of the new features in InDesign CS5. There are numerous other small details and enhancements, but here’s the biggest and the best: … (read more)

Posted in Automation, CS5, Design, Document Set-up, Graphics & Images, Interactivity, Layout, News/Announcements, Podcasts-Video, Productivity, Styles, Type & Text | 18 Comments » |

Checkboxes and radio buttons and comb fields…oh my! After the podcast’s longest hiatus ever, and a cliffhanger gap worthy of The Sopranos, The InDesigner returns with a new episode that (finally!) finishes off the topic of designing smart for Acrobat forms.

In this episode, I take a look at adding form elements to an InDesign layout to create Acrobat-friendly checkboxes, radio buttons and comb fields, all of which can be achieved with a little help from anchored objects, GREP find/change and tables.

You may also notice new feature added to the podcast starting with this episode: chapters. You can now jump right to a specific part of the lesson using the chapters built into the video file.

Watch the episode here (15:30 | 45.5MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.

Posted in GREP, Layout, Podcasts-Video, Styles, Tables, Uncategorized | 10 Comments » |

Today, Adobe announces the Creative Suite 4 in all of its various iterations (Design Premium, Web Premium, Production Premium, and so on). This updated Creative Suite includes another evolutionary and significant new version of InDesign, and in this episode, I take a look at some (but by no means all) of my favorite new features including Smart Guides, Flash export, and GREP Styles.

Watch the episode here (14:14 | 51.7MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.

Posted in GREP, Interactivity, Layout, News/Announcements, Podcasts-Video, Styles | 26 Comments » |

It’s that little feature we all take for granted, but InDesign’s Text Wrap is a vast improvement over that other page layout application’s Runaround feature. This episode takes an in-depth look at all of InDesign’s Text Wrap options, reveals a few peculiarities … (read more)

Posted in Document Set-up, Graphics & Images, Layout, Podcasts-Video, Type & Text | 1 Comment » |

Picking up right where Part 1 left off, this episode concludes my InDesign Inventory of features put to work in the design of a 256-page magazine. In two more examples, I cover working with Master Pages and Document Pages simultaneously, and deconstruct how … (read more)

Posted in Design, Document Set-up, Layout, Podcasts-Video, Styles, Type & Text | 1 Comment » |

When you design 4 full-page ads, 19 charts and graphs, and 123 page layouts in 24 working days, you really see how InDesign’s features make a big project much more manageable. Having just completed a 256-page magazine, I decided that this episode would take inventory of some of the ways that InDesign … (read more)

Posted in Layout, Podcasts-Video, Styles, Tables, Type & Text | 4 Comments » |

There’s nothing wrong with your monitor. This is not a video episode. In this week’s show, there’s more to talk about than to see as I discuss re-creating old layouts — specifically QuarkXPress layouts — in InDesign, and I talk you through my method for creating and using … (read more)

Posted in Document Set-up, Layout, Podcasts-Audio | 6 Comments » |

Add depth and interest to an InDesign layout using the “cheap tricks” demonstrated in this episode, which uses a magazine feature to demonstrate what I called “Poor Man’s Lighting Effects” in Episode 4. In the process of building this example, I put a lot of other features to use including … (read more)

Posted in Design, Layout, Podcasts-Video, Transparency | 3 Comments » |

There are no simple questions when it comes to InDesign. I prove that in this week’s episode in which answering a listener’s simple question about how to align an object to the page leads me to demonstrate three possible ways to do it and introduces the concepts of … (read more)

Posted in Layout, Podcasts-Video | 3 Comments » |