According to the 5.0.3_Update_ReadMe.pdf, the Navigation Services issues (Mac OS X Leopard) that cause unexpected quits in InDesign are fixed with Apple’s 10.5.4 update: “likelihood that InDesign CS3 will crash when running Leopard 10.5.4″ is “significantly reduced”. The “cmd+h” shortcut issue, that should Hide InDesign is not resolved, but a work-around is provided. Workarounds are also listed for those who continue to experience Nav Services issues after 10.5.4 install.

The ReadMe file further lists the technical problems that have been resolved as part of the 5.0.3 update and earlier updates. If you’re only interested in reviewing resolved issues between 5.0.2 and 5.0.3 update, than look for the following issues in the ReadMe file:

• Documents [1731306] [1695888] [1700420] [1643336] [1659185]
• Export Graphics [1724891] [1732168] [1661862] [1662873] [1638336]
• Import Graphics [1644041] [1651695] [1650786, 1644867]
• Import Text [1749116]
• Layout [1614266] [1811170] [1623701]
• Performance [1747301] [1650771]
• Text [1732224] [1657162] [1708140] [1767073] [1740534] [1722038] [1717899] [1650869] [1640798] [1651698] [1700938]
• UI [1666168]
• Developers (debug update) [1810456] [1733459] [1745419] [1679664] [1700335] [1642976] [1567330]

Web-reference: InDesign 5.0.3 update - for Mac OS (2008, Adobe Systems)

Web-reference: InDesign 5.0.3 update - for Windows (2008, Adobe Systems)

Web-reference: 5.0.3_Update_ReadMe.pdf (2008, Adobe Systems)

Web-reference: About 10.5.4 Update (2008, Apple Inc.)

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

Did I see that right? A total of five menus and about a dozen tools? (more…)

Web-reference: deke Pod (2008, O’Reilly Media Inc.)

Ever wanted to be able to select some artwork in your InDesign document and turn it into an instant PDF? Maybe an ad you’ve created on the page in InDesign that also needs to be used in another publication or submitted to a publisher in PDF format?

Well, you can create a PDF quickly and easily… New Zealand’s, Martinho da Gloria, the developer of the Layout Zone script, has just released another very cool script: Selection To PDF Add-On for Adobe InDesign CS3. (more…)

Web-reference: TechNote (2008, Adobe Systems)

Web-reference: TechNote (2008, Adobe Systems)

Time for organisations to take up the challenge and use Acrobat to its full advantage.  In all honesty what I see in this release is the ability for organisations to take their document workflows a step further, to review their paper based workflows once again, and finally take the plunge into the world of PDF and online collaboration and communication if they’ve not yet done so…

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Anzac Day 2008

The sound issue was relatively easy to fix, by increasing the ‘dB’ for the Audio channel using Adobe After Effects. It was my first play with After Effects, and I’ve also added a small banner at the bottom of the movie

If you’ve not had a play with Acrobat Connect before, Brio will be a nice introduction. Enabling you to collaborate online with up to 3 people. Share your screen, including sound/video connection with a friend. Or use it provide Photoshop support for your father, who happens to live on the other side of the world

Web-reference: Brio beta on Adobe Labs (2008, Adobe Systems)

Illustrator has had a graph tool for as long as I can remember. The following trick shows how you can use Illustrator graphs to create a 3D pie graph for which the graph data can still be edited.

Let’s get started by entering some basic numbers (more…)

I just wish I had broadband2+ and an unlimited bandwidth data transfer volume… Unfortunately living less than 20kms from Perth CBD is no guarantee… and I’m lucky I can get broadband at all  :) as many others in Western Australia are stuck using expensive wireless broadband, due to lack of port-availability in exchanges.

Web-Reference: Adobe TV (2008, Adobe Systems Inc)

Modified 20-Apr-2008 (added Scott C. tip)

The following tip shows how you can create a relatively simple continuous pattern using Illustrator. It’s been sitting on the back-burner for well over a month, but is finally here

(more…)

Modified 23-April-2008 (improved sound quality)
Modified 22-April-2008 (added transcript).

Martinho da Gloria’s Layout Zone script adds two cool features to InDesign CS3. The script was announced via InDesign Secrets earlier this month, and Tim Cole on his Adobe blog, provided excellent instructions on installation and usage of the script.

With this podcast I’m hoping to provide some visual ideas of how useful the script could be in your workflow, using a newspaper layout with lots of ‘layout zones’ as an example. I apologize in advance for the poor sound quality. (more…)

Thanks Iain!  As I said in my comment: Even this veteran InDesign user picked up some tricks during your presentation. (more…)

As someone who used to carry a Dutch passport prior to swapping it for an Australian one over a decade ago, this book triggers more than an interest in fonts. It somehow takes me back to my roots Remembering how whilst attending Rotterdam’s Print Technology Trade College (Grafische School Rotterdam), we had to handdraw typefaces. We learnt about the history of some common international typefaces, serifs, sans-serifs etc. Sadly little was taught in those days on the history of Dutch Type, Jan’s book would certainly fill that gap in my opinion.

