InCopyFlow

InCopyFlow 13: Overlooked Features, Fix for a Gotcha, Call for Beta Testers, more

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

***************************** *** InCopyFlow *** ****************************** Tips and techniques for Adobe InCopy/InDesign Workflow Users In this Issue: -- What I Did on My InCopyFlow Vacation -- 3 Often Overlooked Features in InCopy -- Tight Budget? Get More Out of IC/ID For Less -- A Fix for a Remote Workflow Gotcha -- Looking for Beta Testers! Issue 13, 1/27/09 Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion ... for her InCopy workflow clients, colleagues, and interested subscribers (c) 2009 Seneca Design & Training, Inc. ========================== What I Did on My InCopy Vacation ========================== Astute readers probably noticed that I haven't sent out an InCopyFlow issue in a while .... a loooong while ... but I'm happy to say, I'm back to my monthly schedule! I've received some e-mails from worried subscribers thinking they must have accidentally unsubscribed. No, it's all my fault. The simple truth is that as 2008 progressed, I just became overwhelmed with other projects, and had to sacrifice it to the greater good. It wasn't just InCopyFlow that suffered, but also my other e-zine, DesignGeek, and a few other obligations. (As least you had my sporadic posts to the InCopySecrets.com blog to keep you occupied; the DesignGeekers got nuthin.' But they're back in the game, now, too.) Most of what kept me hopping in the latter half of 2008 was working on Adobe CS4-related projects. I won't bore you with the details, with the exception of the one that's the most relevant to you: I recorded a new Lynda.com video training title on InDesign and InCopy. InCopy CS4 and InDesign CS4 Workflow Essential Training <a href="http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=651">http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=651</a> If you go to that page, you'll see that are about 75 all-new individual video lessons organized into 15 logical chapters, for a total running time of 9 hours. You can see some of the introductory lessons for free (including the What's New in InCopy CS4 video -- highly recommended to you CS3 users out there), but to see the entire title you have to either subscribe to lynda.com (as little as $25 for a one-month subscription) or buy the DVD for $99.00. IC/ID CS4 Workflow Essentials is roughly divided into three sections: An general introduction to the workflow, a bunch of chapters specifically about using the editorial features in InCopy; and then a number of chapters about the back-and-forth between InDesign and InCopy (prepping layouts for InCopy, using assignments, working with remote editors, troubleshooting, and so on.) Since I had the benefit of a year's worth of viewer feedback from my previous IC/ID CS3 Workflow video title (which is still available on lynda.com), I was able to tinker with the outline a bit so I could fit in more information. For example, I added a new chapter, "Advanced Text Editing in InCopy" with lessons that cover footnotes, cross-references, conditional text, tables, and hyperlinks. I was even able to squeeze in a lesson on using the free built-in scripts, a gold mine that very few editors ever discover. If you watch the videos, I'd love to hear what you thought -- good, bad, or what's missing. I can always record more! ========================== 3 Often Overlooked Features in InCopy ========================== One luxurious aspect of recording video tutorials (you heard me, I said luxurious) is that there's plenty of time to talk about all the features I think users should know about. It's such a different experience than doing live InCopy/InDesign training, where time is limited, and I'm keeping an eye on the clock to make sure I cover the material most critical to everyone's success with their first projects. Here are three features that I'm often forced to skip. They're not critical to anyone's success, but they're useful nonetheless. (I console myself with the thought that users really can't appreciate their utility until they have a few InCopy projects under their belt, anyway.) ----- Number One: Rename Stories ----- Any InDesign or InCopy user can rename the stories in the Assignments panel so they make more sense. It's easy: Just check the story out, then click once on its name. The current name becomes selected in an editing box, and whatever you type replaces the selection. For instance, in a feature article, you might want to change the automatic names InDesign used for its stories, "Magazine-Blah," "Magazine-Blahblah," and "Magazine-Blahba" to something more human, like "Headline," "Body," and "Sidebar." Doing so doesn't rename the linked InCopy files on the server, just in the interface, so you don't have to worry about breaking any links. Best of all, through the magic of a little XML file that's created in the background, your new names stick with the file -- whoever opens the document in InDesign or InCopy will see the custom names. And they'll thank you. ----- Number Two: Edit the Toolbars ----- Wouldn't it be nice to have a dropdown list of paragraph styles in a toolbar, a la Microsoft Word? You can make this happen in InCopy (but not in InDesign ... drat!). In InCopy, find the Paragraph Styles panel (it's probably in the dock on the right side of the monitor) and drag its name to any empty area in the top or bottom toolbar. When you see a vertical blue line appear at the left of the empty area, release the mouse button. Done. To convert it back to a floating, dockable panel, drag it out of the toolbar by its handle, a dark grey vertical strip to the left of its section in the toolbar . You can even create a completely new toolbar. Drag a panel name directly under the top toolbar or above the bottom one until you see a long blue horizontal line appear, then release the mouse button. A new toolbar is created and the controls in the panel you were dragging appear within it. Not all panels can become toolbars, but try it with your favorites. It's amazing how much time you can save by placing the controls you use most often in more convenient locations for you. To save the new arrangement, choose Window > Workspace > Save Workspace, and name it. ----- Number Three: View Story and Layout Side-by-Side ---- The three views available to InCopy users -- Galley, Story, and Layout -- are great, but they'd be even more useful if you could see them side-by-side once in a while, instead of flipping between the tabs. You might want to edit copy in Story view, for example, but would like to see how your edits affect the Layout view as you work. You can do that by creating multiple windows for the same document. Start by selecting one of the views you want in the current document window -- let's say Story, for this example. Now, go to the Window menu and choose Arrange > New Window. You'll see a duplicate window appear in the same View mode as the original window. It's important to note that you're not duplicating any files here, you're just opening up more views of the same file. Whatever you do in one window is replicated in the other window, and in the single document both are showing you. The new window has the same View mode active as the other one, so switch its view to Layout. Also, the window is overlapping the original one, so choose Window > Arrange > Tile Vertically. InCopy resizes both windows so they fit completely on your monitor, side-by-side. Now, as you edit text in one window (in Story view), your edits are immediately reflected in the other window (in Layout view). You may need to click in the other window occasionally to see a cleaner view of your changes, the screen redraw can get a little wonky. There is one limitation to this method: The windows don't scroll concurrently. (That's actually a feature, not a bug -- it means you can edit a story in one window and see how it affects the jump in the other window in real time.) For same-page edits, this method works great, but if you're moving around the document in one window and want the other window to keep up, you'll have to manually scroll it into position. ========================== Get More Out of IC/ID For Less ========================== In these scary financial times, especially for publishing, it's easy to forget that the people who actually write and design the publications you sell are revenue producers, not expenses. They deserve to be supported in any way possible, because without them, you wouldn't have a product. (Can I get a witness? Heh. I thought so, with this crowd.) Luckily, your department had the forethought to move to an InCopy and InDesign workflow, which is undoubtedly saving the company time and money, sometimes quite a bit. And if the guy or gal who pushed everyone to move to the workflow is still around, go over there and give them a pat on the back for contributing to your job security. That said, there's always room for improvement. I've yet to encounter a designer, writer, or editor who's solved every InDesign/InCopy glitch, come up with a workaround for every missing feature, accomplished tasks in the most efficient way, or is adept at eking out the value of every function the workflow have to offer. If that sounds like you and your revenue-producing colleagues, consider scheduling a short, targeted "Advanced InCopy Workflow" (or "Troubleshooting InDesign and InCopy," etc.) online training session with me. You can check off "staff development" from your to-do list and solve a lot of pesky production problems at the same time. There's no travel involved, and keeping the session short -- say, two hours -- means it's easier to schedule and keep everyone engaged. We meet in Seneca's online screen-sharing classroom while on a conference call, so all that students need is a web browser and phone. They take the class right at their desk and can ask questions, send me sample files, and so on. With limited training budgets, a lot of our clients have opted for this lower cost approach to learning the workflow, so over the past few months we've been able to iron out most wrinkles with the technology. I think it's especially useful for those groups who've been using the workflow for awhile, because it's only after you've done a few projects that you know the questions you should have asked at the start! Hmmmm .... this is sounding like an advertorial, isn't it? LOL. I guess I just wanted to acknowledge the financial situation many publishers are facing, and offer at least one way for you to fully reap the benefits of your investment without breaking the bank. If you'd like more information on what could be covered in a session or an informal quote, please contact me or my training coordinator, Sherri Austin (<a href="mailto:sherri@senecadesign.com">sherri@senecadesign.com</a>), or give us a ring at 312-946-1100. And now, back to the tips. ========================== A Fix for a Remote Workflow Gotcha ========================== Periodically I receive support e-mails from clients who are having some trouble with the e-mail-based Assignments feature ("Package for InCopy") when they work with off-site editors. The first round goes fine: The designer sends an assignment package to editor, the editor opens it, edits it, and returns an InDesign package to the designer, who opens it and updates the layout with the editor's changes. The problem some users report is what happens if they need to do a "round 2" of the remote workflow. After updating the layout, the designer makes some design-related changes, and then sends out another package of the same assignment to the same editor. Now, normally, the software handles this with aplomb. When InCopy opens the second package and unpacks it to the user's InCopy Assignments folder (in My Documents on Windows, or the Documents folder on Macs), it finds the original assignment's files and updates them with the contents of the new version. This is all done silently, behind the scenes. All the editor sees is a new version of the assignment opening in InCopy. But other times -- perhaps due to different time zones, or maybe sun spots or karma, I haven't figured it out -- InCopy gets confused. After it opens the INCP file, but before it unpacks anything, it puts up an alert asking if the user wants to make the older version of the assignment the current one. And something about "losing your edits." Whaaa? If you're an editor and you see this alert and you can't figure out what to do, just click the Cancel button so nothing gets unpacked or replaced. Ask your designer to cancel the package on their end and send you a new one with a renamed assignment. To cancel a package in InDesign, open the layout with the packaged assignment (identified by its cute little package icon). Select it in the Assignments panel and then choose Cancel Package from the Assignment panel menu. That converts it back to a regular assignment and makes the stories available again. At this point, you as the InDesign user should *rename the assignment* in the Assignments panel. You don't have to check anything out. Just click once directly on the assignment name in the panel to edit the name in place, or double-click it to edit the name in the Assignment Options dialog box. My suggestion is to simply append a "v2" to the existing name. Now select the renamed assignment and choose the Package for InCopy command again. When the editor receives the new package, InCopy will see the new assignment name, and so it will unpack it into a completely new folder named for the assignment in their InCopy Assignments folder. It sees no conflict with any existing assignment folder in there and so there's no need for it to put up an alert. ========================== Looking for Beta Testers! ========================== For the past few months I've been working with some whiz-bang InDesign and InCopy plug-in developers to come up with solutions for frequently-requested features, specifically for InCopy/InDesign users who are using the "commando" workflow (straight off the shelf, no third-party systems like K4 or SmartConnection) . One of these solutions that I'm really excited about is a versioning plug-in. It allows InCopy users to save versions of stories, with optional comments, and roll back to them if necessary.There's no need for Version Cue as the versioning is completely self-contained in the plug-in. The plug-in is ready for early testing by end users. Anyone out there interested? We need some feedback. At this point, the software only works on Macs running InCopy CS3. Once we get features in place, we'll do a Windows version and also make them available for CS4 users. So if you're a Mac user with InCopy CS3 and you'd like to check out this new plug-in, please email me at <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> with the phrase IC BETA TESTER in the subject line and I'll send you the details. As is usual with beta programs, active participants will receive a free copy of the software when it's released. If you're on Windows but would like to participate in the beta at a future point (or want information on what else we've got cooking), let me know that too! *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* GET UP TO SPEED WITH INCOPY AND INDESIGN Do you like what you read in InCopyFlow? Find anything useful? Bring me or any of my hand-picked Associate Geeks in for a session or two of hands-on training for your workgroup; here in Chicago or any other city near an airport, and you can have this level of expertise all to yourself. Or, save money and time by scheduling a remote, web-based training session; it works great and there's no travel expenses. All training comes with three years of 24/7 follow-up support for each student by phone or e-mail. To learn more, or hear what other clients have to say, contact us or fill out the no-obligation "Request a Training Quote' form on Seneca's site: <a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html">http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html</a> Recent InCopy/InDesign workflow training clients in Chicago and parts beyond include the Thompson Publishing Group (regulatory manuals); PricewaterhouseCoopers (collateral); American Bar Association (journals); Exhibitor Magazine (magazines and collateral); Sheshunoff (compliance manuals); and Scranton Gillette Communications (magazines). *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* ============================================= InCopyFlow is a free publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a design studio owner, software trainer and publishing consultant based in Chicago, with clients around the country. She's an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in InDesign and InCopy and an independent Adobe Certified Instructor specializing in helping workgroups master the InDesign/InCopy workflow. Anne-Marie owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. (<a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/">http://www.senecadesign.com/</a>) and runs the InCopySecrets.com blog, as well as co-hosting the InDesignSecrets.com blog and podcast. Don't hog this all to yourself! Pass it on to your hard-working colleagues so they can learn some tips too, they'll thank you for it. This part is for them: To learn more about the InCopyFlow e-zine, go to its home on the InCopySecrets.com blog: <a href="http://incopysecrets.com/incopyflow">http://incopysecrets.com/incopyflow</a> The link to the subscription form is at the bottom of the page, or you can jump to the subscription form directly: <a href="http://list-manage.com/subscribe.phtml?id=65510b5a96">http://list-manage.com/subscribe.phtml?id=65510b5a96</a> Anything you include in the form is kept confidentially by us and is never shared with third parties. To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page. Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at <a href="mailto:info@senecadesign.com">info@senecadesign.com</a> Copyright 2009 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in InCopyFlow may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. =============================================

