Orlando InDesign User GroupMeeting Notes Archive
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
By 6:30 PM we had more than 97 members present, enjoying snacks and coffee in Harcourt’s cafeteria. This was our last meeting in our temporary location at Harcourt (thank you Harcourt!); we will resume meeting at our regular location, the Orlando Sentinel, next month.
James Alexander led off the meeting with a dynamic, live presentation of Adobe Stock Photos. We saw how easy it is for designers (and others) to search for and retrieve images from more than twenty providers of stock photography — right from within InDesign — and get comp images for free to try out and then present to clients. After decisions have been made as to which images will be used, with only a couple of clicks you’ve acquired the high-res image. And this was no canned show — James did it online without a net, collaborating with James Maivald, our XML presenter, doing an impressive real-time demonstration of Adobe Acrobat Connect, working instantly via an interactive online personal meeting from their own personal computers, while collaborating on the same InDesign file.
Learn more about Adobe Acrobat Connect at
www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect.
James Alexander also showed how all the metadata, such as keywords, and the agreement under which you acquired the image are stored for ready retrieval. If you have any type of a digital asset-management system, this info can be imported directly into it. Another neat feature is that Adobe Stock Photos keeps a record of each image acquired, so that if you lose your image or can’t remember where you stored it, or your computer crashes before your regular backup and it’s lost (you do back up regularly, right?), you can log into your ASP account and download it again at no cost.
Visit the Adobe web site to learn more
www.adobe.com/.../adobestockphotos.
James J. Maivald, chapter representative for the Chicago InDesign user group chapter, followed James Alexander, with “Cooking With XML” — an introduction to the fundamentals of XML in InDesign. Dressed in full chef attire, Jim explained that XML is being used everywhere on the Web today, and that those three letters are becoming more and more familiar to visitors on all types of sites. News, weather, sports, you name it; they are all going to XML in a big way. He told us to scroll down to the bottom of the page of our favorite Web site and we would almost certainly see the letters: XML or RSS.
He provided a quick history and description of XML technology, and then demonstrated how XML can be used to easily produce a whole range of “push-button” publications, including business cards, direct mail pieces, catalogs, books, price lists, and more!
In addition to learning how to create amazing publications, Jim then described how XML can be used in InDesign to reuse, reorganize, or create completely different types of publications from XML exported from your old InDesign publications. For example, he said, using XML you could take an entire newspaper, magazine, or book from print to the Web in seconds. He then opened a sample chapter from a book and demonstrated how easy it was to tag an unstructured InDesign file, export it to XML, and then create a fully formatted Web page using Adobe Dreamweaver.
Finally, Jim explained how XML was being used more and more on the Web and elsewhere, both in computer and non-computer applications, such as digital cameras. Among XML advantages is the fact that XML is a non-proprietary, plain-text language. It can be exported by most current databases, written or modified in any text editor, and is universally supported both in print and on the Web. In fact, many publishers are adopting an XML as their standard workflow going forward.
Jim is an Adobe Certified Expert in InDesign CS2 and provides training and consulting in all aspects of design and electronic production. He is also one of the only instructors in the country providing a complete course in using XML with InDesign.
To learn more about Jim’s services,
visit www.desktopdesign.cc.
To learn more about XML,
check out www.cookingwithxml.com or www.w3schools.com.
Attendee comments included the following:
"This was my first meeting and I am so excited about the next one. It was very informative and the topics very cutting edge. Thank you for the opportunity to grow as an InDesign user."
– Shannon
"Especially enjoyed Adobe Stock Photo presentation. Am excited to give it a try next time I photo research. Not Familiar with XML, but really enjoyed the overview. Very impressed with speaker and XML abilities. Very Impressive!"
– Dennis
"Excellent! Great information, easy to understand, good examples."
– Bruce
"This is my first time here and I am very impressed and pleased I know about you. It was great to have someone from Adobe. I loved his presentation. I am starved for any info I can get. I will be back!"
– Linda
"XML, knew nothing - now I have an idea of many possibilities from Jim’s presentation."
– M
"I really appreciated the demo for Bridge - I’ve been using Bridge for almost a month and learned a few new tips tonight. Learned a lot about XML."
– April
"WONDERFUL!! INFORMATIVE!! INSTRUCTIONAL!! USEFUL!!"
– K
"I’m hooked to come back for more."
– Sean
"Liked Jim’s presentation style – High Energy kept me alert!"
– Laura
"Learned an enormous amount of new info."
–Emilio
"Adobe Photo Stock - This was a great presentation. He spoke to me, a Designer and I look forward to working with it. XML - great speaker and presentation. I didn’t know anything about XML, but now I feel I can understand and use it."
– Bonnie
"Great speakers. Every meeting gets better. I am learning invaluable tips to increase workflow. Thank you."
– Jennifer
"Great topics, Fast paced - I’d almost prefer to go more in depth with InDesign XML."
– Sarah
"XML is COOL!"
– Judy
"X-cellent - give me more."
– K
Prizes
As in every InDesign User Group meeting, the giveaways were plentiful. It could be you next month! Angela Plagmann, our prize diva, would like to remind all winners to please write your reviews to publishers and for all to support our generous sponsors. The review-writing requirement by our sponsors and publishers is a small price for us to pay in order to continue receiving a generous offering of future books and software applications.
From Adobe:
Adobe Creative Suite Premium Application software
From O’Reilly:
Adobe InDesign CS2 One-On-One, by Deke McClelland
InDesign Production Cookbook, by Steinmiller & Gulbins
XML Pocket Reference, by St. Laurent & Fitzgerald (3 copies)
Learning XML, by Erik Ray
No Nonsense Web Development with PHP, by Thomas Myer
XML Hacks, by Michael Fitzgerald
XML In A Nutshell, by Harold & Means
From Peachpit Press:
Real World Adobe InDesign CS2, by Olav Kvern and David Blatner
From Cooking with XML:
Cooking with XML T-shirt
Thanks to our generous sponsors Adobe, O’Reilly, Peachpit Press, and Cooking with XML.
Edward Feldman
Chapter Representative - Orlando Adobe InDesign User Group
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