United States of AmericaI attend to see what InDesign can do. These presentations do the job superbly.
Dave Campbell
Natural Resources Conservation Svc.
Event DetailsWe had a fantastic turnout for our August Summer Series meeting. Judging from the participant evaluations, it seemed that nobody left our first meeting at the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service offices disappointed.
Jim Cooper, our chairperson, started us off with an overview of the many uses of interactive PDF. We saw how, in some instances, a PDF slideshow can effectively replace conventional presentation software. He also showed a multi-page PDF document with navigational buttons and hyperlinked Table of Contents and Index.
We also saw how a magazine layout can be enhanced with bonus features, including video and audio. In the examples, he stressed the re-usable space feature, where material that would not fit in the conventional layout can be set up to virtually pop (via hot buttons) into view at the discretion of the reader.
"Props" to Jennifer Norland (CASAT), who presented at an earlier meeting and introduced the "text button" concept.
We wrapped up the first half of the meeting with a working example of Paragraph and Object Styles creation. We saw how to easily move objects to other documents and get them to "morph" to mirror the specs of the target document.
After a short break, Mike Wilhelm (from CASAT) treated us to a demonstration of the synergy between InDesign and Acrobat. On an actual production-model InDesign document, he showed how creation of Form Entries text, coupled with a carefully-built PDF Export preset, can save countless hours in form creation, using the Acrobat Forms wizard.
He also gave us the benefit of his experience with the many options for distributing the forms, along with methods for collecting, tracking, and compiling data from his on-line responding audience. On top of that, he still had a little time to introduce us to the benefits of Acrobat.com in his own organization’s workflow.
Overall, the group seemed eager for more how-to sessions at future meetings. There were a good number of first-time attendees who, like many of the "veteran" members, liked both the venue and the meeting time.
RAFFLE
Melanie was our grand-prize raffle winner (Adobe InDesign CS4). Another lucky winner selected "Real World Adobe InDesign CS4," compliments of Peachpit Press. As a continuing neighborly offer to our User Group, Apsiva donated an hour of Jim Cooper’s collaborative time to the prize list.
About NRCS:
The Natural Resources Conservation Service is the largest private land conservation agency of the federal government. For almost 75 years, they have been the conservation experts, helping private landowners, communities, groups, land users, and others conserve and solve problems relating to natural resources on agricultural land. They work with Nevada's Conservation Districts and other partners to provide free conservation assistance to keep our environment healthy and productive for future generations.
About CASAT:
The Center for the Application of Substance Abuse Technologies provides training, technical assistance, evaluation, research, and other services to support prevention, treatment and recovery from alcohol and drug addictions. CASAT is part of the Division of Health Sciences at the University of Nevada, Reno and houses two major substance abuse disorder national programs: (MWATTC) and (WCAPT).
About APSIVA:
Apsiva develops web-based easy-to-use catalog software that bundles state-of-the-art content management with custom Adobe InDesign plug-ins to facilitate timely, simultaneous catalog publication to print and web.
THANKS ...
...to Adobe (and our gracious User Group cousins in Indianapolis and Puerto Rico) for their continued support and to the kind folks at NRCS for their hospitality.
Special thanks to our Adobe InDesign User Group support team, who implemented a system that can get our grand-prize (software) winners up-n-running in less than 24 hours!
Also, we are grateful to Peachpit Press (www.peachpit.com), O’Reilly (www.oreilly.com), and Apsiva (www.apsiva.com) for their generosity.
"As usual, Jim breaks down the complicated and gets me motivated to tackle projects. Going GREEN has never seemed so easy." — Aspen
"Always a great and informative meeting. Interactive PDFs are helping to transform the way I work." — Loni
"...since I started coming to the User Group two years ago, I have gained much helpful, professional knowledge." — Training Coordinator, University of Nevada, Reno
"I always learn something new." — Kerry
Date and time to be determined. Subjects: InDesign / Acrobat steps for creating Interactive PDF effects and PDF forms (plus distribution options).