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InCopyFlow 11: Layout Templates; Diacritics Script

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:37:00 GMT

***************************** *** InCopyFlow *** ****************************** Tips and techniques for Adobe InCopy/InDesign Workflow Users In this Issue: -- Working with Layout Templates -- Add Any Diacritic Easily Issue 11, 3/11/08 Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion ... for her InCopy workflow clients, colleagues, and interested subscribers (c) 2008 Seneca Design & Training, Inc. ========================== Working with Layout Templates ========================== Is there some sort of efficiency virus going around? Over the past few weeks I've received a slew of phone calls and e-mails from IC/ID users of every stripe asking for help with the same thing: setting up template-based InCopy/InDesign workflows. Here's an example, from an art director who e-mailed me last month: "I want to make several templates of pages, with, e.g. 3 news and 2 photos, 4 news and 1 photo, 6 news, and so on; so the editors can choose the template they need, edit it and send it to me telling me that this should be page number 13 (for example)." So we're not talking about InCopy templates -- .inct files -- which allow editors to "write ahead" one story at a time. Users want the whole shebang. They want to give the editors layout templates, with placeholder frames for the all the elements (stories, .incx files) in an article. The thinking is that an editor could open this layout template, save it with a new name, fill in the empty frames with new copy, and turn it over to the designer, who would copy over the finished pages (or place the.incx files of the individual stories) to the InDesign file when they get to it. InCopy users could open that same template over and over for subsequent uses, each time filling it in with new copy for different pages or issues of the publication. That would be great, but there are some fundamental limitations in InCopy that prevent this from working as most people hope. Even the third-party publishing systems that run on top of InCopy and InDesign need to use proprietary file formats to achieve the same goal. Let's get the fundamentals out of the way so we can figure out a workaround. ----- InCopy and Templates ----- Did you ever wonder why InCopy's Save command under the File menu says "Save Content" instead of the usual "Save"? It's because InCopy can only save InCopy stories -- .incx files -- that are contained in a layout's frames. When you're working with InCopy in a layout or assignment and have made edits to a story you've checked out, it may "feel" like you're editing the layout or assignment, but you're not. You've actually editing the content of the external .incx file that is linked to the active frame, the one you're editing. Look in your Links panel (Window > Links) and you'll see the name of the .incx file you're actually working on is highlighted. The program can't make a dent in an .indd (layout) or .inca (assignment) file itself. As far as it's concerned, the layout or assignment is just a portal" to the linked story files -- it allows you to edit .incx files through the .indd or .inca window. We're clear on that now, yes? Let's return to the issue at hand: Can we create a layout template for InCopy users? Since InDesign templates (.indt files) open as untitled InDesign (.indd) documents that need to be saved, they're not in InCopy's repertoire, and in fact are greyed out (unavailable) in InCopy's File > Open dialog box. That's strike one for the InCopy layout template idea. And there is no way for an InDesign user to create a template of an assignment file; the file format simply doesn't exist -- strike two. Strike three is the fact that InDesign cannot import native InCopy template files (.inct); so you can't create a layout or an assignment with template placeholder stories. Argh! The game is not over, however. For example, InCopy templates (.inct files) may work just fine for at least some of your "pre-layout" content needs. Just create a new standalone InCopy document (File > New), set it up for a particular type of story, and choose InCopy Template (.inct) as the format in the File > Save As dialog box. Opening an InCopy template file (.inct) in InCopy creates an copy of it as an untitled .incx file. Now, when you choose File > Save Content, InCopy actually saves the entire document as an external .incx file. You can name it and save it where ever you like. When they're ready for it, designers place the .incx file into a layout just as though it was (were? help me out here, editors) a Word document. While you can't save page layout geometry in an .inct file, you can include boilerplate text, and set a default column width that matches the column width into which the story will ultimately be placed. You can even choose a target word count or column inch count for preliminary copyfitting. Most importantly, the InCopy template can include all the text and table styles the writer might want to use. With the template document open, choose Load Styles from any Styles panel menu and select an InDesign or InCopy file that has the styles you want to import. When files created from that template are placed into an InDesign layout, styles are retained. ----- Consider Layout Shells ----- Handy as they are, standalone InCopy templates are nonetheless quite limiting -- you can't even specify the number of columns the lone text frame should have. When editors need an honest-to-goodness layout template, then the designers have to create layout *shells* for them. A layout shell is what I call an InDesign (.indd) layout file created just for editorial layout template purposes, not for publication. It's a small file with placeholder text frames linked to one or more external .incx files, which start out devoid of content. A magazine article layout shell might contain empty InCopy frames for the title, the captions, the body copy, the pull quotes, and the sidebar; arranged in a generic fashion for that magazine but equipped with the correct column widths for each element and maybe a stand-in image around which the body copy wraps. A newspaper reporter's shell might be just one page long but contain a frame for the headline and a 6-column body text frame underneath, pre-set to use the right paragraph styles. A writer or editor opens the shell layout -- the .indd file -- in InCopy and checks out the stories to write copy from scratch, or to place text from Word files. It doesn't matter if the actual publication is ready for their stories or not. After the InCopy user has checked in the stories and closed the shell file, the designer places those now-full .incx files into the actual layout, whenever it's ready to be produced, and they should get a close fit. Further editorial work on the same stories is done in the usual collaborative workflow fashion, with the editors opening up the live layout or assignments created from it. The "shell" layout left behind can be deleted at any time. It's the stories, the .incx files, that matter. ----- Shell Creation and Management ----- To create the shell layouts, the designer creates an InDesign document for each page type (or article type, or section type) he wants to make a layout shell for, using empty placeholder frames for text or images the editors will fill in later. These should be "normal" InDesign frames, not yet exported to InCopy format. He can include other artwork or text, such as folios and rules, that aren't necessarily editable. For easy re-use, he saves the file as an InDesign template (.indt) and closes the file. Then he turns the template into an InCopy layout shell by re-opening it in InDesign (which creates an untitled copy of the file), saving it as a layout file with some sort of generic name in its own folder on the server. Finally, he exports the placeholder frames to InCopy format as usual: In CS3 you can just drag and drop the frames onto the Unassigned Content entry in the Assignments panel, otherwise choose one of the Edit > InCopy > Export commands. If he needs 10 copies of a basic one-page shell, enough to tide a busy editor over for awhile, the designer will have to do this 10 times; opening the template in InDesign, saving as into a new folder, and re-exporting the frames to InCopy each time. Or he can .zip the folder of the first completed shell (layout with linked .incx files), duplicate the .zip file a bunch of times, then unzip (expand) each one on the server. There are other solutions for duplicating a layout with linked InCopy files, which I covered in InCopyFlow #07 (<a href="http://tinyurl.com/2f3d44">http://tinyurl.com/2f3d44</a>). I know it's tempting, but don't create an InDesign template with its frames already exported to InCopy in order to save a bunch of steps. That will not work.You'll find that as you open the template in InDesign and Save As over and over, you create multiple InDesign docs linked to the same exact stories. It would be the same as creating a template with a placed image. Every time you save a copy of the template as an .indd file, the .indd files are linked to the same external image file. Since you're exporting frames to .incx format anew each time you create a layout shell, you're going to end up with a lot of .incx files. If your one-page template had three stories, and you make ten shell layouts, you'll end up with 30 .incx files; each folder containing one .indd file and its three linked .incx files. Hey, it was going to end up as 30 .incx files at some point anyway, right? Might as well generate them now. What about naming these files? Since every company and workflow is different, I don't have any specific advice, other than recommending you come up with a plan -- you have to be able to tell which shells the editors have "completed," at least. Perhaps the designers, as they create them, could name the shell layous and exported .incx files for the publications they will belong to, and as they complete them, the editors could move the entire shell folder into a special "ready for layout" location on the server. Or, if you need the shells to be more generically named (article1.indd, article2.indd), the InCopy users could manually rename the .indd file in Windows Explorer or the Finder before they open them (June08Acmefeature.indd, July08BehindTheScenes.indd). Upon completion, having the editors rename the linked story files themselves (from story1.incx and story2.incx to pg13-head.incx and pg13-body.incx, and so on) and moving them to a "Ready for Layout" folder in the Finder or Explorer is also an option, if you don't care that doing so breaks the links in the shell file. Again, you might not care because after placing the stories into the live layout, no one will ever open that shell file again. ----- Assignment Shells? ----- I'm assuming everyone knows that InCopy can open InDesign layout (.indd) files just as easily as Assignment (.inca) files, since I've said it a bazillion times in InCopyFlow. The shell files I've been talking about are small ones meant for a single editorial user, thus I don't see a need to go the extra step of creating an assignment file from it. Just make shell .indd files with linked stories, and have the editors open the .indd files, checking out the stories they contain to edit them, as usual. The only reason to create a shell assignment would be if an InCopy user needed to open a layout template remotely, off-network. The remote workflow feature in CS3 requires that you start with an Assignment (.inca) file. So, follow all the steps I've outlined above, but instead of dragging the shell's frames to the Unassigned Content entry, the designer should drag and drop them onto the New Assignment icon at the bottom of the Assignments panel. This both creates the Assignment file and exports the frames to InCopy format in one step, Then select the Assignment name in the Assignments panel and choose one of the Package for Remote commands from the panel menu. If you need to create 10 .incp (InCopy assignment package) shells of the same layout, follow the same instructions as above: Create the InDesign template with normal placeholder frames. Then open the template in InDesign, save it with a generic name in its own folder, and only *then* create your assignment and package it. Rinse and repeat another nine times, each time varying the name of the assignment slightly. I wouldn't attempt any of the "duplicate the shell" methods, as assignment packages are more tricky -- they're internally linked to the layout file that created them, and so opening the .indp (InDesign assignment package) files the editors return could result in stories overwriting themselves. ========================== Add Any Diacritic Easily ========================== Last month I was in New Mexico, teaching the InCopy/InDesign workflow to about 30 newspaper editors and designers, all on PCs. They were thrilled with the Glyphs panel (Text > Glyphs) because it's such a pain in Windows to enter special characters, especially funky letter/diacritic combinations. However, some of the letter/diacritic pairs they needed to occasionally insert in their stories weren't available in their body typeface. I showed them how they could enter the letter first, then the diacritic alone, then kern them in tightly so the cedilla or caron or macron was centered over/under the letter. They appreciated the workaround but it wasn't ideal. When I returned home I did some investigating, and found the perfect free script for them. "Compose.jsx" is a biplatform Javascript that works in both InDesign and InCopy. Developer Peter Kahrel created a clever little interface that allows the user to enter easily-remembered mnemonics for any letter/diacritic combination. If the glyph exists in the font, the script inserts it automatically (no need to hunt for it in the Glyphs panel). If it doesn't exist, the script automatically does the kerning workaround, perfectly. It's phenomenal! I sent my client a link to the script, and wrote about the script itself (with screen shots) on my blog, InDesignSecrets.com. Rather than reprise the whole article, let me just urge you to read it for yourself. A link to download the InDesign or InCopy version of the script appears at the end of the story: Easy Diacritics and Other Tough Glyphs <a href="http://indesignsecrets.com/easy-diacritics-and-other-tough-glyphs.php">http://indesignsecrets.com/easy-diacritics-and-other-tough-glyphs.php</a> *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* GET UP TO SPEED WITH INCOPY AND INDESIGN Do you like what you read in InCopyFlow? Find anything useful? Bring me or any of my hand-picked Associate Geeks in for a session or two of hands-on training for your workgroup; here in Chicago or any other city near an airport, and you can have this level of expertise all to yourself. Or, consider scheduling a remote, web-based training session; it works great and there's no travel expenses. All training comes with three years of 24/7 follow-up support for each student by phone or e-mail. To learn more, or hear what other clients have to say, contact us or fill out the no-obligation "Request a Training Quote' form on Seneca's site: <a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html">http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html</a> Recent InCopy/InDesign workflow training clients in Chicago and parts beyond include the College of Lake County (magazine); the Albuquerque Journal (newspaper); New England Business Media (magazines); Kaplan Financial (study guides); 22nd Century Media (newspapers); Bobit Business Media (magazines); and the American Library Association (magazines). *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* ============================================= InCopyFlow is a free publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a design studio owner, software trainer and publishing consultant. She's an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in InDesign and InCopy and an independent Adobe Certified Instructor specializing in helping workgroups master the InDesign/InCopy workflow. Anne-Marie owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (<a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/">http://www.senecadesign.com/</a>). Don't hog this all to yourself! Pass it on to your hard-working colleagues so they can learn some tips too, they'll thank you for it. This part is for them: To subscribe to InCopyFlow, send an e-mail to me at <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> with "Subscribe InCopyFlow" in the Subject line. You don't have to include anything in the body area of the message, but if you don't mind, I'd love to know your company, title and city/state, and anything else you'd like to add. Anything you send is kept confidentially by us and is never shared with third parties. To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page. Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at <a href="mailto:info@senecadesign.com">info@senecadesign.com</a> Copyright 2008 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in InCopyFlow may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. =============================================

