Munich InDesign User Group Home Meeting Summary Archive

Meeting Summary

Exporting an InDesign Document to the Web
Tue, Feb 5th, 2008 at 6:30 PM
Front Range Community College, Westminster Campus
Event Details

CHAPTER BUSINESS
-Next meeting is Tuesday, April 1st. We'll be meeting in the Snowy Peaks Room for the remainder of the year. -Introduced our visitor, Noha Edell, Business Development Manger, Cross Media Publishing at Adobe. She is also the east coast InDesign User Adobe host. -Thanked Julie, our new greeter and registration desk volunteer. Her official title will be "Director of First Impressions." -Our goal for the year is to have 50+ members in attendance. The first meeting we reach that goal, we will raffle off a copy of the complete Creative Suite. -Reminded group that we meet at our sponsor's location immediately following the meeting. Our sponsor, The Exchange Tavern, provides us with coffee and tea at our meetings. NOTE: Five of our members met up at the Exchange to continue discussing InDesign and other design-related topics.

EXPORTING AN INDESIGN DOCUMENT TO THE WEB
On the surface exporting InDesign to the web can may seem daunting. In an effort to reduce these perceptions (they are just perceptions - with the right people in place, repurposing InDesign for the web is very doable), Brian Reyman and Erica Gamet each played a part in the process (with Jeff Gamet making a cameo as 'the boss').

Erica, the designer, was assigned the task of repurposing her content to the web. She enlisted the help of her web developer, Brian. Brian and Erica each had a projector to display their files and were able to both entertain and instruct.

The presentation focused on:
-Understanding how to prepare InDesign and export files for use on the web.
-Demonstrating the workflow between the designer and web developer, focusing on roles and responsibilities.

In the end, Erica, with Brian's help, was able to turn her InDesign newsletter into several web pages - and had the pieces to quickly convert similar future newsletters.

AUCTION
Our auction was successful again this month. We auctioned off a book and a subscription to Layers Magazine and we made $40. Since many of our items went without being bidded on, we asked what types of items the members would like to see auctioned. Noha also suggested non-design related items like Rockies tickets. Please let Brian or Erica know of items you'd like to see auctioned.

PRODUCTIVITY KILLERS
Erica showed the group some "productivity killers" or "things to do when the boss isn't looking."

Some of these items included plugins that allow you to play Tetris or control iTunes, both directly from within InDesign. Next, she showed a website from Pantone, Inc. called "Colorstrology" that shows a person's "birth color" based on their birthday.

Next, she showed some Easter Eggs in InDesign CS3, which include butterflies in the welcome screen and an alien in the Print dialog box. She also demoed a couple of custom stroke styles that can be created: Xmas lights, footprints, puppy tracks, and happy faces.

Erica showed a site with a Flash illustration that contains 25 design terms. If the user can find all 25 terms within the allotted timeframe, the user will win a printed version of the illustration. Lastly, she showed the video called "My My Logo Bigger Cream" that pokes fun at the misconceptions of what we do as designers.

This is just a small selection of really fun diversions. Please email Erica if you want the list of URLs, etc. from this presentation.

Thank you

A special thanks to:
Adobe and our Adobe Reps (thanks Lisa and also to Noha for making a special appearance)
The Exchange Tavern (sponsor)
Front Range Community College (venue)
Jeff Gamet (for playing the boss from "Office Space" in our .css demo)
Julie (new registration desk volunteer)
Erika (note-taker)
Robert (photos)
Lori (for the yummy King Cake)
All of our wonderful members!

Comments from attendees

“I thought everything was great. The web design was right on. I thought it was paced really well.”

“Liked the presentation going back and forth between web and print.”

“I liked the role play. Appreciated the preparation by both Erica & Brian.”

Photos From This Meeting
Photos are available from this user group meeting.
See the photos