Info & Registration:
http://www.indesignusergroup.com/chapters/perth/events/938/

More and more organisations now-a-days, require that publications are made accessible in accordance with Government guidelines. Accessibility enables those people in the community with visual impairments or other disabilities to have access to the content contained in our publications and to navigate through this content and interact with it.

This meeting will introduce you to the different aspects of accessibility: going from traditional print to Accessible PDF, HTML, Braille in DAISY and ePub.

Flying over from Melbourne for this session is guest-speaker Chandi Perera, CEO of Typefi Systems. Chandi has worked in publishing and media technology industry over 15 years and earlier in the year spoke at the “Tools of Change for Publishing” conference in New York. With his depth of knowledge about publishing technology, content repurposing (XML, XSLT) and InDesign publishing automation, Chandi brings to the publishing industry a wealth of knowledge.

Agenda

• 5:45 – 6:15pm: Registration and meet-and-greet (cold drinks and some food provided)
• 6:15 – 6:20pm: Meeting Welcome
• 6:20 – 7:05pm: Publishing for Accessibility (principles)
• 7:05 – 7:15pm: short break
• 7:15 – 8:00pm: Publishing for Accessibility (in practice)
• 8:00 – 8:30pm: Questions, Prize give-away
• 8:30pm End of meeting

Registration

Attendance to our IDUG meeting is FREE as always. However, seating is limited (90 max), so be sure to register soon!

Register today:
http://www.indesignusergroup.com/chapters/perth/events/938/

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

See the following tips for some AutoFit tutorials:

• one-to-many relationship
• automatic frame resizing
• round corners and text inset

Web-reference: AutoFit plug-in (2009, Typefi Systems)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Web-reference: Typefi AutoFit (2008, Typefi Systems)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

The following tip gives an another example of how the Free Typefi’s Autofit plug-in – downloadable from www.typefi.com can be used with InDesign.  In this tip you’ll learn how to create a one-to-many relationship that results in a background tint with two rounded corners expanding as the parent text frame grows.

Changing height of path issue

One of the problems we have in InDesign is, that when you change the depth of the path below by selecting on one of the bounding box handles, the corners on the path will distort.

Incidently, the path was created using the cornereffects script  (see digitip 067) . In order to work with a similar looking shape that expands, we’d need to chop the shape into three pieces and control the growth of the middle section and the movement of the bottom section with the set-up of AutoFit relationships.

Let’s get started.

Setting the resize behaviour

First of all the text frame must be able to automatically grow as more text runs into the frame.

Select the Text Frame, then in the Typefi AutoFit panel select Resize From Top. An automatic baseline gap is set, if you’ve left some space between the bottom of the last baseline (lower-case x) and the bottom of the frame.

Setting parent-child relationship number one

The first parent-child relationship will cause the bottom shape to reposition itself as the text frame is moved down or grows as a result of more text insert.

Select the AutoFit tool and click the bottom of the text frame, next click the top of the bottom shape. Moving the text frame down results in the bottom frame shrinking… which is not quite what we’re after. To prevent the bottom frame from shrinking we’ll lock in the minimum/maximum frame width/height settings.

To match the current frame width and height settings, click each of the buttons left of the minimum frame width, maximum frame width, minimum frame height and maximum frame height settings in the Typefi AutoFit panel.

Moving the text frame downward now results in the bottom shape moving with it. As a matter of fact, what the parent-child relationship does, is retain the distance between the bottom of the text frame and the top of the bottom frame as a constant value.

Setting parent-child relationship number two

Time to set the second parent-child relationship now. This by the way will create what is referred to as a one-to-many relationship. One parent, with two or more relationships to child objects.

We need to ensure that the middle shape grows as the text frame grows.   Select the AutoFit tool and click teh bottom of the text frame to set the parent control point, then click the bottom of the middle box, to set the child-control point.

Moving the frame down now results in the middle frame growing.

Distribute Spacing

Time to close the gap between the three beige background boxes. With the Selection tool click and drag a marquee around the edge of the three objects.

This will select the three objects, display the Align panel and enable the Use Spacing value and set the value to ‘0‘.  Ensure the Alignment Location option is set to Align to Selection. Note that this feature is not available in InDesign CS2 or earlier.

Click the Distribute vertical space button, to close the gaps between the three selected objects.

Applying text formatting

To automatically apply the text formatting, I’ve created an Object Style called “Liftout”. All this style does is apply the Paragraph Style with Next Style, no other settings are enabled.

After applying the Liftout object style the first paragraph is automatically formatted with the “Heading” paragraph style and the next paragraph is automatically formatted using the “Body Text” style

More relationships

The example above – as mentioned earlier – is a one-to-two relationship. The text frame as the parent has a relationship with two other objects that move/resize as the text frame resizes.

To build on to this you can add more relationships, such as one between the text frame and a line… The video I recorded will show you how to do that

Video Tutorial

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

The following tip gives an another example of how the Free Typefi’s Autofit plug-in – downloadable from www.typefi.com can be used with InDesign.  In this tip you’ll learn how text is run into a Header-Text Frame and a Body Content Text-Frame that are threaded to eachother. As the text is formatted with Paragraph Styles, the Header and Body Content Text Frames automatically grow to fit the header text and to balance the body content across three columns.