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InCopyFlow 09/10: Fast Styling, Indents, New Workflow Paper

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:12:00 GMT

***************************** *** InCopyFlow *** ****************************** Tips and techniques for Adobe InCopy/InDesign Workflow Users In this Issue: -- Fastest Way to Apply Styles -- Style That Apply Themselves -- Paragraph Indents in Galley/Story -- My InCopy CS3 Workflow White Paper Issue 9/10, 1/7/08 Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion ... for her InCopy workflow clients, colleagues, and interested subscribers (c) 2008 Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Note to readers: Due to a problem with my mail server, I missed sending out a December issue. So I've combined the content from December and January and am sending it all out at once. If you're a new subscriber, InCopyFlow issues are usually *not* this long, so don't get spoiled! ;-) -- AM ========================== Fastest Way to Apply Styles ========================== I was watching an editor format a story in InCopy the other day. While I was happy to see he was using the Paragraph Styles his designers included in the layout (as opposed to manually formatting text with commands in the Character and Paragraph panels), it was painful to see how much mousing and clicking he was doing for each style he applied. He would drag over a paragraph's worth of text to select it ... mouse over to the far right edge of his monitor to reveal the Paragraph Styles panel ... scroll through the list of styles and click on the one he wanted ... one paragraph done. Move back to the text. Drag-select another paragraph. Go back to the panel ... After a minute or so my teeth were ground down to nubs and I couldn't take it anymore. I gently inquired if I could show him a few alternative ways to apply styles that would be faster and put less of a strain on his poor mousing arm. "Well, okay, if you in--" he was saying as I shoved him over and scooted my chair up to his computer. ----- Fast Styling ----- First, let's see what you've got to work with. Look inside your Paragraph Styles and Character Styles panels. You may or may not have any character styles available -- it depends on how the designer constructed the file -- but you will almost always have a few paragraph styles in addiiton to the default Basic Paragraph. If you need more, you'll have to ask the design team -- remember, InCopy users can't add or modify styles in a layout or assignment. I covered this in issue 5: Dueling Styles: InCopy vs. InDesign <a href="http://tinyurl.com/yojeva">http://tinyurl.com/yojeva</a> If the designer included character styles (such as Bold Lead-in or Price), always apply the appropriate paragraph style first, then go back and apply character styles to the instances of text that needs it. Why? Because often, a character style doesn't contain complete formatting instructions, it just changes one or two attributes -- it turns text red and makes it bold, for example, but doesn't change the typeface. By applying a character style to text already formatted with a paragraph style, you should see the final formatting you expect. You do not have to select an entire paragraph to apply a paragraph style or formatting choice from the Paragraph panel; your blinking cursor inside the paragraph is sufficient for the program to know which one to format. (With character styles and local character formatting, though, you do have to select the text first.) If you want to apply the same paragraph style to more than one contiguous paragraph, drag-select some text in all the paragraphs first, then choose a style in the panel. One click, multiple paragraphs formatted. When faced with the task of formatting a long, text-only story that needs a mix of styles applied, begin by selecting all the text (Edit > Select All, or Control/Command-A) and then applying the paragraph style that's used by most of the story's paragraphs, perhaps "Body". This is the smartest way to work even if the story will eventually require five or ten different styles, because all you need to do now is click in the paragraphs that *shouldn't* have that style and apply the right one. (The day I learned that the fastest way to format a Q&A article was to select all the text, apply the "Question" style; then go back and apply the "Answer" style to every other paragraph was a happy day.) If you're going to be doing a lot of text formatting, relocate the relevant panels where they're convenient to reach. Detach the Paragraph Styles panel, for example, from its docked position by dragging its title bar or tab name to the middle of your screen, next to the column of text you're working on, and release the mouse. Ta-da, a floating panel that requires a flick of the wrist to reach, as opposed to moving the mouse a half a foot each time. ----- Faster Styling ----- Did you know it's possible to use custom keyboard shortcuts to apply paragraph and character styles? That way, as you're editing text, you can quickly tap the keyboard shortcut for Body or Subhead or whatever, and bam, the paragraph is styled. The problem is that only the InDesign user can add keyboard shortcuts to styles, since the field is inside the Style Options dialog box . So if you're in InCopy and you're not seeing keyboard shortcuts next to the style names in the panels, ask the design team if they can add some. If you ask nicely and bring them donuts, the next time you open the assignment or layout (or choose File > Update Design) you should see the shortcuts appear in your Paragraph Styles and Character Styles panels. By the way, keyboard shortcuts for styles are cross-platform. If the designers assign Option-Num5 to the Body style on their Macs, it appears in Windows InCopy as Alt-Num5. Many local formatting commands have built-in keyboard shortcuts, like Command/Control-Shift-B to make text bold and Option/Alt-Left/Right Arrow to track type in or out. You can find a list of these in the Help file (Help > InCopy Help). Select the entry "Keyboard Shortcuts" toward the bottom of the Help Contents and click the subcategory links for Keys for Working with Type and Keys for Working with Text to see them. ----- Fastest Styling ----- Alas, there is no Format Painter tool in InCopy as there is in Microsoft Word. But we do have something that comes close, and is actually much more flexible: Quick Apply. It's available in CS2 and CS3, and requires just one keyboard shortcut to invoke: Control-Enter (Command-Return on a Mac). Pressing that shortcut (or choosing Edit > Quick Apply) opens up the little-known Quick Apply window, which lists all styles available in the document. No need to mouse over to the window, just enter a few characters from the style's name that you want to apply, and Quick Apply immediately filters the list of styles down to the ones that have those characters. As soon as you enter enough characters (or a unique string, like "h1" if you want "Header - Level 1") to distinguish that style from the others, it will be the only one in the Quick Apply list. Too much work to filter it down? Just enter enough characters so the list filters down to a handful of matches, then use your arrow keys to highlight the one style you want. Now press the Enter/Return key. The Quick Apply window goes away and the style you chose in its window is immediately applied to the paragraph or selection. Once you've applied a style from Quick Apply, it's easy to apply that same style again elsewhere in the story. Move your Type cursor to the next bit of text you want to format, press Control-Enter to open Quick Apply, and press Enter again to close it. (That's Command-Return, Return on a Mac). You don't need to see what's inside the Quick Apply window -- it remembers the last style selected and applies it to the new text. In CS3, Quick Apply includes not just styles, but all menu commands and scripts, which can be quite handy. However, if you're mainly concerned with styles, you might want to turn those off so the list of matches isn't overwhelming. You can do that by opening Quick Apply, revealing its categories pop-up menu (a little triangle to the left of the search field in the Quick Apply window) and unchecking the "Include:" categories you don't want Quick Apply to worry its pretty little head about. ========================== Styles that Apply Themselves ========================== Ideally, we could have the computer figure out which styles go where and have InCopy apply them on its own. We could just say "Computer, format text" (maybe speaking into the mouse as though it were a microphone, like Scotty did in that Star Trek movie) and go on to the next task. Wouldn't that be nice? Listen to Scotty's "Hello, computer!": <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2us2v6">http://tinyurl.com/2us2v6</a> You can get close to that functionality, actually, if your publication's styles use two advanced InDesign features, Nested Styles and Next Styles. They work exactly the same in both InDesign and InCopy, but again, can only be added to a publication's styles from within InDesign because the controls appear in the Paragraph Style Options dialog box. (On the other hand, If you're working with a standalone InCopy document, you have full access to this dialog box and can create them yourself.) ----- Nested Styles ----- A nested style is a pre-defined character style that is "embedded" into a paragraph style's definition. The program automatically applies the nested character style to some of the text in a paragraph whenever the so-configured paragraph style is applied to it. One or more nested styles can be included in a given paragraph style, saving at least two or three steps every time you apply the paragraph style. Let's say you have a paragraph style called Body-First that gets applied to the first paragraph in a story. This paragraph has no first-line indent; instead, the first three words should be bold and all caps. Normally, you apply the Body-First style to the paragraph, then select the first three words, open the Character Styles panel, and click BoldCaps-LeadIn to format them. Instead, in Body-First's style options, you can specify that the first three words should be formatted with the BoldCaps-LeadIn style. From then on, applying the Body-First style to a paragraph automatically applies not just the paragraph style, but also the specified character style to the lead-in phrase without you having to select the words or click on the character style. Magic! Because they can be chained and looped, nested styles can do all sorts of automatic formatting for you. If you find yourself having to apply the same character style over and over, consult with your designers and the online help documents to see if you can use them for your publication. ----- Next Style ----- By default, "Same Style" is set up as the Next Style for every new paragraph style. You know this intuitively already -- when you hit Return/Enter to start a new paragraph, the new text has the same paragraph style as the previous paragraph. But in the Style Options dialog box for Body-First, for example, the designer could specify that the Next Style should be (the plain) Body instead of the same Body-First style. That way the paragraph style will automatically switch to the correct one as soon as you start a new paragraph. Similarly, specifying Body as the next style for Subhead, or Answer as the next style for Question (and vice versa) allows InCopy to automatically switch to the correct paragraph style as you start new paragraphs in the story you're writing. What if the story's already written, but unformatted? Clicking inside the first paragraph and choosing Body-First from the Paragraph Styles panel applies that style to the paragraph, but won't automatically apply Body-First's Next Style to the subsequent paragraphs. To use the Next Styles feature on existing text, you have to employ a slightly different technique. Make a text selection that starts with at least some of the text in the first paragraph (the one you want to apply the "starting" style to -- Body-First in our example) and includes additional, subsequent paragraphs that should be formatted with the Next Style feature. Then right-click on the starting style's name in the Paragraph Style panel and choose the command "Apply Body-First then Next Style." The "Apply [this style] then Next Style" command *only* appears in the context menu when you've made a text selection that includes text from two or more paragraphs, so be sure and do that first. While the Nested Styles and Next Styles features are unrelated, they can of course work together. Imagine being able to select all the text in a story, choosing Apply Body-First and then Next Style, and then, "Hello, computer!" all the text is formatted with the correct paragraph styles and character styles. Sweet ... and definitely possible. ========================== Paragraph Indents in Galley/Story ========================== You can identify paragraph starts and ends in Galley/Story view by turning on Hidden Characters so you can see the non-printing characters like paragraph symbols, tab chevrons and spacebar dots within the text. Any line ending with a paragraph symbol is the end of that paragraph. To turn on Hidden Characters, click the pilcrow -- the paragraph symbol -- in the Command toolbar or choose Show Hidden Characters from the Type menu. But, since the hidden characters are always the same color as the text (with a slightly lighter shade), long stories sometimes appear as huge blobs of undifferentiated text. Having more control over how much paragraph formatting Story/Galley can show is in my top five feature requests for the next version of InCopy. Take paragraph indents, for example. I think it'd be easier to identify paragraphs in a long article in Galley/Story if the first line of every paragraph had the same indent as they have in Layout view. (Or if they don't have a first-line indent, then Galley/Story would show the space above/below the paragraph.) In the meantime, though, there's a little-known feature in CS2 and CS3 that helps to *visually* indent the first line of every paragraph in Galley/Story. It doesn't affect formatting -- the lines aren't actually indented in Layout view -- it's just for visual navigation. Go to the View menu and choose Show Paragraph Break Marks. Nothing changes in Layout view, but in Galley/Story, you'll see a new special character indenting the first line of every paragraph, even if the paragraph has no actual first-line indent. The special character looks like a double-right chevron and pushes the first line in approximately 2 em's worth of space. The next time you're in InCopy, give it a try. I think you might like it. ========================== My InCopy CS3 Workflow White Paper ========================== Last fall, one of my favorite clients -- Adobe Systems themselves, woo-hoo! -- hired me to write up their official InCopy CS3 Workflow white paper. You're probably familiar with an earlier version (like CS or CS2) of this white paper. It's the PDF document prospective users download from the main InCopy product page on the Adobe.com web site to get an idea of how the workflow works. InCopy Product Page <a href="http://adobe.com/products/incopy">http://adobe.com/products/incopy</a> Direct link to the white paper (5MB) <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/incopy/pdfs/incopy_cs3_workflow.pdf">http://www.adobe.com/products/incopy/pdfs/incopy_cs3_workflow.pdf</a> You can see at the web page that the official title of the PDF is "The Collaborative Editorial Workflow using Adobe InCopy CS3 and InDesign CS3." They were paying me by the word so I was as verbose as possible ... heh. I'm kidding, Adobe, just kidding! Actually our aim was to *reduce* the jargon and verbosity, and make the workflow as clear as possible for users. Of course, it's just an overview, so I had to continually cut, cut, and cut some more so as not to overwhelm the newbies. ;-) But I am quite happy with the end result. There are many more screen shots of actual projects (from a "real" publication, not one created for Adobe demos), new information on using layout-based, remote, and XML workflows, and (with a tip of the hat to LensWork magazine, discussed in an earlier issue of InCopyFlow) a neat little sidebar about using InCopy in photo editing departments. *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* GET UP TO SPEED WITH INCOPY AND INDESIGN Do you like what you read in InCopyFlow? Find anything useful? Bring me or any of my hand-picked Associate Geeks in for a session or two of hands-on training for your workgroup; here in Chicago or any other city near an airport, and you can have this level of expertise all to yourself. Or, consider scheduling a remote, web-based training session; it works great and there's no travel expenses. All training comes with three years of 24/7 follow-up support for each student by phone or e-mail. To learn more, or hear what other clients have to say, contact us or fill out the no-obligation "Request a Training Quote' form on Seneca's site: <a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html">http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html</a> Recent InCopy/InDesign workflow training clients in Chicago and parts beyond include New England Business Media (magazines); Kaplan Financial (study guides); 22nd Century Media (newspapers); Bobit Business Media (magazines); the American Library Association (magazines); and Exhibitor Magazine (magazines and brochures). *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* ============================================= InCopyFlow is a free publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a design studio owner, software trainer and publishing consultant. She's an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in InDesign and InCopy and an independent Adobe Certified Instructor specializing in helping workgroups master the InDesign/InCopy workflow. Anne-Marie owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (<a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/">http://www.senecadesign.com/</a>). Don't hog this all to yourself! Pass it on to your hard-working colleagues so they can learn some tips too, they'll thank you for it. This part is for them: To subscribe to InCopyFlow, send an e-mail to me at <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> with "Subscribe InCopyFlow" in the Subject line. You don't have to include anything in the body area of the message, but if you don't mind, I'd love to know your company, title and city/state, and anything else you'd like to add. Anything you send is kept confidentially by us and is never shared with third parties. To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page. Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at <a href="mailto:info@senecadesign.com">info@senecadesign.com</a> Copyright 2008 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in InCopyFlow may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. =============================================

