Detroit InDesign User GroupMeeting Notes Archive
Thursday, November 16, 2006
The meeting was held at Schoolcraft College’s VisTaTech Center with 110 attendees. Students from the school’s Computer Graphics Technology (CGT) Practical Applications class took charge of sign-in and handouts for the meeting in addition to creating the print advertising. A spread of gourmet pizzas, delicious cookies, and drinks were provided courtesy of Schoolcraft College. Greko Printing donated pens and paper for jotting down notes and tips.
Mike Mehall of the CGT Department at Schoolcraft College welcomed all and talked about their program offerings. He then introduced Donna Gniewek, chapter representative.
Donna gave a brief state-of-the-chapter report, stating that that this was the group’s third meeting, that in September there were around 200 members but as of today the number was up to 331. She reminded the audience that to receive advance notification of meetings and other news, guests should register to become a member of the group. Registering for a particular meeting can be done simply online.
University Lithoprinters brought the finished winning design from our Calendar Design Challenge, and distributed copies of it free of charge. The calendar was printed using four spot colors (PMS 9463 blue, PMS 9043 cream, PMS 877 silver, PMS 8920 copper) and two varnishes (a spot dull and a spot gloss varnish as a second pass, a technique often referred to as a dry trap or offline printing). The design and printing are stunning!
Donna introduced Steve Cordon, Vice-President Sales for Inland Press, a large Detroit area commercial sheet-fed print shop. He presented Printing 101, an overview of all-you need-to-know about printing. Starting with the end of the process, finishing, and bindery, Steve traced all the steps back to the first step of file prep. He reminded the audience of the importance of delivering files in an appropriate format. He also stressed the importance of preflighting and packaging the files.
He stressed the need to discuss with your printer any issues or concerns ahead of time, possibly in the project planning stage. Steve brought along many examples of press forms, imposition, signatures, and explained the difference between reader and printer spreads. One impressive sample was a package with a complicated die cut, perforations, cuts, and folds.
Steve explained the importance of getting multiple quotes, and the willingness of any serious printer to give you one, emphasizing that prices can vary greatly based on the size and type of the print run and particular business conditions at a given moment for each printer.
Brian Waskiewicz from Greco Printing provided pertinent additional points and information, stressing the need to get proper proofs to forestall expensive errors down the road. University Litho’s contingent added other relevant remarks to the presentation and helped answer print-related questions from the audience.
Everyone in attendance received two publications to supplement the presentation:
After the break, Donna demonstrated how to package your files properly to send to a printer, and some soft-proofing techniques on the computer using InDesign, including:
- Using the transparency flattener preview to view potential transparency printing problems.
- On-screen preview of separations/spot colors.
- You can convert spot colors to process if needed, however the actual printed color may not be what you intended. Use Pantone’s Color Bridge to see how it will actually print, and change your color as necessary.
- When using spot (ink) colors, do not rely on your screen to show you accurate color. Check the appropriate Pantone matching system swatch book — these tools are essential for any graphic designer working in print production.
- When you preflight, read the summary, which will tell you about certain problems with your files. This is where you may find fonts that you thought you weren’t using anymore in your project, but are still being used somewhere.
- Issues with EPS files and including the fonts manually in your package, as InDesign will not collect those for you.
Donna then showed a file that needed some troubleshooting. She stated that one of the best ways to troubleshoot a problem in any Adobe software is by using the Knowledgebase in the support area on Adobe’s web site. Select the product you need help with and type in your problem. You can also search or make a post to the Forums. Another resource on the Adobe Web site is the Communities area. You can choose a software package in the Product Design Center for supplemental information and tutorials on Adobe software.
So, now back to the problem with the InDesign file. There was a spot color that was no longer being used, verified by soft proofing the separations on screen, and InDesign wouldn’t allow the swatch to be deleted. The support knowledgebase lists three possible solutions:
Issue: You can’t delete color swatches in Adobe InDesign CS or CS2.
Solution 1: Export to InDesign Interchange format.
To export an InDesign CS or CS2 document to an InDesign Interchange file:
- Open a file in InDesign CS or CS2.
- Choose File > Export.
- In the Export dialog box, select InDesign Interchange from the File Type menu (Windows) or Formats menu (Mac OS).
- Click Save.
- Open the resulting file in InDesign CS or CS2.
- Delete the unwanted swatches.
Solution 2: Select All Unused Swatches, and then delete them.
- Open the InDesign file.
- From the Swatches palette menu, choose Select All Unused.
- Click the Delete Swatch icon at the bottom of the palette.
Solution 3: Drag and drop the colors to a new file, and then import them as a PDF file.
- Create a new InDesign document and draw one object for each non-deleting color.
- Resize the existing document and the new document so that they appear side by side.
- Apply a non-deleting color to an object in the new document by dragging it from the original document. Repeat this step until each non-deleting color has been applied to an object.
- Choose File > Adobe PDF Presets > High Quality Print. Name the file and click Save.
- Accept the default settings and click Export.
- Place the PDF file in the InDesign document and then delete the PDF file.
- Choose Select All Unused from the Swatches menu and press Delete on the palette.
The first solution caused the computer to crash; the second one didn’t work. The third one sounded odd as a fix but worked as demonstrated to the group. Amazing but true! How does Adobe come up with this stuff?
After the evaluations were collected, we held the evening’s raffle, which included Adobe software, boxer shorts advertising Yupo paper, a Total Training video, a TableStyles and CellStyles Pro InDesign plug-in from Teacup Software, and books provided by Adobe Press, O'Reilly, and Peachpit Press.
The evaluations are very helpful for improving meetings and deciding on future topics. Many have remarked that they would like to see another design challenge.
Some comments from the evaluations:
“Good overall overview of the printing world! So much to cover in a short period of time.”
“I liked the relaxed presentation that Steve gave.”
“Very informative! I liked the fact that the meeting was very open and laid back. As an InDesign beginner I wasn’t lost in the discussion.”
“Always good to hear from a printer about things to avoid and potential printing issues.”
“The meetings keep getting better and better!”
“Terrific, my first time. I’ll be back!”
Thanks to everyone who helped with this meeting and see you in the New Year!
Donna Gniewek
Detroit IDUG Chapter Rep
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