Meeting Summary: Stylin' in InDesign – from the basics to the more advanced

Tue, Jul 12th, 2011 at 6:30 PM

Adobe Campus

Event Details

Foriegn Language Translation Workflow
Presented by Brian Dumas; Production Designer, Wizards of the Coast

• Brian uses paragraph styles to map game cards. It’s important to maintain this because if you have it all ironed out, it enables you to keep things accurate in the document.
• Character Syles – important for accuracy
• Style Sheets
  • You can go through your entire doc using style sheets without having to update the text
  • (They send the English XML file to the translation service)
  • It requires the text to be in the correct order in the Word doc.
  • If style sheets are available, it should only take 2 – 3 minutes to update the Word content
  • With text fields linked together, it enables us to update type frames a whole lot faster.
  • If your style sheets are nested, then you can do multiple layers of editing simultaneously.
• Tags panel –
  • Tag names cannot have spaces in them. And, it doesn’t like other special characters.
  • Usable with the XML Feature

12 Tips; 6 Easy and 6 Not-So-Easy Pieces
Presented by Steve Laskevitch; Luminous Works
(Click here for the full demo, found via the “Resources” tab on luminousworks.com)

“Richard Feynman: physicist of the last century with a wit; personal hero…”

• Character Styles, Paragraph Styles, and Nesting One in the Other
  • Create a style safely by using the menu in the upper right corner of the paragraph styles box and select “new paragraph style”.
  • Right click on the paragraph style and select “Edit _______” for less error later on (and without having to run into the Murphy’s Law about double-clicking and font).
• GREP Styles
  • Paragraph Style Options allows you to select a characteristic under “Apply Style” to a selection of text by placing it under “To Text:”
  • \d+  = any digit
  • (For example: 19\d+ would apply the selected style to anything that begins with “19”.. = any character)
• Hanging Indents, Left and Right
  • Shift tab = pushes everything to the right side
  • Conditional Text
    • This “Conditional Text” menu is a panel, and can be found under “Window” then “Types & Tables”.
    • Create a new “Conditional Text” for allowing sections to be viewable and non-viewable.
    • In order to make something one condition or the other is by highlighting it, then selecting the Conditional Text option.
  • Numbered Lists and sub-Lists
    • Text Variables
    • Inverted triangle means it’s beginning at a new portion of the document – very handy, especially when you are using master pages.
• Options
  • “Numbering & Section Options” panel then “Section Marker” text can indicate what you want to say at a specific location.
  • Table of Contents, then “More Options”
    • “TOC Headers” / “TOC Styles” etc. refers to Table of Contents…
  • Cross-References
  • By selecting cross-reference, you can locate all possible paragraph styles.
• Master Pages, and Using More Than One
  • You can create a type of Master Pages, and then apply it to multiple other pages.
  • You can Undo, by dragging the “None” layout (on the Pages menu) onto the page that you want to remove the Master Page from.
• A Very Weird Surprise Feature:
  • When you skew an object a certain way, you can select “Object” then “Transform Again” then “Transform Again”, and it will recreate the skew of the prior object, to the currently selected object.
  • Weird Surprise: You can select Page, then Transform Again, then Transform Again, and it will skew itself as well.
  • HTML Tagging for Web and ePub Export
    • Anchor an object by selecting the blue object and drag it to where you want it anchored. It’s valuable because of the need we have to anchor text with images in some reasonable agreement.
    • Under Paragraph Styles, then “Edit ______”, select “Export Tagging” and it allows you to apply a tag with the paragraph style.

Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) examples from Europe
Presented by Ingo Eichel; Business Development Manager, Adobe

RAFFLE
Several exciting prizes raffled off including subscriptions to InDesign magazine, a variety of reference books and most importantly a copy of InDesign CS5.5!

Thank you

Thank you to our wonderful volunteers – we can't possibly do it without you!

Check-in: Ashlee Hunter, Howard Heflin
Note Taker: Laura Raney
Photography: Danya Youngblood

Job Opportunities

AOAC Seeks InDesign Formatter
AOAC INTERNATIONAL, a not-for-profit scientific association, is actively seeking a freelance InDesign formatter. Candidates must have 3 years experience using CS4 to format manuscripts. Experience formatting tables is required; familiarity with scientific symbols and equations is strongly preferred. No design work but exceptional attention to detail is required. No novices, please. A 10-day turnaround, and great communication skills are required.

Interested candidates should submit resume and cover letter to Catherine Wattenberg, Production Manager, at cwattenberg@aoac.org. Compensation will be offered at competitive hourly rates.

Comments from attendees

"I just had to say that tonight's meeting was great. I really liked the beginning and advanced tips. I am working on a new design for a 60-page bulletin and tonight gave me some good ideas."

"I attended my first InDesign User Group meeting last night! I'm ever so thankful for this great opportunity to:
1) Be in a room full of people with similar interests
2) Learn so many fascinating tips!
3) Be exposed to such a large diverse group of folks using InDesign
4) Eat great pizza!
Thank you so much for the opportunity. I hope I'm able to attend more in the future."

"Tips are always great and end up making my life easier once I play with them and figure them out in a working doc. Brian's translation talk was helpful as I work with translated docs. Thanks!"

"Topics: All of interest to me. Presenters: All talented and experienced."

"Enjoyed hearing how WotC does things. Pieces (easy and otherwise) was fun and informative. Ingo was entertaining."

"Great presenters of CS5 procedures. Thank you"

"Love the diversity of presentations"

Photos from this Meeting

See the photos