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InCopyFlow 08: Styles in Story View; Versioning for Editors; Update Released

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:16:00 GMT

***************************** *** InCopyFlow *** ****************************** Tips and techniques for Adobe InCopy/InDesign Workflow Users In this Issue: -- View More Font Styles in Galley/Story -- Versioning Stories, Part 2 (Editors' Turn) -- CS3 Update Available from Adobe Issue 8, 11/01/07 Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion ... for her InCopy workflow clients, colleagues, and interested subscribers (c) 2007 Seneca Design & Training, Inc. ========================== View More Font Styles in Galley/Story ========================== I just received an e-mail from an InCopy user (an ME for a publication in Iowa) asking a common question: "We're using fonts that don't have their own built-in bold, italic, bold-ital. We're using Franklin Gothic Demi for boldface. In Story view, this font doesn't display as bold which is very annoying to writers. Any ideas on how this problem could be solved?" I certainly do. As the ME found out, the editing typeface you choose from the Galley and Story Appearance toolbar (at the lower left of the window) is limited to showing Plain (aka Regular, or Book), Bold, Italic and Bold Italic variations of any and all typefaces that text is actually formatted with in the document, as seen in Layout View. So if the text is formatted with a Demi (equivalent to a "Medium" or "Semibold") font style, InCopy has to make a decision: Should it show up in Galley/Story as Plain or as Bold? It always opts for Plain. It has to make similar mapping decisions for styles like Condensed, Heavy and Black. Clever InCopy users will think, "A-ha! I'll just choose the same font used for the text as my Galley/Story view display face!" But alas, it's fruitless. For some reason, InCopy refuses to display any style in a Galley/Story Display font other than the usual regular, B, I and BI of the one you chose. Franklin Gothic Regular and Demi look the same: Regular. Only text formatted with Franklin Gothic Heavy will show up as Bold. You have to switch to Layout view to see that Demi is bolder than Regular, and Heavy bolder than Demi. It's a real pain when you're using a non-standard style like Demi for, say, bold lead-ins to plain body text. You can't tell in Galley/Story view where the bold lead-in ends, or even if it's there in the first place, at least not by eyeballing it. (You can always select text and get an accurate readout of its formatting by looking in the Character or Character Styles panels.) ----- The Fix ----- InCopy users, the solution lies in a secret "extra" typeface you can specify for Galley/Story: 1. Make sure that your Galley/Story Display font -- the one you choose from the toolbar -- is set to a different typeface than the one you're trying to see the different weights of. In other words, leave it at the default Letter Gothic typeface or whichever you prefer. Of course, the one you choose here should come with the usual Bold, Italic and Bold Italic style variations -- if you choose one that doesn't, InCopy alerts you. 2. Open the InCopy Preferences dialog box (from the Edit menu on Windows or the InCopy menu on Macs) and go to the "Galley and Story Display" section. 3. Click the checkbox next to "Override Preview Font" to turn it on, and from the dropdown menu of installed fonts choose the typeface that has all the variations you need to see. (In the ME's situation, he should choose ITC Franklin Gothic from this menu. If your story is set in Myriad Pro, choose that one, if it's using different weights of Futura, choose that, and so on.) 4. Click OK in Preferences and look at the text in Galley/Story. Hallelujah! Demi looks darker than Regular and lighter than Heavy! It turns out that in addition to your single chosen display font, you can have InCopy show *one* other font in Galley/Story. It will only display that font if text is actually formatted with it; and if so, it displays ALL the style variations as needed. You can change the "extra" font on the fly -- perhaps another story in your document uses a different chock full 'o styles typeface -- just by going back to Preferences: Galley and Story Display and selecting a different font. Woo-hoo! ========================== Versioning Stories, Part 2 (Editors' Turn) ========================== In the last issue of InCopyFlow I wrote about a couple ways that designers could create back-ups and/or versions of an InDesign layout and its stories while it was in the middle of an InDesign/InCopy production cycle. You can refresh your memory here: InCopyFlow Issue 7 <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2f3d44">http://tinyurl.com/2f3d44</a> You may remember that the methods I explained, while do-able, entailed somewhat convoluted manual workarounds because the stock InDesign/InCopy workflow doesn't come with any back-up or versioning features. (And so far, I'm sorry to say, Adobe's free Version Cue CS3 appears broken for InCopy/InDesign workflows, per user reports on the Adobe forums.) To gain these features you need to move to an expensive publication management system like K4 or Smart Connection Enterprise, which are beyond the reach -- and often, overkill -- for many publications. We're left with the simple fact that when you're working "commando-style" in InDesign and InCopy, everyone is locked into working on a single version -- technically, the final version -- of each story's contents. There is no Save Story As command when you're editing content in a layout or assignment. It's not a deal-killer, obviously; since thousands of companies are getting along just fine without it. And in many respects, it's-a-feature-not-a-bug to always be working on the final version of a story. Still, it would be nice to have options. The designers had their turn, now the editors are at bat. ----- Track Changes ... Up to a Point ----- Editors can get some control over content changes in text stories by turning on Track Changes (Changes > Track Changes in Current Story) and keeping it on. That allows a user to change their mind on each edit made to the story by anyone who worked on it, even after saving the file. Choosing Reject Change reverts an edit back to its original state before Track Changes was enabled. Printing out (or PDFing) a Galley or Story view of the file offers the option to include Track Changes markup, useful for documenting edit history. But, Track Changes has limitations. For one thing, there's no way to "re-change" your mind. Once you accept or reject a change to a bit of text, as soon as you save the story that bit of text's edit history is cleared forever. Also, if more than one user edits the same instance of text without accepting or rejecting their predecessor's change, InCopy gets confused as to what is the original text. Finally, to do any sort of roll-back operation like "Reject all changes made since last Friday," or "Accept all Mary's changes but reject John's" -- options that Track Changes doesn't offer -- will require tedious manual work, vetting every change with the Change Info panel before making an accept/reject decision for each one. ----- Roll Your Own Versions ----- For these reasons and others, InCopy users have found it helpful on occasion to make their own back-up versions of critical stories, even though it does take a little extra work. (Note there's no way for an InCopy user to save a version of a layout itself or even an assignment; only the individual stories contained within.) Following are three ways for editor to make a version of a story. ----- Method 1: Copy/Paste into a New Document ----- I think the simplest way is to select all of a story's text (Edit > Select All), copy the selection (Edit > Copy), create a new InCopy document (File > New, default settings are fine), and in the new empty InCopy file, paste in the text (File > Paste). That's Command or Control-A-C-N--V, one after the other, if you're a keyboard shortcut type. (The mnemonic "All Children Need Versions" works well.) Other than track changes markup -- which is lost; the changes get accepted during the trip -- all the content comes through in the new file, including formatting, styles, inline notes, tables, even text with XML tags. (A way to create a version that includes tracked changes markup is covered further down.) Note that you can Select All and Copy text from *any* story in a layout or assignment, even if someone else is currently working on it; even if the story was never made editable by the designer. The only limitation is that you can only do one story at a time. But if a story spans multiple threaded frames, don't worry, the Select All step gets all the text in all its frames. Save this new InCopy document with a useful filename ("FeatureStory_v1.incx") in a folder on the server that you maintain just for that purpose. Now, let's say that back in the "live" document, you continue to work on that feature story. You make some changes and check it in. Then -- horrors! -- you realize you accidentally deleted an important section that had taken you hours to write. Since you checked it in, it's too late to Undo or Revert. FeatureStory_v1.incx to the rescue! Just open that .incx file directly in InCopy (File > Open), select the section's text and copy it to the clipboard. In the live document, check out the story, turn off Tracked Changes if it's on (to avoid a huge swathe of "Added Text" markup from what you're about to do) and paste the text where it should go. Turn Track Changes back on, save changes and check the story in again. Saved! If you ever need to roll back -- completely replace a story with a saved version -- you might find it easier to simply Place (i.e., import) the .incx file into the document instead of copying and pasting from it. Remember that the external .incx file has no tracked changes markup, so consider printing out a Galley/Story view (with change markup) of the current story before proceeding. Also think about making a external version of the story in its current state before rolling back. To do the rollback you'll need to check the current story out first. Then turn off Track Changes, select