InDesign

Yeah, But Will It Print?

Submitted by colleen on 26 October 2011 - 3:24pm.

Hi, dekeOlytes. So over at lynda.com, there's a free InDesign FX movie every other week from master effecter Mike Rankin. Mike's techniques are very cool, and made from 100% pure InDesign (so they're extra healthy). Thing is, a few people have been asking if Mike's effects will actually survive the printing process. And this week Mike shares this free video that explains why---as long as you're diligent---the answer is yes. I thought I'd share the movie (above) and the post (below) where Mike considered the intricacies and shared his five tips for getting good print results: Read more » 

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The Ingenious Chartwell Font for Making Graphs in InDesign

Submitted by colleen on 25 September 2011 - 12:15am.
Have you ever been disappointed by InDesign's lack of charting features (and really, how hard is it to be disappointed by something that's non-existent)? Over at lynda.com, Anne-Marie Concepción has a solution in this week's free InDesign Secrets episode. (Note: InDesign Secrets is David Blatner and Anne-Marie's bi-weekly series that gives you a free movie on some InDesign insight every week---think Deke's Techniques but with InDesign and slightly more sanity.)
 
The Chartwell font (yes, it's a font, I know!) from the inventive mastermind at TK type makes ingenious use of ligatures in order to turn simple text numbers into bars, lines, and pies.
 
In the movie, Anne-Marie shows you how to start by typing the mathematical equation that represents your chart numbers. You'll turn off InDesign's ligatures at first (seriously, part of the delight comes from having ligatures off, seeing normal text, then watching the magic happen when you turn them back on), then you simply apply variations on the Chartwell font and turn those numbers into corresponding charts when you turn ligatures back on. I'm pretty sure it's magic. It's definitely fun.
 
So, for example, let's say I started with this percentage breakdown, typed into InDesign, set in Chartwell with ligatures turned off, and each of the different values styled in a different color: 
 
 
Looks like normal friendly text, right? But, if I set the Chartwell option to the Pies font style (it's like setting a regular font to Italic or Bold) and turn the Ligatures on, the result is an automatic transformation into a pie chart that's set to those percentages:
 
 
Tip: In the video Anne-Marie explains how to turn your pie chart into the ring chart on the right by adding an alphabetical character to the equation. For the ring on the right, I added a +A to the equation, which is halfway on the a-Z continuum.
 
If I change the font family to Bars, the result is a bar graph:
Read more » 
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Getting Started with InDesign and Illustrator

Submitted by deke on 25 July 2011 - 12:15am.

Over the last 12 months, I've recorded approximately 144 hours of video training on Adobe's CS5 applications. That's 12 courses in all, and enough video to consume 18 days of your life if you did nothing but watch me 8 hours a day. (Please don't do that, however. I don't want to be responsible for the consequences!)

And yet I've covered only Photoshop, Photoshop Extended, and Illustrator. Which means I've ignored InDesign, a program about which I wrote the first book (InDesign for Dummies), recorded the first video course (Total Training for InDesign 1.5), and have unfailingly supported ever since.

Except for CS5. No book, no video. Despite the fact that one-time InDesign product manager, Michael Ninness, dubbed CS5's Track Changes the "Deke and Colleen feature," I still missed it.

Until now! July 7 saw my return to my beloved page-layout program, Up and Running with InDesign. This 2-hour 31-minute video course does just what it promises by getting you up and running with InDesign in the shortest amount of time possible.

Up and Running with InDesign

Here's the official description: Read more » 

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Martini Hour Complete, In Which Colleen Gathers Everything in One Place (with Love)

Submitted by colleen on 22 February 2011 - 10:15am.

My funny dekeIntines. I was wracking my brain at what to get you for Valentine's Day. And then, it hit me: Something I could make with my own two hands and dangerously limited HTML capabilities. Hewn from something I made over the course of two years with my own two hands (one of which was holding a martini glass most of the time). Well, my own two hands, my good buddy Deke, our beloved bandleader Buddy, the Pimm's Quartet, a cadre of special guests, and lots of Photoshoppery. And so here it is, my gift to you, a few days late (if you don't count the several months you were asking for it), and only compiled now that the dekeLounge has been boarded up. Yes, it's Every Martini Hour Episode Ever Made. Along with every graphic ever slaved over. (And don't they look very cool all lined up? Totally worth the inordinate amount of time we spent on them; check it out after the jump.) Over 200 links and pushing the envelope of dekeOnline's 60K character limit for posts. Yes, it's Martini Hour, The Ultimate Collection. 

Martin Hour: Every Episode, Free 24/7

You can click on each overly elaborate graphic to hear the audio of an episode. You can click on the cleverly written SEO-averse title of any episode to go to the original post describing the show (in various degrees of accuracy and comprehensiveness). And you can know that it was worth every ounce of pain to my fingertips to create this gift for you. Check it out, my martini loving dekeHearts. Read more » 

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Martini Hour 096, In Which We Refuse to Jump the Shark

Submitted by colleen on 30 December 2010 - 12:15am.

Just a warning, dekeOlytes, if you're feeling sentimental on this penultimate day of the year, this show starts on a bittersweet note. Yes, as you've no doubt surmised, Martini Hour will be coming to a close with Episode 101. Bottom line, we love this show and are grateful to those who've supported it, but we're not ready to don leather jackets and waterskis at the same time. No, we're going out strong, like when Fonzie really was still cool and had a girlfriend named Pinky Tuscadero. That doesn't make any sense to you, how about this: This week Deke and I conduct a "CS5 Post-Mortem," in which we consider which of the shiny new Creative Suite features were useful, which were not quite so, and which we couldn't live without. By the way, if you found a feature more useful than we did, explain in the comments and there may be "collecter's edition" martini glasses in it for you. 

Martini Hour 096: CS5 Postmortem

Here's a list of new features considered after actually working with them for several months: Read more » 

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