Tampa InDesign User Group

Meeting Notes Archive

July 18, 2007

On Wednesday, July 18th, 45+ Tampa Bay IDUG members came to the Tampa Art Institute to hear questions and answers discussed amongst the panel and members. The event, entitled "Very FAQ," broke from the normal tradition of meetings, by giving members the opportunity to submit questions in advance with the hope of having them answered that night.

The Questions

Q: What causes, and how do you avoid, the "Dreaded White Boxes" in printer output, that I sometimes get from a hi-res PDF sent to a print house?
A: Try setting the compatibility in the Export Adobe PDF box to Acrobat 5 (PDF1.4)

Q: How do I determine that a PDF that I am placing into my InDesign file is at a high enough resolution?
A: There are a number of ways to answer this: a. Look at the size of the PDF. If it is on the larger size, it is most likely a high enough resolution. b. Try to open the PDF in Illustrator, then click on the image, copy it to your clipboard, and paste it into Photoshop. In Photoshop, if it pastes in as a high resolution, you know it is high enough. c. Zoom in with the Zoom tool in Acrobat. (You are looking to see how crisp it is when examined at very close range.) d. If the file is saved as a PDFx, it is most likely a high enough for printing.

Q: When I Package files, I get flagged for Times or Times New Roman even though neither is used in the document.
A: Export the file to InDesign Interchange (.inx) format. Interchange cleans up the files. Open the .inx document in InDesign and return to Type > Find Font. When a problem font is found, exit Find Font and try Edit In Story Editor (Edit > Edit In Story Editor), which will make it easier to spot the offending character or space. Note: Find Font will not remove problem fonts that are defined in Paragraph or Character styles.

Q: How do I set up full-bleed pages intended for spiral-bound printing?
A: Create a new document with Facing Pages. In the Pages palette menu, deselect "Allow Pages to Shuffle." Then pull the pages apart in the palette, which will allow a bleed on all four sides.

Q: How can I have more than a two-page spread?
A: Deselect "Allow Pages to Shuffle" in the Pages palette menu. InDesign will allow up to 10 pages in a spread.

Q: Why can InDesign only read a QuarkXPress file if it was created in version 4?
A: Because Quark decided to encode their files so InDesign could not read them. A workaround is to save back down from Version 5 or 6 to version 4. If you do not have the software to save down, you can purchase a plug-in called Q2ID3 from Markzware (http://www.markzware.com/).

Q: How do I flip an image?
A: Select the image and choose one of the Flip options from the Transform palette menu (Window > Object & Layout > Transform).

Q: When I paste from one document to another, I get extra swatches. What can I do to solve this?
A: Select the duplicates in the Swatches palette. Go to the palette menu and choose "Merge Swatches."

Q: How do I remove unwanted styles from a Book?
A: Open each document, choose "Select Unused Styles," and then delete.

Q: When I make a new file, the default font is Times T1. Is there any way to change the default font?
A: Yes. Close all documents. Select the Type tool in toolbox, and choose another font. The font you just selected will become the default for all new documents you open.

Q: How do I change my increments from Picas to inches or any other measure that I prefer?
A: Change these the same way you changed the default font. Close all your documents, and then choose Edit > Preferences > Units and Increments (or InDesign > Preferences > Units and Increments in Mac OS).

Note that there is a difference between Application Default Preferences and Document Default Preferences. You can change your measurement preference in the Preferences of your document at any time, or you can right-click (or Control-click) in the ruler to see a context-sensitive menu of measurement choices.

Some comments included:

"Noha is witty, knowledgeable and entertaining facilitator"
– Betsy

"Great job! I love the diversity of Presenters"
–Matthew

"Today was great. The questions they answered helped me a ton. The font management tips was awesome. Also my PDFs will be even more trouble-free with better quality. Mixed ink tip was awesome."
–Eric

Sarah Schweiger
Tampa Bay IDUG Chapter Rep

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