all the text in the story, choose File > Place and in the Place dialog box, select the .incx file of the version you saved. When you click the Open button, InCopy replaces the selected text with the previous version of the story. Note that if you don't select all the text first, the older version is *added* to the current story (starting at your cursor position) instead of replacing it. If that happens, just Undo. ----- Method 2: Export to RTF or Tagged Text ----- If you're not using (or don't mind losing) inline notes or XML tags as well as tracked changes, you could export a story to Rich Text Format or Adobe InDesign Tagged Text instead, which saves a few steps compared to the "create a new InCopy file" method above. With your cursor blinking in the story, go to File > Export and choose either of these formats in the Export dialog box's Format menu. Name the file and select the folder where you want InCopy to export it to, preferably a folder dedicated to that publication's versioned stories on the server. When you click the OK button, InCopy exports a copy of the current story as an RTF or Tagged Text file and you're returned to the live document, good to go. Either format retains all the tables and text formatting, including styles. The difference between the two is that RTF files are generic, and can be opened by virtually any program (including Microsoft Word) that works with text files; while Tagged Text (which refers to formatting tags, not XML tags) is for InDesign and InCopy only because it's a plain text file with proprietary text codes that only those programs understand and can convert back to formatting instructions. Either format is fine for our purposes; they both retain the same info. Like standalone .incx files, InCopy can open RTF and Tagged Text files directly (converting them to .incx in the process) allowing you to cherry-pick text to copy and paste into your live document. You can also Place them as described above, for wholesale rollbacks to previous versions. In either case, though, you should turn on the Show Options dialog box when opening/placing these, and in the Options dialog box, specify that formatting should be retained, before clicking OK. ----- Method 3: Dupe the Linked .incx File(s) ----- It's a little tricky, but there is a way to create a version of a story that retains everything, including tracked changes. And even if you don't care about tracked changes, you may end up using this method because it can be applied to many stories at once, instead of one at a time. You know that every story listed in your Assignments panel exists as a distinct .incx file on your server, yes? Just use Windows Explorer or the Finder to navigate to the file server, find the project folder containing the publication and all its .incx files (probably in a subfolder), and physically duplicate the live, linked .incx document -- the one you want to make a version of. Rename the duplicate file to something you'll remember with a version number (Feature_v2.incx) and move it to a special folder you created to hold these. You could even shift-click multiple .incx files from the server's project folder and copy/paste them in one fell swoop to your versions folder, then rename them there. The tricky part is *finding* these .incx rascals. InDesign buries them a few subfolder levels deep on purpose so users don't have to see how the sausage is made. So here's a tip: The fastest way to locate a story's .incx file is in InCopy itself, with its Links panel (Window > Links). Go to Layout view and click inside a story. Now look at the Links panel, and you'll see the name of the .incx file belonging to that story is selected in the panel. Keep it selected while you open the Links panel fly-out menu and choose Reveal in Explorer (or Reveal in Finder, on a Mac). The Finder/Explorer obligingly comes to the front, drills down to the correct subfolder on the server, and selects the .incx file that was highlighted in the Links panel. That's the one you want to duplicate, move and rename to make a version out of. And maybe its brothers and sisters too, which likely live in the same location. Be sure to rename the files *after* you duplicate them, otherwise things will get messed up (recoverable, but a pain). It's okay to rename the duplicate ones because they aren't linked to the layout any more; they're free agents. When you open one of these free agents directly in InCopy (File > Open), you'll see all the tracked changes are still intact, along with everything else -- formatting, etc. However, if you copy and paste from it, or import (Place) the file into a layout story to roll back, you lose the tracked changes markup, just as with the other methods. The only way to keep them during a rollback is to check in the story, and then ask the designer to Relink the story in InDesign's Links panel; so the frame in the layout links to the older version (the duped .incx file) instead of the current one. ========================== CS3 Update Available from Adobe ========================== CS3 users, are you up to date with the latest version of InCopy and InDesign? Look at your About screen (choose About InCopy or About InDesign from the program menus) to see the version. If it says "5.0" with no extra numbers then you're out of date. Adobe released an update, 5.0.1 (CS3 = version 5) in the middle of October for both programs on both platforms. The InCopy update fixes "key issues" with text and fonts, dictionaries, and other things. To see exactly what's fixed in InCopy; you can download the PDF: Adobe InCopy CS3 5.01 Read Me <a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/ic5_readme">http://www.adobe.com/go/ic5_readme</a> InCopy, like all the Adobe software, is set by default to periodically check the Adobe web site for updates, and to alert you if one exists. It uses the little utility program, Adobe Updater (installed along with the main programs) to do the checking. Updater will reveal itself if it finds any updates and offers to download and install them. At this point you can tell it to go away without doing anything; or to download them but don't install them. To invoke the Adobe Updater on your own, just chose the menu item "Updates..." from the Help menu. If you don't have admin access to your computer then you probably can't install updates. In that case, have your IT people log on as an admin, then start up InCopy or InDesign and choose Updates to kick start the Adobe Updater. Or, you can download and install updates manually from Adobe's web site: Adobe - Latest Product Updates <a href="http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/">http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/</a> It's critical in an InDesign/InCopy workflow for everyone to be using the same version, especially if you're encountering problems. (When clients contact me to troubleshoot something, it's the first question I ask -- "What version is everyone using?".) So design and editorial should coordinate with each other to make sure everyone has downloaded and installed the patch to both InDesign CS3 and InCopy CS3. I don't mean to scare anyone; if some users are on 5.0 and others are on 5.0.1, everything will still work. It's just that things will work *better* if everyone is at the same patch level. And, of course, you may be struggling with some issues that the patch fixes! *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* NOW IT'S EVEN EASIER TO GET HERGEEKNESS TO YOURSELF! Do you like what you read in InCopyFlow? Find anything useful? Bring me or any of my hand-picked Associate Geeks in for a session or two of hands-on training for your workgroup; here in Chicago or any other city near an airport, and you can have this level of expertise all to yourself. Or, consider scheduling a remote, web-based training session; it works great and there's no travel expenses. All training comes with three years of 24/7 follow-up support for each student by phone or e-mail. To learn more, or hear what other clients have to say, contact us or fill out the no-obligation "Request a Training Quote' form on Seneca's site: <a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html">http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html</a> Recent InCopy/InDesign workflow training clients in Chicago and parts beyond include the American Library Association (magazines); Exhibitor Magazine (magazines and brochures); Peer Direct (medical study guides); General Learning Communications (textbooks); McGraw-Hill (textbooks); and Marquette University (collateral and catalogs). *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* ============================================= InCopyFlow is a free publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a design studio owner, software trainer and publishing consultant. She's an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in InDesign and InCopy and an independent Adobe Certified Instructor specializing in helping workgroups master the InDesign/InCopy workflow. Anne-Marie owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (<a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/">http://www.senecadesign.com/</a>). Don't hog this all to yourself! Pass it on to your hard-working colleagues so they can learn some tips too, they'll thank you for it. This part is for them: To subscribe to InCopyFlow, send an e-mail to me at <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> with "Subscribe InCopyFlow" in the Subject line. You don't have to include anything in the body area of the message, but if you don't mind, I'd love to know your company, title and city/state, and anything else you'd like to add. Anything you send is kept confidentially by us and is never shared with third parties. To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page. Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at <a href="mailto:info@senecadesign.com">info@senecadesign.com</a> Copyright 2007 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in InCopyFlow may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. =============================================

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InCopyFlow 07: Versions and Backups, Toolbar Fun, Hidden Game

