Atlanta InDesign User Group

Meeting Notes Archive

Monday, May 10, 2004

Jim Cooper, presenting on behalf of Onus Consulting, opened his session by saying "congratulations on your choice of InDesign." Considering that Jim worked for Quark at one point, his greeting carried extra weight: he knows what the alternatives are!

Onus Consulting works with developers like Woodwing and Canto, to increase productivity with InDesign, enhancing workflows that involve such arcane things as database connectivity.

Jim described himself as “an editorial guy,” so his insights into solutions like Woodwing's SmartConnection and Adobe's InCopy are based on real-world experience.

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The traditional rift between designers and editors, he pointed out, was largely due to limitations imposed by the software they've used. InCopy breaks down those walls, enabling editors to work in a familiar word-processing environment, but still see the relationship between text-and their changes to it-and the page itself.

Using the NCAA New Insert (“Centerpiece”), Jim demonstrated how SmartConnection works: once a file is entered into the SmartConnection workflow, it's easy to find out the intended publication, what issue, and its current status. Then it can be assigned to an editor: doing so creates an InCopy document for an editor to check out over the network. Not on the same network? Smart Connection Enterprise is Browser-based, and job components can be checked out over the Internet.

Editors are alerted if designers have made a change in page geometry, and can update their view of the file accordingly – really slick!

Then, Jim wowed the group with his deceptively low-key demonstration of the powerful features of Woodwing's SmartStyles plug-in.

Essentially, you design an example, then store as library item. SmartStyles contain all the attributes you wish to contain, including background tint, border, even transparency settings and text formatting. It's Nested Styles on steroids! If there's one “Must-Have” plug-in for InDesign, SmartStyles is it. SmartStyles' ability to store complex table formatting makes it a lifesaver for designers dealing with tabular data: format one table, then store its “recipe” in a SmartStyles library. Then, quickly apply the formatting to all the tables in your document.

Why *wouldn't* you want SmartStyles? Oh, maybe if you charge by the hour...

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