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April 27th, 2015 | Michael Murphy
Learn how to use GREP to describe all items in a list that begin with the same letter, then insert a space between and/or add an alphabetical heading to each alpha group. Covers GREP Find/Change, wildcard/location/found text metacharacters, character sets, marking subexpressions, and backreferences (an undocumented feature).
Watch the episode here (23:22), or you can subscribe via iTunes.
April 12th, 2010 | Michael Murphy
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)
June 29th, 2008 | Michael Murphy
Inspired by a question from a podcast subscriber about creating a text frame that looks like a folder tab, and with the help of a technique suggested by another subscriber, this episode builds on the potential of Paragraph Rules revealed in Episode 49. By combining Paragraph Rules with First Baseline Offset options, a fully-editable, single-object tab-topped text frame is easy. But it gets easier and more interesting when Object Styles and Effects are added to the mix.
Watch the episode here (14:29 | 38.1 MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.
May 29th, 2008 | Michael Murphy
Hot on the heels of Episode 49, I received an e-mail from Adi Ravid, an Adobe Certified Expert in Israel, who pointed out a much better method for creating rounded Paragraph Rules. Shortly thereafter, my friend Birgit Stolte in Germany popped up on iChat to remind me that she had already mentioned the same tip to me some time ago. I’m embarrassed to admit that not only didn’t I think of this technique myself, but I completely forgot that I’d been told about it before.
Adi was nice enough to let me share his description of the technique here on the blog, so here goes: … (read more)
May 28th, 2008 | Michael Murphy
Most of us are familiar with the two types of Paragraph Rules, but despite their names, a Rule Above can easily appear below your text, and a Rule Below can just as easily appear above it. This ability to bend the rules, so to speak, can produce some very interesting and flexible type effects that don’t require drawing extra frames, grouping anything or relying on anchored objects. This episode covers the rules of paragraph rules (and a bit about underlining) to showcase how flexible and versatile they can be.
Watch the episode here (15:52 | 37.2 MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.
Download the sample files (68K .zip file) for this episode
March 30th, 2008 | Michael Murphy
At last month’s InDesign Conference in Miami, an unexpected blackout cut my typography session short, so my demonstration of OpenType features never saw the light of day (no pun intended). In this episode, I bring that missing part of the presentation to all of you and take a look at several useful OpenType features including Ligatures, Discretionary Ligatures, Contextual Alternates, Small Caps, and Titling Alternates.
Watch the episode here (14:55 | 30 MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.
December 29th, 2007 | Michael Murphy
OK…Christmas has already come and gone, I know, but it’s still technically the holiday season, and the title of this episode is the title of a Christmas CD project I recently designed. That’s the project I showcase in this episode, in which I demonstrate a holiday grab bag of InDesign goodies including: … (read more)
November 18th, 2007 | Michael Murphy
Normally, I pick one InDesign feature and build a whole episode around it. However, this is the second anniversary of the podcast, and I wanted to do something different, and demonstrate that combining InDesign features is far more powerful than using them individually. In this episode, I use six different features … (read more)
October 24th, 2007 | Michael Murphy
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)
October 31st, 2006 | Michael Murphy
October 31st, 2006
No, this isn’t the white space you learned about in design school. Rather, this episode takes an in-depth look at all eight (yes, eight!) different types of white spaces available within InDesign. What are they, where are they, and how do you … (read more)