Preparing the Paragraph Styles.

Everything starts with good preparation. This tip uses InDesign’s Next Style feature. There are three paragraph styles that will format the text. The first paragraph style “Heading” will format the header text. The second paragraph style “Body Text 1st Para” formats the first paragraph of the body text, and “Body Text” is applied to all remaining paragraphs.

Right-click the “Heading” style in the Paragraph Styles Panel and select Edit Heading… Set the Next Style for “Heading” to “Body Text 1st Para”.

Right-click the “Body Text 1st Para” style in the Paragraph Styles Panel and select Edit Body Text 1st Para… Set the Next Style for “Body Text 1st Para” to “Body Text”.

To ensure the first paragraph of the body text starts in a the Body Content Text Frame we’ve created, set Start Paragraph to “In Next Frame”.

Preparing the Text Frames

Start by drawing the Body Content Text Frame, with the Type Tool.

Access Object > Text Frame Options, and set number of columns, in my example, “3″, and if preferred also set the Vertical Justification.  I like inserting a Paragraph Spacing Limit, that ensures that additional space is inserted between paragraphs prior to it being inserted between the lines of paragraphs (which tends to look like the leading’s been increased).

Click OK to apply the settings. And insert some dummy text (not required).

I’ve inserted more text than fits in the frame I’ve created. From the Typefi AutoFit panel, select the size option Resize From Top, this ensures that as more content is added the frame will retain it’s top “Y”-coordinate (vertical top position), whilst growing downwards. I’m also setting a maximum Height “60p0″. as I want to ensure that the article text stays well within the Page Margins.

Next, draw a second Text Frame for the Header Content.

I’m inserting some dummy text again, as it makes it easier to see what’s going on.

Again, I’m setting this frame to Resize From Top (AutoFit Panel), I’m also applying a small Baseline Gap of 2p0, this ensure that the bottom of the frame extends at least 2p0 from the baseline of the last line of text in the frame.

Position the Header Text Frame at the top of the article. Overlapping the Body Content Text Frame.

Set the Text Wrap to Jump Object. A

Next thread the Header Text Frame with the Body Content Text Frame, by clicking the Out-Port of the Header Text Frame, then clicking the Body Content Text Frame.

Edit > Select All of the dummy text that was helping out until now, and delete this. You can group the two frames together (this makes it easier to move the article around on your page after content has been added).

To group the two frames, click-drag a marquee around them with the Selection Tool, then select Object > Group. We’re now ready try out the AutoFit functionality we’ve added to the two frames.

AutoFit at work

Place your text cursor in the Header Content Frame and start type-setting, or Place some text.

All of the text will sit inside the first frame, and this frame will grow to make the text fit.

Let’s format our text and see what happens next…  Edit > Select All. Right-click the Heading Paragraph style and select “Apply Heading then Next Style”.

Wow, this is cool!  The entire article runs in fully formatted. So what happens if you edit the heading?

Both Text Frames resize!!

Video Tutorial

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

tip 059: Typefi AutoFit and InDesign CS3- Rounded Corners and Text Inset

Web Reference: Typefi AutoFit (2007, Typefi Systems)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

At the InDesign Conference, a gentleman in the audience asked “when I set a text inset for Text Frame, and apply different insets for Top, Left, Right and Bottom, I loose this functionality when I apply a Corner Option to the frame, it turns to Inset”.” Is there anyway around this?” The answer is “Yes, but you’d need to apply a little trick AND use the AutoFit plug-in for InDesign that Typefi Systems has just released”. The plug-in will not cost you a cent and can be downloaded from the Typefi web-site.

The issue

The issue the gentleman at the conference described indeed occurs as soon as a Corner Option is set for a text frame.

The Text Inset under Object > Text Frame Options… changes from Left, Right, Top, Bottom to Inset. In a similar manner to the change you see in Text Wrap options for Offset as soon as the object isn’t a rectangle anymore.

The AutoFit Solution

Start by drawing a rectangle and add the required Rounded Corner Option setting. (Object > Corner Options).

Next create a Text Frame that is almost the same size (just make it a tiny bit less deep). To create the second frame in the same spot you could: Copy the current frame, Edit > Paste in Place, Change the pasted frame to text frame (Object > Content > Text), then Set Object Style to Basic TextFrame (assumes you haven’t amended this setting for your document).

Click the top middle Reference Point and make the frame a bit shorter.

Launch the Typefi AutoFit panel and select the Text Frame. Set the ‘grow’-behaviour for the frame to Resize from Top. This means that when more text is added to the frame, the top of the text frame stays in the same spot and the bottom expands.

We now select the Typefi AutoFit tool from the bottom of the InDesign Toolbox and Set a Parent Child relationship between the bottom of the Text Frame and the bottom of the underlaying Rounded Corners Frame. Click the bottom of the Text Frame, then Click the bottom of the Unassigned Frame with the Rounded corner. A Relationship line appears, and the parent-child relationship is indicated by the black-white markers. Set the Baseline Gap value for the text frame to “0″

This relationship causes the bottom frame to grow when the Text Frame grows as a result of more text input.

The great thing is that you can set your text inset on all four sides as the text frame itself doesn’t have a corner option applied to it. Pretty Cool stuff.

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker