Tips and Tricks!
Greetings!
I'm Brian Wood, the director of training at evolve computer graphics training in Seattle (www.evolveseattle.com), author or co-author of 3 books, Lynda.com author, Creative Suite Master and web developer. We are hosting Refine Design and I wanted a chance to be able to share tips and tricks and general info before and after the conference with you. We will have our speakers posting up here from time to time, so check back often.
To kick it off, here are three great InDesign tips that I presented at the InDesign Conference in New York this week:
- When working with Libraries, you can maintain layers in a library item(s). Before you drag a library out (or right-click on the library item in the Library panel and choose Place item), in the Layers panel, choose Paste Remembers Layers from the Layers panel menu. Then get the library item into that document and the layer(s) that the library items were on in the original document will be pulled into the new document.
- If you work with Snippets, there is a new feature in CS3 that can really help. When dragging or placing a Snippet into a document, the default is to place the snippet object(s) in the same position on the page as it was in the originating document. If you hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) when you click Place or drag onto the document it will allow you to place it anywhere you want. Also, there is a preference (Edit > Preferences > File handling - Windows or InDesign > Preferences > File handling - Mac) that allows you to Position the snippet at cursor location or original location. You can choose on the fly before placing a snippet.
- InDesign CS3 now has the ability to export as XHTML for a web authoring program (via File > Cross-Media Export > XHTML/Dreamweaver). Here are a few tips when exporting:
- Objects grouped in InDesign are also grouped in XHTML (this can influence the order in which the content is placed in the XHTML document). Use this grouping to order content in the XHTML file that is generated.
- Optimize images elsewhere (such as in Photoshop), then name them the same as those used in InDesign.
- Use tables for data when necessary. Tables for layout are fine, but are not “valid.” Tables are exported, minus the formatting.
- Use Paragraph and character styles for formatting if you want to use CSS styles of the same name.
- You could use object styles to create ID containers
- Know that it’s content we’re after - think CSS!
- Talk to your web developer about what they want (if it isn’t you).
I will be posting tips and tricks all the way up to the conference. I will also start posting some video tips in the coming weeks, so look out for those!
Brian
