Tag Archive for: indesign

InDesign Animation and Interactivity

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If you’re curious how InDesign can create engaging interactive documents, this is the session for you!

We’ll start with a quick overview of exporting an interactive document out of InDesign (including Interactive PDF, Publish Online and in5/HTML5). Then we’ll explore InDesign’s rich toolset for adding buttons, hyperlinks, and animation. We’ll take a look at what’s involved to producing a series of interactive effects, using some obvious and not-so-obvious techniques.

If you’ve tried InDesign’s interactive features and found them frustrating, join this session and look again.

We’ll cover techniques for creating:

  • Buttons to show more info and to trigger an animation
  • Pop-ups
  • Animated bar charts to make cool data presentations
  • A hamburger menu for page navigation

(And… if you want more interactivity, stay for the next session!)

Building Interactive Magazines, Web Ads, and Digital Pages with InDesign

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Are you interested in creating rich, interactive documents? It’s likely that your existing design skills are more useful than you realize. This session will present an overview of your options, from Interactive PDF to HTML, fixed-layout EPUB, Publish Online, and more!

We’ll explore:

  • Creating online magazines
  • Delivering rich media presentations to sales teams
  • Building mobile apps without coding
  • Reuseing content from print projects

Three Minutes Max: InDesign

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Yes, it’s time — once again! — for that fun-filled, action-packed, highly-educational, and mind-blowing session: Three Minutes Max! Each of our instructors will have no more than three minutes to share their favorite InDesign tip… and then you get to vote for a winner.

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

Time-Saving InDesign Practices That You’re Probably Avoiding

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We get it: You’re on deadline and you just gotta’ get the project done, so there’s no extra time. But here’s the trick that InDesign pros know that you’re forgetting: If you take a little time to set things up well now, you can save so much time later!

In this session we’ll walk through some of the most important DIRN (“Do it Right, Now”) features and practices, including:

  • Styles (including nested, hierarchical, and cascading)
  • Proper master page setup
  • Understanding variables and automated text
  • Long document features you should use, even for short docs!

Adding Personality with Typography

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Every font has a voice and personality. How you set that font on the page — size, color, caps, column width, and more — affects the voice, just like you can adjust your own voice, depending on what you’re trying to say.

In this short exploration of type and typography, we’ll explore how sometimes subtle changes can make big differences in how your message is received.

Essential InDesign Scripts, Part 3: Customizing and Scripting Fundamentals

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Using InDesign without scripts is like cooking without spices—you can do it, but why would you?! In Part 1 and Part 2 of this three-session tutorial, we’ve looked at a wide variety of must-have InDesign scripts. Now, it’s time to take it to the next level!

Topics include:

  • How to edit a script to customize it for what you need (it’s often not as hard as you’d think)
  • First steps in writing your own scripts
  • Obscure (but useful!) scripts you have to know about
  • Scripting resources

8 Essential Steps You Should Take Before Printing or Exporting

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It feels so good to finish a layout… but wait! Before you export “myPage.Final_B_v2_ReallyFinalThisTime.indd” to PDF, or send it off to get printed, take just a moment and walk through this checklist of Eight Essential Steps. It doesn’t have to take long, and you’ll save so much time in the long run.

Session topics include:

  • Building (and using!) custom preflight profiles
  • The Ink Manager (it’s far more important than it sounds)
  • Critical PDF best practices
  • Scripts and automated checks

Remote and Virtual Workflows for Design and Creatives, Part 2

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In Part 1 of this two-part session, we explored a wide spectrum of remote workflows. Now, let’s tackle editorial and review! The field of web-based collaboration and review is hot, hot, hot! If emailing PDFs out to remote clients and authors for review is slowing you down, you’ll be glad to learn about these newer, more streamlined alternatives.

This session includes:

  • Initiating and managing comment and review using Acrobat versus Creative Cloud services
  • Best practices for managing Acrobat comments
  • Discovering how InDesign’s Share for Review is better (and worse) than Acrobat
  • Using 3rd-party cloud-based review services like GoProof, Tweak, and PageProof
  • Using linked Word files for fast, round-trip copyediting with WordsFlow
  • When InCopy is the solution
  • Using Google Docs with InDesign

You’ll be so encouraged and energized by what you learn, that you’ll be fixing your own workflows as soon as you get back to the office!

Essential InDesign Scripts, Part 2: Text and Typography

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In Part 1 of this three-part scripting-extravaganza, we looked at the fundamentals of using scripts. Now, let’s discover a wide array of scripts you just have to have when working with text and type.

Topics include:

  • Super-powered find/change and text cleanup
  • Inserting special (but commonly used) characters
  • Splitting and merging frames
  • Working with footnotes and endnotes

Integrating InDesign and WordPress

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InDesign is the most popular page-layout app in the world. WordPress is the most popular web app in the world. And many of us need to publish content to both! How can you easily move text and images from InDesign to WordPress and other popular web content management systems? Or move content from WordPress to InDesign? This session will show you how!

Topics include:

  • How to preserve formatting and meaning while moving text
  • Images: the biggest challenge
  • How to leverage InDesign’s HTML export capabilities
  • Plug-ins and add-ons that can help
  • Custom workflows for cross-media publishing