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:34:00 GMT

***************************** *** InCopyFlow *** ****************************** Tips and techniques for Adobe InCopy/InDesign Workflow Users In this Issue: -- Versioning Stories and Layouts -- Palettes to Toolbars and Vice Versa -- A Hidden Game in InCopy CS3 Issue 7, 9/17/07 Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion ... for her InCopy workflow clients, colleagues, and interested subscribers (c) 2007 Seneca Design & Training, Inc. ========================== Versioning Stories and Layouts ========================== Designers, editors and writers have itchy trigger fingers, born out of bitter experience working with computers. We like to periodically do a "Save As" to files we're working on so we can safely revert to previous versions in case something gets messed up. But when a designer does that to a layout file with linked InCopy stories, only the layout file is versioned. They end up with a new version 2 layout that's linked to version 1 stories. While that can be useful on occasion; a lot of ID/IC workflow users need something more complete. They want a way to back up *everything* -- the layout, the assignments, and the linked InCopy stories in their current state. Sometimes, Track Changes is just not enough! (Those of you with ID/IC workflow management systems like SoftCare's K4, Woodwing's SmartConnection, or Van Gennep's PlanSystem don't have to worry about this, since they all come with solutions for automatic back-ups and versioning. Small and mid-size publishers going "commando" with InCopy, like most users, need to figure this out on their own.) Maybe you've tried doing an end-run and simply duplicating a project folder on the server. If you haven't tried that yet, let me save you the effort: It doesn't work. The duped layout file still links to the original stories in the original folder, ignoring the ones that are right there in the same folder. Or, you could use the one method that always works: the Do-Over. Open the layout, Save As with a new name in a new folder, then unlink (embed) all the managed InCopy content. You're left with a normal InDesign file with normal stories. Then you re-export the stories to InCopy format again to the new folder, and re-associate them to assignments. It's painfully tedious, but if you get paid by the hour, think of all the money you could make! ;-) But, guess what? It is possible to save versions of managed stories in InDesign/InCopy without having to re-invent the wheel, without any additional software or dedicated features. You just have to know how to work the clutch. In the remainder of this article I'll explain how the designer can back-up/create a new version of an entire project, including the managed InCopy content. In the next issue of InCopyFlow I'll present some ways editors can create versions of individual stories they're working on. (And if you're wondering about Version Cue, I'm currently testing it with IC/iD. I'll let you know how it goes.) ----- Let the Designer Do It ----- The easiest way to make a new version of a layout and all its linked InCopy content in one fell swoop is from within InDesign. Here's what the designer needs to do: 1. Open the layout, and check the Assignments panel to make sure that all stories are checked-in (available) and up to date. This is a critical step -- don't proceed until all InCopy links show a happy globe-and-paper icon, and nothing else. 2. Choose File > Save As, and give the layout a new name (like "Acme Brochure v2.indd") and location. To prevent massive confusion, save it in its own folder (e.g., "Acme Project v2") outside of the original project folder. 3. Open the v2 layout's Links panel and select all the entries that end in .incx or .incd, representing the linked InCopy files. (This is easier in CS3 because the Links panel fly-out menu has a new Sort by Type command. When you choose that option, all the linked InCopy stories are grouped together, making it easy to shift-click them all before going on to the next step.) 4. Choose Copy Links To from the Links panel menu. That tells InDesign to copy the selected links to the location you're about to tell it. 5. In the resulting Open/Save dialog box, choose a new location for the linked InCopy content files. You don't get a chance to rename these. So, again, to prevent confusion, it's best to create a dedicated folder to hold them -- call it "Stories-v2" or "Content-v2," something like that -- as a subfolder inside the new project folder. Navigate to your new stories folder, then click the Save button. That's it. Since the Copy Links To command not only duplicates the selected linked files, but also re-links them to the current layout, the original story files are left behind. (They're still linked to the original layout, just not the new one.) You can safely archive the old layout and its linked InCopy content. Originals of any linked images remain where they were; presumably elsewhere on your server. By the way, another way to do this, which designers might find easier than the Copy Links To method, is to simply choose File > Package. Yes, the same command normally used to collect all the files necessary to send the job to a commercial printer. But you don't have to send the results to the printer, of course; you can use Package for anything you want. For our purposes there's no need to have InDesign package the fonts, so you can leave that unchecked in the Package dialog box. But be sure to turn on the checkboxes for "Copy Linked Graphics" and "Update Graphic Links in Package," because that way InDesign copies and updates the links to the InCopy stories too, in the same "Links" folder it creates to hold the graphics. Since you can't rename the layout file (the copy of it that InDesign puts in the Package folder) during the process, you'll need to do so manually in the Finder/Explorer. ----- Updating the Assignments ----- What I described is all that's necessary if you're using a layout-based workflow; that is, if the editors are opening the full .indd layout. A little extra work -- just a little -- is necessary if you're using Assignments (.inca) files in your workflow. Assignment files aren't really linked to the layout (they don't appear in the Links panel); they're more like an attribute, or "children," of the layout itself. So the .inca files won't get copied to your new folder regardless of which method above you use, and the new version of the layout will report that the Assignments are missing. Not to worry, it's normal, and you'll fix it in a minute. Please don't try moving or duplicating the old .inca files into the new folder or anything, that'll lead you down the rabbit hole. Instead, do it the easy (and correct) way. In the new layout, right-click on a missing Assignment in the Assignments panel and choose Change Assignment Location (or choose the command from the Assignments panel menu). The usual Open/Save dialog box opens up. While you could change the name of the .inca file here; don't! The Assignments panel itself won't update (a bug?) to show the new assignment name, and people will get really confused. Trust me. Leave the name as is, but definitely choose a new location to save it in -- you'd want to target the new (v2) project folder for this, of course. Click the Save button, and InDesign makes a new copy of the same .inca file, in the location you specified, and the "missing" stop sign icon in the Assignment panel disappears. Everything else about the assignments are retained -- what InCopy content belongs to them, the type of assignment they are, and so on, so you don't need to recreate them from scratch. And in case you're wondering, the old assignments in your original project folder are untouched. Thus the command "Change Assignment Location" might be more accurately named, "Recreate the Same Assignment in a New Location." Personally, I think the command should be called, "Resurrect The Lost Assignment From Thy Loins, Oh InDesign." Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? I'll submit it as a feature request. ========================== Palettes to Toolbars and Vice Versa ========================== Microsoft Office is a toolbar-centric set of programs. Adobe Creative Suite has a palette-cenric philosophy. And InCopy is a mash-up of the two. It's an Adobe Creative Suite program designed to appeal to editors most familiar with Microsoft Word. That's why it has horizontal toolbars at the top and the bottom along with the usual side palettes at the right. You've probably already discovered various ways to rearrange the palettes ... converting the side ones to floating palettes, opening new palettes from the Window menu, docking palettes on the left side as well as the right, saving palette arrangements as Workspaces, and so on. Did you know that you can also convert the toolbars to palettes, and the palettes to toolbars? It's a feature uniquely InCopy. ----- Toolbars to Palettes ----- To turn a toolbar into a floating palette, press and drag on its "grab bar" -- a tiny, rectangular vertical strip at the left end of it. In CS2 the grab bar looks like it's textured, in CS3 it's a flat, dark grey color. As you drag the toolbar over your main window area you'll see its outline appear. Release the mouse button and voila, it's a palette. Some of the toolbars look quite different when they're a palette -- try it with the CopyFit toolbar to see what I mean. These types sprout a Close box and can be docked to the sides of the monitor just like the other palettes. Other toolbars aren't so flexible, such as the Command Bar (the one with icons for Open, Save, Print, etc.). These can float, so you can drag them around the screen and tuck them into a corner or something; but they can't be collapsed into side palettes. To close them completely, choose their name from the Window menu. (And choose it again to re-open it.) ----- Rearranging Toolbars ----- All toolbars, though, can be relocated to either the top or the bottom of the screen. You can even change their order (maybe you'd like the Track Changes toolbar at the far left?), and add additional toolbar rows. To do any of this, just drag from their grab bar and drop them where you want them in their new toolbar position. They pop right in like they've lived there for years. You can drop them anywhere in the toolbar area -- to the left or right of another toolbar, into the empty gray area, or directly above or below an existing toolbar, if you want to make multiple toolbar rows a la Microsoft Word. ----- Palettes to Toolbars ----- To turn a palette, like the Paragraph Styles palette, into a toolbar, hold your mouse button down on its "sensitive area" and drag and drop it on the top or bottom toolbar well. In CS2 the sensitive area of a palette is its tab, the tab containing the name of the palette. In CS3 you can drag the tab or title bar at the top of the palette (err, panel). Not every palette can be turned into a toolbar. The Table palette, for example, will just sit there overlapping the toolbar when you drop it, no matter how gently you drag its sensitive area. (ahem.) The ones that convert with aplomb are Paragraph, Paragraph Styles (very cool to have a dropdown or pop-up list of styles in the toolbar!), Character, Character Styles, Swatches, and Change Info. To turn them back into palettes, drag from their grab bar at the far left and drop them anywhere in the main window area. ----- Save Your Work ----- When you're done rearranging the furniture, remember that you can save your new look by choosing Window > Workspaces > Save Workspace. That way you can always recall it instantly, even if someone deletes your InCopy preferences (often a first troubleshooting step). Workspaces aren't deleted when preferences are rebuilt, but the palettes are reset to their default positions. Choose Window > Workspace > [name of your workspace] to get it back the to way you want it. ========================== A Hidden Game in InCopy CS3 ========================== When Adobe released CS3, many users (especially designers) were aghast at the change in the branding. Instead of butterflies (InDesign and InCopy), flowers (Illustrator), and feathers (Photoshop), now our program icons and splash screens were simple colored squares with initials, evoking a Periodic Table of the Elements theme. But butterflies still exist in InCopy (and InDesign) CS3. They're hiding in an Easter Egg -- a hidden image, animation or game that programmers include in software; and that can only be seen if you know the secret keyboard combination. To see the butterfly game in InCopy CS3, open the About InCopy screen. (Which is in the application menu in Mac OS X, or from the Help menu in Windows). Then when the splash screen appears, type the word "butterfly" (no quotes) in lowercase. Instantly you're surrounded by floating butterflies. You can even click on them to pin them -- ouch! those programmers have a mean streak -- but if you wait a while, they escape their pins and fly again. It's not really a game, there's no points involved or anything. But it's a little bit of fun I thought you'd enjoy. You can press the Escape key to end it. *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* NOW IT'S EVEN EASIER TO GET HERGEEKNESS TO YOURSELF! Do you like what you read in InCopyFlow? Find anything useful? Here's a thought: Set up a remote training session for your users via our web-based classroom -- we share screens and a phone line, and it's amazing how much we can cover in an hour or two. All you need is a browser and an Internet connection. (Of course, I'm also available for on-site training, anywhere in the U.S. or beyond. Not the Moon, though. I get airsick.) All training comes with three years of 24/7 follow-up support for each student by phone or e-mail. To learn more, or hear what other clients have to say, contact us or fill out the no-obligation "Request a Training Quote' form on Seneca's site: <a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html">http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html</a> Recent InCopy/InDesign workflow training clients in Chicago and parts beyond include Peer Direct (medical study guides); General Learning Communications (textbooks); McGraw-Hill (textbooks); Advanstar Media (trade magazines); Marquette University (collateral and catalogs); Perfection Learning Corp. (textbooks); and St. Mary's Press (book publisher). *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* ============================================= InCopyFlow is a free publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a design studio owner, software trainer and publishing consultant. She's an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in InDesign and InCopy and an independent Adobe Certified Instructor specializing in helping workgroups master the InDesign/InCopy workflow. Anne-Marie owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (<a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/">http://www.senecadesign.com/</a>). Don't hog this all to yourself! Pass it on to your hard-working colleagues so they can learn some tips too, they'll thank you for it. This part is for them: To subscribe to InCopyFlow, send an e-mail to me at <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> with "Subscribe InCopyFlow" in the Subject line. You don't have to include anything in the body area of the message, but if you don't mind, I'd love to know your company, title and city/state, and anything else you'd like to add. Anything you send is kept confidentially by us and is never shared with third parties. To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page. Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at <a href="mailto:info@senecadesign.com">info@senecadesign.com</a> Copyright 2007 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in InCopyFlow may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. =============================================

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InCopyFlow 06: Cool New Use, Image Refresher, Mailbag

