United States of AmericaI'm fascinated with the idea of scripting...to get the software to get up and do work for YOU...to cut out some of the repetitive, the tedious parts of producing publications. That's what a JavaScript can do.
Michael Witherell
Owner/President
JetSet Communications, Inc.
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Event DetailsThank you to everyone who joined us for our most recent meeting, Working Faster, Smarter!, especially our featured speaker, Michael Witherell. Read below for links to all the resources mentioned in the meeting, how to contact us on LinkedIn or by email, and for upcoming meeting dates (all the way at the end).
TEASER: We'll be raffling off a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium at the June meeting! That's a $2,600 value! You must be present to win.
To start the meeting, our Chapter Representative, Magda Saina, welcomed us and told us all about the Washington DC User Group's CS5 launch event, coming up on Tuesday, May 25, at the U.S. Navy Memorial Auditorium. More information can be found at http://www.dc-id.org/.
Register using the promo code DCIDCS5-GB and you'll get $20 off the registration fee, plus you'll help support our Greater Baltimore chapter because the DC chapter will donate $20 to the Baltimore IDUG for every one of our members who registers.
Magda then discussed the upcoming release of Creative Suite 5 and how there are 250 exciting new features to help us work faster and smarter!
For more information, Magda provided a list of valuable resources. (The PDFs listed below are available for download at the bottom of this meeting's summary page on the IDUG website at http://www.indesignusergroup.com/chapters/baltimore/events/1417/summary/.)
Then we saw a CS5 sneak peek video hosted by Adobe Evangelist Terry White. He demonstrated some of InDesign CS5's new features:
If you'd like to see the full video again, it's available on Adobe TV: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/cs5-design-premium-feature-tour/indesign-cs5-overview.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~FEATURED PRESENTATION
JavaScripts: Where to gather them. How to install them. What they can do to lift productivity and cut down on time consumption.
Our featured speaker, Michael Witherell, Owner/President of JetSet Communications, Inc., unlocked the mysteries of using scripts in InDesign to increase your productivity. Michael has provided us with the research he's done on where to learn about JavaScripts as well as the places to go and gather valuable resources for free!
From the specifics of gathering and installing the JavaScripts on your machine to demonstrating some of the most useful and time-saving scripts, Michael's presentation covered all of the basics needed to improve your workflow with scripts. One of the most practical scripts Michael demonstrated, Preferences Manager, allows you to save your customized preferences (there are 21 places to set preferences in InDesign!) so you can easily load them back in if you have to blow out your preferences for some reason. He also showed us a script for auto-generating styles from formatted text, plus he demonstrated the neat "noallcaps" trick to keep your InDesign menu buttons from screaming at you in all caps.
Michael has provided his reference material online at http://jetsetcom.net/index.php/useful-resources/indesign-cs4-resources. Take a look and start gathering your JavaScripts!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Anne King, The Missing Manual: Photoshop CS4 by Lesa Snider King (O'Reilly Books)
Shannon Nelson, Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-on-One by Deke McClelland (O'Reilly Books)
Elyse Chaprnka, Adobe InDesign CS4 One-on-One by Deke McClelland and David Futato (O'Reilly Books)
Angela Hughes, Adobe InDesign CS4 One-on-One by Deke McClelland and David Futato (O'Reilly Books)
Marian Chaprnka, 1-year subscription to InDesign Magazine
Shannon Nelson, 1-year subscription for GLUON ProScale V9 plug-in for InDesign
Clair Koroma, 1-year license for GridIron Flow software
Marian Chaprnka, InDesign CS5 software
Congratulations to all of the winners! Remember, we need additional donations and sponsors to continue our IDUG! The raffle tickets are our SOLE SOURCE to pay for the speakers, the food, and the venue, so sponsorships and donations keep us going!
We would like to thank our sponsors Adobe and JetSet Communications, Inc. for making this meeting possible. We especially would like to thank our sponsors for their generous donations for raffle prizes and giveaways:
- Adobe: InDesign CS5 ($900 value)
- StockLayouts: 3-month subscription ($399 value)
- Premier Mac Technologies: $100 Donation to our Speaker Fund
- GLUON ProScale V9 plug-in for InDesign ($109 value)
- O'Reilly Media books
- GridIron Flow: 1-year license ($299 value)
- InDesign Magazine: 1-year subscription ($59 value)
- Shutterstock: giveaways and coupons to stock images library
All proceeds from raffle sales support our IDUG meetings. Donations
and sponsorships are welcome. If you are interested, please contact Chapter Rep
Magda Saina.
We are especially grateful to the many volunteers, our featured speaker, and the Greater Baltimore Chapter IDUG core members who made the event possible.
Washington DC User Group's CS5 Launch Event
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
U.S. Navy Memorial Auditorium
More information can be found at http://www.dc-id.org/.
Register using the promo code DCIDCS5-GB and you'll get $20 off the registration fee, plus you'll help support our Greater Baltimore chapter because the DC chapter will donate $20 to the Baltimore IDUG for every one of our members who registers.
Want to be a part of the discussion? Join our group on LinkedIn!
We use this collaborative networking space for discussions about upcoming meeting topics and speakers, group updates between meetings, troubleshooting, and sharing news items of interest to the group. You can join the Baltimore Chapter, Adobe InDesign Users' Group at www.linkedin.com/groupInvitation?groupID=1964618. Join today so you can share your knowledge and experiences to help us all stay connected.
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Remember to check your Member Benefits page for special offers and discounts on training, magazines, books, and workshops.
Remember, we want to hear about your projects too! Share Your Shorts! with us by sending a PDF (under 5 MB) of no more than 20 of your images and a project description to IDUG.GreaterBaltimore@gmail.com, and your project may be selected for an upcoming meeting.
"Thanks for the CS5 preview. I can't wait to get it!"
"Michael's presentation on scripts has been wonderful--opening the door to a much-improved workflow for my shop. Thank you! Made working with scripts a reality I WILL implement!"
"Excellent eye-opening script exposé. More time would help."
"I'm so glad I came. Great workflow tips. Wonderful presentation."
"It's always refreshing to watch others use applications."
"Venue--excellent. Topics--amazing. Speaker was great, especially since I am new to CS4--won't be in CS5 for a while. I had no idea!"
Mark Your Calendars! Upcoming Meeting Dates:
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Next meeting we'll have a session devoted to group sharing of real-world projects. So send us your questions so we can all be prepared to discuss them: IDUG.GreaterBaltimore@gmail.com. We need YOUR questions to make it happen!
And to celebrate the CS5 launch, we'll be raffling off a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium at the June meeting! That's a $2,600 value! You must be present to win.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
More details to come.
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