The InDesign Conference: Introductions


David Blatner



Anne-Marie Concepción


Click here to add your own text

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Introductions

Tuesday, 9:00 am – 9:15 am Central

Welcome to 16th annual The InDesign Conference! Whether you’ve been using InDesign for 20 years or just a few months, you’re sure to learn new techniques and solutions that you can bring back to your office and put to use immediately.

Secrets of the InDesign Power Users

Erica Gamet

Erica Gamet

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Secrets of the InDesign Power Users

Tuesday, 9:15 am – 10:15 am Central

Let’s kick off The InDesign Conference with a fast-paced, fun-filled tip-a-palooza to boost your productivity! We’ll zip through a ton of handy tips and tricks that every InDesign user needs to know. Plus, you’ll get amped to soak up all the InDesign goodness the rest of the conference will bring.

Topics include:

  • If you’re not customizing InDesign, you’re not doing it right
  • Essential shortcuts
  • What to do when something (inevitably) goes wrong

Mastering InDesign’s Productivity Features

Erica Gamet

Erica Gamet

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Mastering InDesign’s Productivity Features

Monday, 1:00 pm – 4:30 pm Central

In this 3-hour workshop, we will share some of the most important production techniques for setting up and working in InDesign documents. We’ll cover workflow ideas, organization techniques, and automation features.

Topics include:

  • Using GREP styles and Find/Change to speed up work
  • Sorting styles, layers, and swatches to stay organized
  • Using one document for multiple outputs
  • Other techniques to speed up workflow and work more efficiently

Next Steps in Accessibility and Section 508 Compliance


Dax Castro

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Next Steps in Accessibility and Section 508 Compliance

Monday, 1:00 pm – 4:30 pm Central

When you understand the fundamentals of creating accessible PDF documents from InDesign (covered in the morning session), it’s time to dig deeper and learn several advanced troubleshooting fixes for common PDF errors.

Topics include:

  • Fixing read order
  • Getting clear on the tags tree
  • How to check your PDF and PDF/UA
  • PDF remediation: What to do if you’re just handed a PDF file

Accessibility can be a challenge… but it’s a fun challenge. Untagged annotations, here we come!

InDesign Fundamentals: Building Solid Documents


Chad Chelius

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

InDesign Fundamentals: Building Solid Documents

Monday, 9:00 am – 11:30 am Central

Anyone can build a house, but it takes skill to build a strong one that won’t fall down! In the same way, it takes skill to construct an InDesign document that is solid enough to withstand the test of time, and yet flexible enough to change when you need it to… like an hour before deadline when your client or boss tells you to make a change.

In this tutorial, we’ll learn the fundamentals every InDesign user needs to understand, including:

  • Creating hierarchical master pages
  • Setting up your paragraph, character, and object styles
  • Understanding why and when to use primary text frames and Smart Text Flow
  • Figuring out document size, page size, margins, columns, and Adjust Layout

Accessibility and InDesign


Dax Castro

ARCHIVE: This session was presented at CreativePro Week 2020.

Accessibility and InDesign

Monday, 9:00 am – 11:30 am Central

“Access to information is a fundamental human right”
—George Kerscher, DAISY Consortium

Ensuring that the PDF files you produce are accessible to all is not only a good idea, it’s the right thing to do! In this session, learn about what accessibility and “Section 508” means and how you can ensure that the PDF documents that you create from Adobe InDesign are accessible to everyone!

This tutorial is split into morning and afternoon sessions (you may attend one or both). In the morning, we will journey through setting up an InDesign file for accessibility and giving your document the best chance for “out of the box” accessibility.

Topics include:

  • How to build an InDesign document the right way
  • Optimizing your documents so that accessibility can be accomplished more easily
  • Controlling content order
  • Using features that already exist in InDesign
  • Colorblind friendly palettes
  • Managing tables, images, and forms

In the afternoon session, we’ll work through PDF remediation and what to do when it doesn’t go as planned.