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:17:00 GMT

***************************** *** InCopyFlow *** ****************************** Tips and techniques for Adobe InCopy/InDesign Workflow Users In this Issue: -- New User Finds New Use for InCopy -- InCopy and Images Refresher -- Mailbag: Speccing Type? Archives? Issue 6, 6/29/07 Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion ... for her InCopy students, colleagues, and interested subscribers (unsubscribe link at the bottom) (c) 2007 Seneca Design & Training, Inc. ========================== New User Finds New Use for InCopy ========================== Brooks Jensen is the editor and publisher of LensWork magazine -- an elegant, perfect-bound periodical that focuses on "photography and the creative process." LensWork, by the way, was included in the Chicago Tribune's recent feature, "Our 50 Favorite Magazines." <a href="http://lenswork.com">http://lenswork.com</a> Trib article: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/26kelb">http://tinyurl.com/26kelb</a> Brooks recently converted his publication's 7-member editorial/design staff to the InCopy/InDesign workflow, and we've been trading a few e-mails back and forth. A couple days after the switch, he e-mailed me, "The advantages of the parallel workflow are a Godsend. I am not exaggerating when I say that we have leapt four days ahead in our production schedule in the last 48 hours." I just love hearing that, you know? There aren't too many software applications that people call a "Godsend" these days. ;-) I trust all of you know exactly what Brooks is talking about and why he's so excited. I hear the same thing from my publishing clients who've made the transition -- production schedules slashed by days, and even weeks. But that's not the point of this story, just the scene-setting. Read on ... ----- InPhoto? ----- A few weeks later, I e-mailed Brooks to see how it was going, if "the bloom was off the rose" yet. You know that's gotta happen... once the dazzle departs, you get used the new workflow, and then start seeing things that could be improved. And while he did reply with a couple of common wishlist items, what struck me was his detailed explanation of a completely new use for InCopy (new to me, at least) that they're finding indispensable for their photocentric publication. Call it "InPhoto." Equip the artists and Photoshop retouchers at your publication with InCopy, and they too can edit within the layout. Not the text, but the artwork. Brooks gave me permission to reprint his explanation of LensWork's image-editing workflow, pre- and post-InCopy: "Old way with InDesign only: We would layout the magazine with all the images (sometimes a hundred or more) that a photographer sends us. We would then edit down to the final cut. Next, every image that makes the final cut needs to be examined and tweaked in Photoshop for perfect tonalities, color corrections, and other image issues. We would do this from InDesign using EDIT ORIGINAL on each image in the final layout, working our way through the portfolio one image at a time. While doing this, the layout and editorial folks would not have access to the InDesign file -- which was a frustration for all of us. "New way with InCopy: We simply assigned the image layer of the InDesign document to an InCopy assignment. The person doing the photo editing could then use InCopy to access the final cut images rather than InDesign. They could still review and port images to Photoshop one at a time using InCopy's EDIT ORIGINAL command just as in InDesign. This obviously left the text editors and layout people free to do their work while the photo editor was tweaking the Photoshop files for perfect reproduction. Voila -- a perfect workflow for image editing that didn't interrupt anyone else. A thing of beauty!" Yes, Brooks, beautiful! And thank you for letting me share that with everyone. Who else is using managed images in their InCopy/InDesign workflow? I'd love to know how it's being used at your publication. E-mail me at <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> and let me know the details, if you get a chance. ========================== InCopy and Images Refresher ========================== I wonder how many seasoned IC/ID users are even aware images can be exported to the workflow, just like text. And what exactly an InCopy user can do to them. In case this feature (introduced in CS2) escaped your notice, here's a quick rundown of how it works. First, designers export image frames -- filled with an image, or an empty placeholder -- from InDesign to InCopy the same way they export text frames. When they export a frame with an image inside it, the resulting .incx file doesn't contain the original image, just a preview and a link to the original, native file, just as in InDesign. InCopy users have a Links panel where they can see the same info about placed images that InDesign users can. Once an image frame has been exported to InCopy, it displays the same status icon (Available, In Use, etc.) in layout mode and in the Assignments panel as managed text frames. In the Assignments panel you can tell which of the managed content items are images by looking at their icons. Managed graphics show a little box with a large "X" inside (mirroring what an empty graphic frame looks like in the layout), while managed text stories show a little box with a captial "A" inside. InCopy's Galley and Story view don't show managed images. Users stay in Layout view to work with them. As with workflow stories, editors need to check the images out (select the image and choose Check Out from the usual places) and check them back in when they're done. The important thing to remember is that as with text frames, InCopy users can only edit the *content* of image frames, not the frames themselves. However, there's a ton of stuff you can do with that content! Both InCopy CS2 and CS3 have a Position tool (right under the Type tool) to drag the image around in the frame, changing what the frame reveals, i.e., the image's crop. You also have an Object menu with automatic and precise image editing controls like Transform (Scale, Rotate, Flip, etc.), Object layer options, Display options, and Fitting commands. This latter fly-out menu includes commands like Fit Content to Frame and Fill Frame Proportionally, but *not* Fit Frame to Content (an option in InDesign), since that would be changing the frame itself. InCopy users can also import images into frames they've checked out via the File > Place command, or by dragging and dropping from the Finder, Windows Explorer, or from Adobe Bridge (now included with InCopy CS3). Importing an image into a text frame turns it into an Anchored Object, an image that's part of the text flow. Importing it into an empty image frame fills it with the image, of course. Importing it into a filled image frame replaces the old image with the one that's being imported. Danger, danger, Will Robinson! Care must be taken to only import images that are on the shared fileserver so that other users in the workgroup can access the original if needed (and the designers *will* need these when they prepare the publication for final output). If the image is on your local hard drive, move it to the server first before importing it into the publication. Finally, as Brooks discovered, after an InCopy user checks out a filled image frame, they can use InCopy's Edit Original command to open the source image -- the one that the preview is linked to -- in its native application, and edit it there. After you save your changes to the image, when you return to InCopy you'll see the image is automatically updated. But it's not until you take the second step of saving your changes to the content in InCopy that other users with the document open will get the "Out of Date" icon on the image, prompting them to Update Content to see the changes. You'll find the Edit Original command in InCopy's Edit menu and the context menu (right-click on the image), or you can use the Edit Original shortcut: just hold down the Option or Alt key and double-click on the image. ========================== Mailbag: Speccing Type, Previous Issues ========================== I love hearing feedback from InCopyFlow readers, it reassures me that people are actually reading these things. ;-) I respond personally to each e-mail as my schedule permits. Occasionally, I'll reprise your comments or questions and my answer in an InCopyFlow issue if I think other readers would benefit. ----- Speccing Type ----- Here's one. An editor responded to my article about working with paragraph styles in InCopy ("Dueling Styles: InCopy vs. InDesign" in the May 2007 issue, #5) detailing some of his frustrations with the feature. In his publication's editorial-driven workflow, editors are primarily responsible for creating styles and applying them correctly to their stories in standalone InCopy documents, which are later placed into InDesign layouts. Being able to use InCopy to pick up formatting specs from previous InDesign files would help him a great deal. But, he lamented, it was impossible to pick up text formatting specs from older issues (which are usually read-only) in InCopy. He said, "I could look up something that's been archived, but yesterday I tried that and found I can highlight the word or character in an archived document but the palette reveals nothing about font, size or leading." I thought, naw, he must be doing it wrong ... but I tried it, and he's correct. (Note to self: Editors are always right.) InCopy won't show you formatting details until you actually check out the story containing the text. But in a read-only layout file (one that doesn't have any managed stories), there's nothing to check out. Ah, but there's a workaround! Here's what I suggested to the editor: After selecting some text in a read-only layout, you can copy and paste it into a story that you've checked out in a different document, or just create a new standalone InCopy document (File > New) to paste the text into. That pasted text is now editable, so you can see all the paragraph and character formatting settings it has in the relevant palettes. When you have the information you need, you can delete the pasted text. Workarounds ... more satisfying that solutions, sometimes, because it feels like you're tricking the software. Hah! ----- InCopyFlow Back Issues ----- Speaking of archives ... A couple new InCopyFlow subscribers (who are also subscribers to DesignGeek, my other free e-zine) asked how they could find the archived issues of InCopyFlow. I'm careful about keeping my DesignGeek archives up-to-date on my web site, so they were looking for a similar page for this e-zine. Quick answer: Sorry! They're not up yet. We're still in beta mode! (How long can I milk that ...) They definitely are coming soon, though; including a real opt-in subscription form, welcome message, etc. In the meantime, the CGI program I use to send these out, DadaMail, does automatic archiving of each issue. There's a link to Dada's archive page at the top of each issue I send out, but I'll repeat it here for the record: InCopyFlow Archives (temporary) <a href="http://senecadesign.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/archive/incopyflow/">http://senecadesign.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/archive/incopyflow/</a> If you're curious about DesignGeek, check out its archives: <a href="http://senecadesign.com/designgeek/archives.html">http://senecadesign.com/designgeek/archives.html</a> *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* NOW IT'S EVEN EASIER TO GET HERGEEKNESS TO YOURSELF! Do you like what you read in InCopyFlow? Find anything useful? Here's a thought: Set up a remote training session for your users via our web-based classroom -- we share screens and a phone line, and it's amazing how much we can cover in an hour or two. All you need is a browser and an Internet connection. (Of course, I'm also available for on-site training, anywhere in the U.S. or beyond. Not the Moon, though. I get airsick.) All training comes with three years of 24/7 follow-up support for each student by phone or e-mail. To learn more, or hear what other clients have to say, contact us or fill out the no-obligation "Request a Training Quote' form on Seneca's site: <a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html">http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html</a> Recent InCopy/InDesign workflow training clients in Chicago and parts beyond include over 50 attendees at my recent all-day InCopy/InDesign Workshop in New York City (various publishers); General Learning Communications (textbooks); McGraw-Hill (textbooks); Advanstar Media (trade magazines); Marquette University (collateral and catalogs); Perfection Learning Corp. (textbooks); St. Mary's Press (book publisher); Tyndale House Publishers (book publisher); and Abercrombie & Kent (travel brochures). *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* ============================================= InCopyFlow is a free publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a design studio owner, software trainer and publishing consultant. She's an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in InDesign and InCopy and an independent Adobe Certified Instructor specializing in helping workgroups master the InDesign/InCopy workflow. Anne-Marie owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (<a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/">http://www.senecadesign.com/</a>). Don't hog this all to yourself! Pass it on to your hard-working colleagues so they can learn some tips too, they'll thank you for it. This part is for them: To subscribe to InCopyFlow, send an e-mail to me at <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> with "Subscribe InCopyFlow" in the Subject line. You don't have to include anything in the body area of the message, but if you don't mind, I'd love to know your company, title and city/state, and anything else you'd like to add. Anything you send is kept confidentially by us and is never shared with third parties. To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page. Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at <a href="mailto:info@senecadesign.com">info@senecadesign.com</a> Copyright 2007 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in InCopyFlow may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. =============================================

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InCopyFlow 05: Styles, Tool Tips, InCopy Video Tutorials

