Tag Archive for: indesign

InDesign Secrets—LIVE!

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If you’re an InDesign Secrets podcast fan (or even if you’re not!) you don’t want to miss this rare live-audience recording with InDesign gurus David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepción! Laughs and learning go hand-in-hand as these two teachers explore the intricate workings of our favorite page-layout program.

  • Winner of the “most annoying feature” contest
  • Interviews with the stars
  • Little-used InDesign features that you really should be using
  • A special Obscure Feature of the Week-eek-eek!

Automating Your Layouts

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While humans will always have a part in designing and creating, we too often forget why we use computers in the first place: because they’re good at doing things that we’re not so good at, including automating mind-numbing tasks! This is your chance to uncover the secrets of the InDesign power users and learn how to take advantage of powerful tools that can save you time and make you more productive.

Topics include:

  • How to make hundreds of publications per year with a small team
  • Progressing from manual to keyboard shortcuts to GREP to scripts
  • Incorporating Multi-Find/Change
  • Powerful custom script automation to take it to the next level

Actually, There’s a Script for That

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One of the best ways to improve your productivity and efficiency is to use scripts — and scripts are really easy to use! You just need to know where to find them.

In this session, you’ll see a ton of must-have free and low-cost scripts for InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop; as well as sources for finding others. You’ll also learn how to make your own scripts with a little help from AI or hire a professional scripter to tackle really hairy jobs.

Topics include:

  • Where to find must-have scripts
  • The fastest and easiest way to install a script and run it
  • Top free scripts you need

Bulletproof Templates in InDesign

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A well-built InDesign template can help you and your co-workers create consistently formatted documents that adhere to your brand standards while being easy and efficient to assemble. Setting up templates correctly so they’re easy to understand and use is an art. This session will explore techniques you can start using right away to build bulletproof templates.

You’ll learn:

  • The best place to store the miscellaneous “bits and pieces” that are often needed in templates, such as sidebar lockups, headers, footers, etc.
  • How to make parent (master) pages clear and easy understand
  • Naming strategies that encourage users to actually use paragraph, character, and object styles
  • The best way to provide “how to use” documentation for your templates

Three Minutes Max: InDesign

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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!

Info with Impact in InDesign

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While organizing simple, basic information in an impactful way may be a routine task—it doesn’t have to be boring! Learn how to create clean, professional infographics, organizational charts, and tables in Adobe InDesign. We’ll cover best practices for organizing data and visualizing information in an easy-to-read format, while also diving into powerful tools and techniques that streamline your workflow.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Master tables in InDesign, and discover scripts to overcome their limitations
  • Unlock the power of object styles to streamline formatting and ensure consistency
  • Strategically choose colors that enhance visual impact while maintaining readability
  • Efficiently use paragraph and character styles to automate formatting and save time
  • Source and implement picture and dingbat fonts for unique, eye-catching designs

Interactive InDesign

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InDesign offers an array of features for creating interactive documents— features for creating buttons, alternate content, animation, and more. This interactivity can be published in documents on the web and beyond.

Topics include:

  • How to get started adding buttons, multi-state objects, animation, and video clips to your document
  • Examples of real-world interactive documents that demonstrate where and when interactivity is appropriate and useful
  • Output options for interactive documents
  • How to output interactive documents using Publish Online

Advanced GREP

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In the Intro to GREP session, we learned the fundamentals of working with GREP in InDesign. Now, it’s time for some in-depth GREP expressions to put into your toolkit. When it comes to automating text in your InDesign documents, using GREP can give you that boost you need to improve your accuracy, consistency, and productivity.

  • Learn how to master the “lookaround”
  • Rearranging text
  • How to generate figure placeholders using captions

Editorial Workflows with InDesign

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Unless you’re writing text directly inside your InDesign layout, chances are someone else is using Microsoft Word or Google Docs and you need to flow and format it in InDesign.

In this fast-paced session, we’ll show you how to quickly fix the most common problems you’ll encounter. You’ll be amazed to see how most of the solutions are easy, free, and built right into the program.

This session includes:

  • Importing Word files the smart way: choosing the best options
  • Best practices for a smooth workflow
  • Tools for linking InDesign to Word or Google Docs (so you can keep editing in both places)
  • When it’s time to take the plunge and use Adobe InCopy

Using GREP in InDesign

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Learn the fastest, most powerful, and most reliable way to find (and replace!) text in your InDesign documents. We’ll cut through acronyms and spoon out alphabet soup — enough to give you a taste of when and how to use GREP in both design and production for accuracy and timesaving.

Topics include:

  • GREP searches vs. GREP styles
  • Foundational constructions
  • Findings big and small
  • Automatic icons, tidy numbers
  • Batch processing, further resources