Erica Gamet
Forum Replies Created
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It’s not perfect, I know…but it should cut out several steps when jumping around. Glad to help!
Erica Gamet
Digital Dimensions
https://www.digi-wizard.com/learn
“…for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -
When you save as a .tif, you are flattening the file’s transparency, so it won’t come through to InDesign (and will give you the white background). You should be placing native .psd files into InDesign…not TIFFs, anyway. Placing native files will retain any transparency in the Photoshop file.
If you place PDFs in a document, make sure you choose Show Import Options in the Place dialog box and select Transparent Background in the following Place PDF dialog box.
Erica Gamet
Digital Dimensions
https://www.digi-wizard.com/learn
“…for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -
If you use Alt-Page Up (or Page Down…Option instead of Alt on the Mac) you can scroll through the spreads while maintaining the zoom level…instead of having to navigate to the spread, fit in window and jump back. Of course, you can only scroll through the spreads in order, but you can jump directly to the first or the last spread by adding Shift to the combinations above. Hope that helps speed up the monotony some.
Erica Gamet
Digital Dimensions
https://www.digi-wizard.com/learn
“…for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -
If there is room in frame A, then text will flow backwards into that frame. If the text in A is at the end of a paragraph, you can choose to create a break in the text by hitting Enter (if you’re on a Mac…what is that on a PC? Not your regular Enter key, but the one that is on the 10-key?)…that will send the text to the next frame (if you have multiple columns, it will send it to the next column, so you may need to hit Enter again). Keep in mind, if you change the text, you might get reflow and you could end up with text from B getting sent to C. Not the best practice, but it works.
I’m not sure what you mean by “not changing their outline”…let us know.
Erica Gamet
Digital Dimensions
https://www.digi-wizard.com/learn
“…for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -
Use the Attributes palette to see if the object fill is set to overprint. One way to check how overprints will look before going to print is to export to a PDF version 4 (that’s Acrobat 4 or PDF 1.3 — 5,6, and 7 won’t flatten) and choose Simulate Overprint in the Output panel of the export dialog. You should be able to see how your colors will interact with each other. Hope that helps a bit!
Erica Gamet
Digital Dimensions
https://www.digi-wizard.com/learn
“…for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -
Great! Sounds like you’re on your way in InDesign. I definitely think you’ll save some time by making one big file and extracting the individual pages in Acrobat…that way you won’t have to render the file so many times…which includes sending all font and image info each time…ugh. There may be a plug-in for Acrobat that does that…check Adobe’s site and I use a site called thepowerxchange.com. Sounds like you might be in the UK, so maybe there is something local (forgive me if I’m assuming).
If the printer is giving you the PDF settings (should be a .joboptions file) then I wouldn’t really tweak any settings…they have them how they need them…that’s really the point of giving you the settings file.
I am an InDesign trainer myself and I highly recommend the Total Training series DVDs…I have many of them. I think Deke McClelland might be doing them now…he’s a fantastic speaker and very easy to understand. A guy named Steve Holmes used to do them..he’s really good too. Anyway, if you can spare the money they’re a great investment!
Good luck with everything…keep us in mind for your next round of questions. Master pages can be tricky, but let us know if you run into issues.
Erica Gamet
Digital Dimensions
https://www.digi-wizard.com/learn
“…for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -
Hi Simon…welcome to InDesign and Creative Cow!
Your first question: exporting to single page PDFs from a multipage InDesign file. My question is, do you need to have each page as a separate PDF? You can export one page at a time, by choosing the page range (in the Export Adobe PDF dialog, General panel, under Pages, select Range and type in the page #). Each page will be its own separate PDF. I was thinking maybe Acrobat had some way to take a multipage PDF and save it to individual pages…not sure it can, but if so, that would be the quicker way to handle things.
Second question regarding dpi of a PDF: a PDF itself has no resolution…that is to say, a PDF is not 1200 dpi, etc. The individual elements in a PDF each have their own resolution. When you create a PDF from InDesign, you need to set that amount for each type of item. You’ll find that in the Compression panel of the Export Adobe PDF dialog. You’ll set the compression rate to “squeeze out” all the unnecessary resolution for color, greyscale, and monchrome (line art) images. First, choose a compression algorithm (Bicubic Downsampling is great for most applications…high end magazines might be better off with no downsampling) and set a resolution rate (in ppi or pixels per inch). For instance, you might want to use Bicubic downsampling to 300 ppi for images above 300 ppi. The presets that come with InDesign say things like 300 ppi for images above 450…but I don’t see why I’d want to let a 425 ppi image stay at 425, instead of compressing it down to 300…especially if my output device won’t be able to display the extra resolution (or if the press can’t hold it, etc.). Choose a compression format and image quality setting for each.
One way to quickly check the resolution of items in a PDF is to open them in Photoshop. If I know that my document will be ripped at 300 dpi, then I will open the PDF into Photoshop (rasterizing at 300 dpi when I open in PS) and then view a page of the PDF at 100%. If everything looks clear then I know my PDF contains items with enough resolution…if anything’s pixelated, I know I need to replace that particular item.
Well…that was a rather long-winded response…hope it helped some! Good luck!
Erica Gamet
Digital Dimensions
https://www.digi-wizard.com/learn
“…for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -
Here’s how to do it (hard to find this little gem):
This will work with styled or unstyled text. If you want to apply styling that has Next Style applied (say Headline, whose Next Style is Byline and Byline’s Next Style is Body Text), you have to choose all the paragraphs that will be affected…so the text you want to be the headline, the byline and ALL of the body text paragraphs. After selecting all of that, use the contextual menu (Mac: control click and PC: right click) on the FIRST style name in the paragraph style palette (in this case, Headline)…choose Apply “Headline” then Next Style. The changes should ripple through.
If this doesn’t make sense, I’ll re-post when I’m not heading out the door…just wanted to post this while I was thinking about it!
Erica Gamet
Digital Dimensions
https://www.digi-wizard.com/learn -
If I understand correctly (and it’s quite possible I don’t), you want to use Next Style in a paragraph style that you’ve already applied to text…is that correct? For instance, you used a style called Subheading and you did not have a Next Style chosen orginally. Now, after you’ve created type and applied the style, you want the Next Style to be Body Text and you want these changes to cascade wherever you’ve used Subhead. Let me know if I’m on the right track.
I had never thought of trying to go back and make this change ripple throughout styled text. I just tried it and it didn’t work. So, I pulled out my trusty “Real World” tome and of Next Style, it says, “…this feature is intended to be used while you’re typing, not editing or formatting.” I’m guessing it can’t be done…though you never know…it could be available in a plug in or a script.
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A couple of questions, first: are you placing type or copying and pasting? What program and format is the original text in? Are you using CS or CS2 of InDesign? Are you bringing text into a text frame with existing text or will starting each text frame from scratch work for you? Thanks…that should point us in the right direction to solve your issue.