Meeting Summary: CS5 Tips and Tricks

Tue, Nov 16th, 2010 at 5:30 PM

McMurry Town Center

Event Details

Our presenting sponsor, Arizona Office Technologies, started off the meeting by reiterating why they are involved with IDUG. AOT is a printer for the end product that designers like our members create, and they take great pride in being able to help facilitate the great minds of the Phoenix IDUG members coming together to learn and improve their skills.

Tami Rodgers presented us with a tutorial on creating an interactive PDF in InDesign that also doubled as the presentation for the raffle prizes. The PDF contained a set of 12 numbered squares that, when clicked, revealed the name of a prize.

To do this, she used the "button" tool within InDesign:

• When first creating your document, pick the web option - everything then will convert to pixels and be RGB-formatted.
• Decide how you want the button to function. (Do you want the button to disappear when clicked? To link to a video? To open media?)
• Click the "Buttons" panel and choose the "Convert Object to Button" feature. (To add interactivity to an object, it must be a button)
• Now you can decide how you want the button to function. (In this case, Tami had the button hide upon click. She also had the button background and number change color when hovered over with the mouse.)
• And the most important tip - TEST! Once you believe you have the button set up the way you want it to operate, test it to ensure that it works properly.

Back by popular demand, Rick Burress then presented some tips and tricks on Design and Layout for CS5. Rick began his discussion with an option that one attendee described as "magic" - the Bridge.

Bridge is a "window" that shows you what is organized on your hard drive and lets you preview items that you normally could not on your desktop. In CS5, it continues to dazzle by not only letting you preview an InDesign file, but letting you preview the PAGES in the file as well as see the LINKS you use in any InDesign file.

He also reviewed the Mini Bridge, Multiple page sizes, New Layers panel, Simplified transformations, Live corner effects, Auto-Fit, Content grabber, Gap Tool, Live captions from metadata, Paragraphs that span or split, and Balanced Columns.

The tips varied in scope, but their underlying goal was the same - to save time! Many attendees came away with many reasons to upgrade to CS5 that they could take back to their workplace, and one attendee exclaimed "You are like Moses up there!"

The meeting was packed with designers from all over the Valley who stayed long after the meeting ended to network and share their own tips for using CS5 (or making arguments to those who haven’t upgraded yet). If you have a meeting topic you’d like to see or are interested in presenting at a future meeting, please contact phoenix@indesignusergroup.com.

Thank you

We were very fortunate to have Arizona Office Technologies as our presenting sponsor for the meeting.

Arizona Office Technologies has 27+ years in business of lowering costs associated with managing & producing documents by providing best in class software, hardware, & workflow solutions.

A special thanks to our other sponsors: Adobe, Artistec, Aquent, InDesign magazine, Peachpit, Shutterstock, PHX IDUG, eDocker for InDesign and McMurry.

Our raffle winners for this meeting include:

• Apple TV, courtesy of AOT: Tony Olive
• Artisec 1-hour training: Mick Welsh
• Shutterstock 1-month (25 per day) subscription (2 total): Erica Brooks, Randy Gregory, II
• $10 iTunes Gift Card, courtesy of Phoenix IDUG (3 total): Mary Winters, Dana Shetter, Tony Olive
• Creative Interactive Docs Using Adobe InDesign CS5, courtesy of Peachpit: Lisa Quirin
• Lynda.com 1-month certificate, courtesy of Aquent: Tamara Kopper
• Adobe Swag Bag, courtesy of Adobe: Laura Roberto
• eDocker for InDesign Digital Pub System, courtesy of eDocker (2 total): Michelle Fehler, Beatriz Antelo
• InDesign magazine, courtesy of InDesign magazine (2 total): Cheryl Christersa, Jenny Babich
• Adobe InDesign CS5, courtesy of Adobe: Eric Henry
• Adobe CS5 Premium: Tanya Clark

Job Opportunities

Visit our homepage (http://indesignusergroup.com/chapters/phoenix) to view available job opportunities.

Comments from attendees

"What else can I say? Great!" -Bob Golden

"Outport/Import made my jaw drop. All of what was shared I am going to put to use tomorrow at work." -Becci Burkhart

"Makes me want CS5 more and more. Good presentation!" -Scott Knietal

"CS5 Rocks!" -Claudia Saevedra

Next Meeting

We would like to thank our new attendees from the November meeting, and we look forward to welcoming any new attendees at our next meeting in January.

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Attached File/s

• IDUG_nov_flyer.pdf

Photos from this Meeting

See the photos