Washington, D.C. InDesign User Group

Meeting Notes Archive

November 14, 2006

We had another great turnout, with nearly 170 InDesign users joining together to socialize and learn.

The ever-popular Manhattan Deli pizzas started arriving shortly after 6:00pm and were gone by the time the meeting started. We finished off twenty of these luscious pies. They were accompanied by drinks and cookies; all in all, it was a yummy—if not totally health-conscious—repast.

Lawrence Horwitz of Teacup Software made that extra effort to get to our meeting. He hopped the train in Manhattan, walked from Union Station, gave a rousing presentation, and then headed right back to the terminal to board the last train back to New York. Wow! Many thanks, Lawrence.

He impressed our group with his succinct and clear demonstration of their products and their usefulness to ID users:

“Very helpful. Will definitely purchase some plugins.”

“Lawrence Horwitz—outstanding presenter.”

It was clear that while web sites and brochures can tell one a lot about a product, there’s no substitute for a live demonstration with audience interaction. While Teacup Software is well-known for its TableStyles and CellStyles, BarcodeMaker, and PatternMaker plug-ins, my personal favorite was TypeFitter, which takes InDesign’s excellent composition engine to the next level—a must-have for any serious designer.

Leigh Lawhon, a member of our group, followed Lawrence with a demonstration linking data files to InDesign through the use of XML. Her example showed how a real-estate company created their listings book—complete with pictures—by linking to the MLS database. While several attendees commented that the application was a little advanced for them, they hoped that they would be able to “grow into it” someday:

“Leigh’s XML demo was VERY informative.”

“Good project – help my understanding of ID and XML.”

XML in InDesign
Tagged Frames.
Download [PDF: 303 KB]

XML in InDesign
Full instructions provided to client.
Download [PDF: 811 KB]

Caleb Clauset, an original member of our group and now a senior solutions consultant at Typefi Systems, started an in-depth presentation on fonts and font management. His explanation of how the different type formats, character selections, and structures came about was news to many people, which helped them with their understanding of some of their own font issues:

“Lotsa useful info and a lot of ‘geeky’ history that I really enjoyed.”

“Caleb was awesome.”

“Caleb gave us a history lesson and new info. Loved it.”

Unfortunately, due to poor time-management on the part of the group leadership, Caleb’s presentation had to be cut short. (Sorry, Caleb.) We hope to bring him back at another meeting very soon.

Font Management
Download PDF [PDF: 1.0 MB]

We gave away a lot of goodies during the end-of-meeting drawing. Teacup Software graciously provided one of each of their five plug-ins. We had a copy of InDesign CS2 along with miscellaneous books, USB flash memory sticks, etc.

One thing we learned is to try not to cram too much into one meeting. Some people complained that some of the material was too technical. We hear you. We try to plan meetings with something for everyone, which means that during each presentation, some people will be bored and some overwhelmed. We would love to hear from you with specific suggestions for presentation topics and presenters.

Ken Chaletzky
Copy General Corp.
Washington, D.C. Chapter Representative

Meeting Notes Archive
View notes from past meetings of the Washington, D.C. InDesign user group.
• Read notes from other meetings!

Meeting Topics Archive
With user group chapters across the United States, Europe, and Australia, we have gathered quite a bit of information from presenters, Adobe representatives, attendees, and industry experts during the past four years.
• Read all of the notes