Web-reference: Dutch Type (Jan Middendorp, 2004)

During the GREP session at the InDesign Conference in Melbourne late August last year, I demoed the “swapping of first name and surnames” and have been meaning to add a tip on this to my blog for sometime in which we GREP it and then sort the names alphabetically. Last night’s visit to the Brisbane IDUG, incidently my first visit to an Australian IDUG, in which Iain presented a great series of short InDesign tips and tricks reminded me (more…)

 Michael thank you for a fantastic contribution!

web-reference: theInDesigner.com

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.

(more…)

Following that, the services needed to be re-instated, which meant the site was entirely down for about 3-4hrs. My apologies on behalf of my domain host for any inconvenience this might have caused.

All services seem to have been restored now.

Web-reference: InCopy 5.0.2 Update for Mac (2008, Adobe Systems Inc.)

Web-reference: InCopy 5.0.2 Update for PC (2008, Adobe Systems Inc.)

Web-reference: InCopy 5.0.2 Release Notes (2008, Adobe Systems Inc.)

Web-reference: InDesign 5.0.2 Update for Mac (2008, Adobe Systems Inc.)

Web-reference: InDesign 5.0.2 Update for PC (2008, Adobe Systems Inc.)

Web-reference: InDesign 5.0.2 Release Notes (2008, Adobe Systems Inc.)

Ok, not really an extensive tip… more an observation and question - at the end - with some tip elements in it that I thought I’d share.

Pressing the Command (Mac) or Ctrl (Win) key whilst you are working with another tool in InDesign will give you temporary access to either the Selection or Direct Selection tool. (more…)

If you’re not yet an Adobe Certified Expert and are interested in becoming a member of a growing group of Adobe Certified Experts, you can start reviewing this guide, study and sit the exam at any Thomson, Prometric or Pearson VUE centre in your area. (more…)

Web-reference: Terminology (2007, Typophile)

The following tip will take you through Script installation, running scripts, assigning a keyboard shortcut to a script and reviews the sample script “CornerEffects.jsx”. (more…)

John Nack on Adobe (Adobe Blogs) spent a fair bit of time demystifying what’s going on and Adobe has just released a TechNote that explains it all. In a nutshell: Adobe does not spy on you. Myth Busted!

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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.

(more…)

This tip is Part 3 of a three-part tip and generates the masked text. Part 1 describes how the Photoshop artwork is created and Part 2 outlines how to apply Live Trace and maintain colour editing ability. (more…)

This tip is Part 2 of a three-part tip. Part 1 describes how the Photoshop artwork that is placed into the Illustrator file was created and Part 3 will create the Text Effect that will give our finished result. (more…)

A month or so ago I demoed a masking technique that works well with text in Illustrator during an Adobe eSeminar I delivered. At the time I promised to write this technique up as a digitip, however, an extremely busy workschedule meant I’d not yet gotten around to posting the tip. But a promise is a promise. To make up for the delay in posting this tip, I’ve spruced up the tip with Adobe Photoshop CS3 artwork creation, and that’s where I’ll start Part 1 of this three-part tip.

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I hope all’s working well now.

Last week, the InDesign Talk list had an interesting discussion about scaling effects in InDesign.  As far as I can tell from some tests I’ve just run, it is only the Drop Shadow Effect that doesn’t scale. All other effects seem to scale appropriately. (more…)

For those of us setting Ads in InDesign the introduction of the feature that can set Stroke Alignment on border objects to “Align Stroke to Inside” in InDesign CS was welcomed with open arms. Gone were the days of borders vanishing into the Pasteboard gray… (more…)

This one is a major upgrade. Now working with Wordpress and totally database driven content.  Rather than building everything from scratch I’ve done what most Wordpressers do… used an existing Wordpress theme and made my own amendments to it. (more…)

The Adobe Swatch Exchange file (.ase), enables sharing of swatches between InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. Generally people will use these .ase as means of loading entire colour lists in the various applications. However, it is possible to make colour lists saved as .ase files permanently accessible as colour libraries, without the need to load the entire content of the library in your InDesign swatches panel. Let me take you through the “how-to”-steps…. (more…)

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”. (more…)

During the “McHugh, Cohen, Jansen”- final session at the 2007 InDesign InDesign CS3 Conference in Melbourne, I demoed the following paragraph rule trick as method to place a special tint effect behind a heading.. The tip uses both a custom made gradient and stroke style for its colouring. (more…)

As promised yesterday I would upload the actual InDesign document I used for the GREP session. The web-link below will give you access to the InDesign file. Right-click, then Save Target As will enable you to save the file to your computer. (more…)

Someone recently said to me: “I hate the Output Preview in Acrobat”, “If you select the correct similuation profile for CMYK output, it doesn’t show you that your file has RGB images, but just shows you CMYK”.

Well, that might carry a little truth, in that when hovering the mouse over your graphics, the separations read out is CMYK, but you can still display your RGB images… (more…)