Tag Archive for: indesign

Scripting Success: Finding and Creating Your Own Automated Solutions

/in

You’re in the driver’s seat for this fun and collaborative session. Bring your frustrations and nagging problems. Bring your feature requests and wish lists. We’ll brainstorm solutions and create a custom collection of scripts that you can take home.

If your workflow always stops working at certain point, you don’t have to wait around hoping that Adobe or someone else will fix things. You can do it right now—with the help of scripts (even if you don’t know the first thing about coding).

Key takeaways:

  • Where to find great scripts
  • How to build and organize your script collection
  • Understand what is and isn’t scriptable
  • How to make your own scripts with the help of AI

Hack Your Workflow: Unexpected Uses for InDesign’s Features

/in

InDesign is more than a layout tool—it’s a powerful problem-solving engine hiding in plain sight. This session explores unexpected ways to use InDesign’s native features, turning familiar tools into clever workflow solutions. From repurposing the Table of Contents for nontraditional lists to using Data Merge to build dynamic storyboards, you’ll see how to push InDesign well beyond standard page layout.

Through practical examples, this session encourages designers, marketers, and content creators to rethink everyday challenges and replace manual work with smarter, automated solutions.

Key takeaways:

  • Discover unconventional ways to use InDesign features beyond their original intent
  • See real examples of native tools repurposed to solve nontraditional layout and workflow challenges
  • Replace manual, repetitive work with smarter, automated solutions
  • Approach everyday design challenges with a more experimental, problem-solving mindset

Three Minutes Max: InDesign

/in

This crowd favorite is back and better than ever! Don’t miss this fun-filled, action-packed, highly educational, and mind-blowing session where each of our instructors will have just three minutes to share their favorite InDesign tip—then you get to vote for your favorite!

In past years, some of the best tips have been held for this session, so you don’t want to miss it!

Laying the Foundation: Building Efficient InDesign Layouts

/in

The choices you make when you start building an InDesign layout will determine how smoothly the rest of the project goes. In this session, Laurie Ruhlin focuses on the foundational layout decisions that make InDesign documents easier to design, revise, and maintain over time.

You’ll learn how thoughtful structure reduces rework, prevents layout breakdowns, and makes everyday tasks far less stressful. This session shows how to set up layouts so they naturally support real-world production needs.

Topics include:

  • Setting things up right from the start so your layout elements align naturally and don’t need constant fixing later
  • Choosing single or facing pages. Learn how each option changes layout, margins, and page management—and why switching later can be messy
  • Using parent pages to build structure, not clutter with consistent headers, footers, guides, and repeating elements
  • Demystifying the Primary Text Frame: What it does, when to use it, and how it makes adding, flowing, and reordering pages effortless
  • Rearranging pages without breaking your layout: Shuffle, insert, and delete pages while keeping text, images, and page structure intact

Why Your Print File Failed (and How to Fix It)

/in

Print files fail for reasons that aren’t always obvious, even to experienced designers. Amybeth Menendez breaks down why print problems happen and how to prevent them. Learn how transparency settings, ICC profiles, and PDF standards interact, and where issues most often appear. Amybeth focuses on real-world scenarios designers face every day, explaining what’s happening behind the scenes and how to fix problems with clarity and confidence.

You’ll leave feeling more in control of your files, better equipped to catch potential issues early, and ready to send print-ready PDFs with confidence.

Key takeaways:

  • Take a deep dive into transparency and flattening settings
  • Identify common ICC profile and color management pitfalls
  • Spot warning signs before a file goes to press
  • Demystify PDF export choices for print

InDesign Styles: Beyond Text Formatting and Into Design

/in

Styles are often treated as basic text formatting—fonts, sizes, spacing, alignment—but they can do far more. Built into styles are powerful design features like borders, shading, rules, and corner effects that let you create callouts, highlights, dividers, and branded design elements directly inside your layouts.

This session shows how to design with styles to create layouts that are both consistent and visually strong. You’ll see how paragraph shading can create instant callouts, how borders and rules add structure and emphasis, how character and object styles work together, and how table styles carry brand identity into complex layouts. The result is cleaner files, fewer formatting errors, faster updates, and more creative control—without extra work.

You will learn how to:

  • Make styles part of your design system, not just a formatting step
  • Reduce production risk when collaborating or handing files to other designers
  • Reduce manual formatting and errors in long or complex documents
  • Ideal for designers who work in InDesign regularly and want cleaner, smarter, more flexible layouts

InDesign’s Top Ten Type Tips and Tricks

/in

InDesign offers even more text control than most users realize. With a few targeted tips, you can speed up everyday work, simplify text management, and feel more confident handling complex documents. In this session, Nigel French shares his favorite InDesign text tips and tricks, focusing squarely on speed, control, and smarter workflows. Expect practical insights, plenty of “why didn’t I know that?” moments, and techniques you can apply immediately to real documents.

Key takeaways:

  • Gain more control over text without adding complexity
  • Reduce manual cleanup in text-heavy layouts
  • Work more confidently with long or complex documents
  • Spot small text workflow tweaks that save serious time

Document Accessibility Starts with InDesign

/in

Accessibility is a design responsibility that starts the moment a document is created. For anyone working in InDesign, early decisions directly affect how usable that content will be for everyone who reads it.

In this session, Chad Chelius explains why accessible documents begin in InDesign—not in Acrobat, not in downstream fixes, and not after problems surface. You’ll gain a clear understanding of how structure, organization, and intent in your InDesign files form the foundation for accessibility. Chad emphasizes mindset as much as mechanics, framing accessibility as a core professional skill, not a niche specialty.

This session is for all InDesign users. Whether accessibility is new to you or already part of your workflow, you’ll leave with a clearer sense of why it matters, where it begins, and how better InDesign practices lead to better outcomes.

Key takeaways:

  • Recognize how document structure and organization affect accessibility outcomes
  • See accessibility as a core design responsibility, not a niche skill
  • Identify early design decisions that have the biggest accessibility impact
  • Build a stronger foundation for accessible PDFs and digital documents

Automation Tips in InDesign: Work Smarter, Not Harder

/in

InDesign is built to handle repetition, consistency, and flexibility to change—when you know how to let it do the work. In this session, Laurie Ruhlin shares practical ways to use InDesign’s automation-friendly features to speed up common tasks.

You’ll see how familiar tools can be used more strategically, along with a few less-obvious workflows that make everyday documents easier to build, update, and maintain. The focus stays on real design work: faster fixes, smarter setups, and small shifts that add up to major time savings across projects.

You will learn how to:

  • Use Table of Contents in flexible, nontraditional ways that go beyond chapters and page numbers
  • Set up smart document defaults that speed every project from the first page
  • Use Data Merge the “normal” way—and the clever way
  • Add scripts to your workflow, they aren’t as scary as you think!
  • Identify small workflow shifts that save time, improve consistency, and scale across projects

Creative Cloud Tips and Tricks to Boost Productivity

/in

This session is packed with time-saving shortcuts and lesser-known features across Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. You’ll learn practical techniques that experienced Adobe users often overlook, including smarter style setups, hidden panels, and efficient cross-app workflows.

You’ll also see how Creative Cloud Libraries can become a central hub for assets, styles, and consistency across projects—saving time and reducing rework. Every tip is designed to make your day-to-day work faster, smoother, and more intentional.

Key takeaways:

  • Learn essential keyboard shortcuts and hidden tricks that save time every day.
  • Choose the right app for the task
  • Reduce repetitive setup work across projects and documents
  • Become a true Creative Cloud “power user” with techniques most other designers don’t know