Thu, 31 May 2007 22:27:00 GMT

***************************** *** InCopyFlow *** ****************************** Tips and techniques for Adobe InCopy/InDesign Workflow Users In this Issue: -- Dueling Styles: InCopy vs. InDesign -- Huge Yellow Tool Tips Bugging You? -- My InCopy CS3 Video Training is Live! Issue 5, 5/31/07 Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion ... for her InCopy students, colleagues, and interested subscribers (unsubscribe link at the bottom) (c) 2007 Seneca Design & Training, Inc. ========================== Dueling Styles: InCopy vs. InDesign ========================== Recently I've received a number of e-mails from InCopy users with questions about creating paragraph and character styles (such as, "Why can't I" and "How do I"). It was a surprise to me, since I thought editors didn't want to have to bother with formatting text, only writing it and correcting it. At least that's what their managing editors have told me. Following the maxim that if one client sends you a question, there are a hundred others who have the same question but didn't have time to write, I thought I'd spell it all out for you here. (Of course if you're not one of those hundred, feel free to skip to the next story.) You see, in most InCopy/InDesign workflows, editors only open InCopy's Paragraph Styles or Character Styles panels to apply an existing style that came with the layout -- ones like Body Text, Caption, AHead -- to some text in a story they checked out. They're not mucking around in there to modify the styles, delete them, or create new ones. In fact, even if they wanted to, they couldn't. When an InCopy user opens a layout or assignment and checks out a story, virtually all of the Styles commands (from their panel menus) are grayed out and inaccessible. If an editor needs a new text style ("Caption-small"), or wants to modify an existing one, they have to contact the designer and request it. The designer adds the new style to the InDesign layout and saves the document. Then the editor can choose Update Design from the File menu, and the new style appears in their panel. If the designer's not available or for whatever reason, can't make the requested change, all the InCopy user can do is to apply the desired formatting manually, from commands in the Paragraph or Character panels. The only time that an InCopy user can create their own styles, import them, or modify existing ones is when they're working in standalone mode; that is, when they've opened a native InCopy .incx document (as opposed to an .inca or .indd file). In that way, it works just like Microsoft Word. But assuming that standalone .incx file will appear in an InDesign layout at some point as a managed workflow story, what happens when the twains meet? Will InDesign ignore the custom InCopy styles, leaving an editor gnashing his teeth at all the wasted time? Answer: It depends. ----- New Styles ----- Part 1 of the rule is this: Any *new* paragraph or character styles that the InCopy user managed to add to the story are added to the InDesign document (when the story is brought in or updated) and become available for anyone working on that layout or its workflow stories. So if an editor creates a new InCopy document, or opens an existing one (the .incx file itself) they can create new text styles in the document. When the designer places the .incx file into an InDesign layout, any new paragraph or character styles it contains are immediately added to the InDesign layout file. As soon as the designer saves changes, anyone else working on checked-out stories from that layout can update their design and thus see and use the new styles too. This is true regardless if the .incx file the editor opened is part of an existing layout or not. So if the editor had bypassed a story's "parent" layout or assignment, and instead went straight to the Content folder on the server and opened one of the linked .incx files, they can add styles to that story as well. After they save their changes, anyone else working on the layout or assignment will see the new styles appear as soon as they choose Update Content for that editor's story. Of course, the designer could always delete the added style. That counts as a change in the layout design, so as soon as the InCopy users update their designs, the style is gone. Any text that had been formatted with that deleted style retains its formatting, but it's now all local overrides (manual formatting), unless the designer had chosen a different style to replace it at the prompt. ----- Modified Styles ----- Part 2 of the rule is this: Any changes to a managed story's *existing* styles (for example, editing the Body Text style so it uses a different typeface) that the InCopy user applied by opening it in standalone mode, are *ignored* in the InDesign layout file or assignment file that links to it. It's like they never happened; and the original specifications that came from the designer remain applied to the text. I hear all you designers going, "whew!" ;-) Interestingly, "ignored" is not the same as "reset" or "deleted" ... if the editor opens that .incx file again as a standalone document, even after the designer updated its content in InDesign, they'll still see their InCopy modifications to the styles ... their body text will still use the new typeface, for example. (Another good reason not to open the .incx files directly -- not only can't you see the layout, but the formatting itself might not be accurate. Rare, but possible.) The reason that your style changes are ignored, editors, is because whenever there are conflicting styles (style names are exactly the same but their specs are different) in an incoming text document and the receiving InDesign layout, the InDesign definition trumps the text document's definition. It's the default behavior for Word documents (though the designer has some leeway with those); and it's the only allowed behavior with InCopy documents. Otherwise, your style modifications might completely throw off the copyfitting for all the other stories in the layout that are formatted with that style. Chaos would reign, heads would roll, etc. ----- Deleted Styles ----- Finally, Part 3 of the rule: If an editor opens an .incx file and decides, gosh darn, there are just too many style in this document, I'm going to delete some, InCopy will let them. Nothing chaotic happens, even when the story is updated in the layout or assignment, because as with modified styles, deleted styles are ignored. The styles remain in the designer's layout and are available in every story when checked out from an assignment or the layout. However, unlike what happens with modified styles, when an editor deletes a style that's in use, ensuing formatting changes to the story's text (the text that used to be formatted with the deleted style) are honored by InDesign and assignments. That's because when you delete a style that's being used in the current document, both InDesign and InCopy will prompt you to choose a different style to apply to the affected text. You can choose one of the document's other styles from a drop-down list or you can choose "No Style" with the option to retain the (old) formatting as local formatting. Either way, that's the way the text will look from now on, even after the designer updates your changes in InDesign. If you change your mind ("Oh, why did I ever delete the Subhead style? Where was my head?") you'll have to open the layout or assignment in InCopy, where the original style still exists. Then check out the story and re-apply the style. And thus endeth the lesson. The moral of the story is, if you need a new style and the designer's too busy, you can create it on your own in InCopy by opening the story directly in standalone mode. (And a good idea is to add your initials to the style name so the designer will know whose wrath they incurred by ignoring your polite request). But don't bother deleting or modifying any styles that you didn't create yourself, since those changes will be ignored by InDesign. ========================== Huge Yellow Tool Tips Bugging You? ========================== When you're in InCopy's Layout view, or anywhere in InDesign's main view, the programs insist on displaying huge yellow boxes with tiny text whenever you hover your cursor over a managed workflow story or image. The text says, "You are currently editing "feature story-Once there.incx"" or "X Story is available for anyone to edit" or the really obnoxious ones say, "Fran is currently editing blah blah.incx in Adobe InCopy from [this horribly/long path/that goes on/and on/six lines deep/like we care/]..." You can try changing the screen mode to Preview, or hiding frame edges, and those pesky suckers remain. If you just ... can't ... take it ... anymore, guess what? You can turn them off! Go to the Interface section of the Preferences dialog box (under the InDesign or InCopy menu on Macs, or from the Edit menu on Windows) and in the Tool Tip area, change the dropdown to "None." Ah, blessed relief. No more yellow boxes! You'll still be able to tell the status of the workflow stories by the icons on their frames; or if you've hidden frames (View > Hide Frame Edges), from their icons in the Assignments panel. The only useful information you'll truly lose in Layout view is the name of the person who currently has a story checked out. All you see is the pencil with the red slash icon. InDesign users will have to live with that (or they can turn Tool Tips back on from Preferences), but InCopy users can just quickly switch to Galley or Story view. In those views, the grey Story bars have the same information as the tool tips in Layout view. ========================== My Lynda.com IC/ID Video Training is Live ========================== My first Lynda.com video training title went live a couple weeks ago. Right now the lessons are only available online, but a DVD will be available for sale shortly: InCopy CS3 + InDesign CS3 Integration <a href="http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=323">http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=323</a> If you're not a lynda.com member, you can only view the first few introductory Quicktime movies for free. Once you subscribe (as low as $30 for a month), all the videos are accessible, for my title and almost 300 other ones. Or, you can fill out a simple web form and then log in for a free 7-day trial of everything on lynda.com: Free Lynda.com Trial <a href="http://lynda.com/freepass/seneca">http://lynda.com/freepass/seneca</a> ----- Why I'm Excited ----- It's not just that it's sort of thrilling to see my name included in lynda.com's drop-down list of Search by Author, in the company of luminaries like Deke McClelland, Bert Monroy, Eric Meyer and (of course) David Blatner. Or that I may earn some royalties if enough people view my videos -- that and a quarter will buy you a candy bar; InCopy is still a pretty small market. It's that after teaching InCopy and InDesign to so many end users for the past few years, it was immensely satisfying to pull it all together in a way that I think makes the most sense for users new to the workflow. There are over eighty videos (a total of 8 hours of training), with entire "chapters" devoted to essential topics like Tracking Changes and Assignment Workflows. Initially, I had so much content and so many techniques and tips I wanted to include -- for editors, designers, and production managers -- I didn't know where to start. Chris Mattia, my Lynda.com producer, spent hours helping me to whittle and finesse my massive outline to an understandable, smooth flow of information. He was also gung-ho for an idea of mine that lynda.com had never done before: Video tutorials that switched between the Mac and Windows interfaces in single, smooth shots. I thought this would be the most realistic way to teach the workflow; since the typical scenario is that designers are on Macs using InDesign; writers are on Windows using InCopy. Now, if you watch any of the workflow-specific tutorials, you'll see how the same layout looks to a Mac-based designer in InDesign and a Windows-based editor in InCopy, and how each person is notified of and updates the other's changes. You can't even tell we had to use two different video capture programs to make the magic happen. ----- Behind the Scenes at Lynda.com ----- These videos are not your typical YouTube things. The people at Lynda.com have two fully-outfitted professional recording studios, one on either coast. Tutorial authors are flown in, put up in a nearby hotel, paired up with an on-site video producer, and then basically held captive in a soundbooth for as long as it takes to complete the title. (Captivity is easy to take when you're in the beautiful resort town of Ojai, California, though.) My title took a solid week. Each five-to-ten minute video took an average of 30-40 minutes to set up, rehearse, record, and re-record. And that was just for the recording itself. There were also weeks of outline and file preparation, and the weeks of "post" by the lynda.com sound and video engineers -- editing all the raw captures into tight and smooth video tutorials. Knowing all the work that goes into a single title, I'm so impressed that Lynda.com has hundreds more, and are releasing new ones seemingly every week. (The latest lynda.com email in my InBox announced *four* new titles.) And it's not just design related. If you need to get up to speed on general business programs like Excel 2007, Outlook, and Access, Lynda.com has you covered. They have an impressive collection of non-software-specific titles too, topics like Home & Small Office Networking, Blogging, Podcasting, and Computer Privacy & Security. *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* MASTER THE INCOPY WORKFLOW WITH HERGEEKNESS! Do you like what you read in InCopyFlow? Find anything useful? Bring me or any of my hand-picked Associate Geeks in for a session or two of hands-on training for your designers and editors; here in Chicago or any other city near an airport, and you can have this level of expertise all to yourself. All training comes with three years of 24/7 follow-up support for each student by phone or e-mail. To learn more, or hear what other clients have to say, contact us or fill out the no-obligation "Request a Training Quote' form on Seneca's site: <a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html">http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html</a> Recent InCopy/InDesign workflow training clients in Chicago and parts beyond include McGraw-Hill (textbooks); Advanstar Media (trade magazines); Marquette University (collateral and catalogs); Perfection Learning Corp. (textbooks); St. Mary's Press (book publisher); Tyndale House Publishers (book publisher); and Abercrombie & Kent (travel brochures). *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* ============================================= InCopyFlow is a free publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a design studio owner, software trainer and publishing consultant. She's an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in InDesign and InCopy and an independent Adobe Certified Instructor specializing in helping workgroups master the InDesign/InCopy workflow. Anne-Marie owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (<a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/">http://www.senecadesign.com/</a>). Don't hog this all to yourself! Pass it on to your hard-working colleagues so they can learn some tips too, they'll thank you for it. This part is for them: To subscribe to InCopyFlow, send an e-mail to me at <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> with "Subscribe InCopyFlow" in the Subject line. You don't have to include anything in the body area of the message, but if you don't mind, I'd love to know your company, title and city/state, and anything else you'd like to add. Anything you send is kept confidentially by us and is never shared with third parties. To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page. Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at <a href="mailto:info@senecadesign.com">info@senecadesign.com</a> Copyright 2007 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in InCopyFlow may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. =============================================

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InCopyFlow 04: Navigating Stories, Customizing Defaults, Track Changes

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:09:00 GMT

***************************** *** InCopyFlow *** ****************************** Tips and techniques for Adobe InCopy/InDesign Workflow Users In this Issue: -- Where's My Story? -- Personalize InCopy's Defaults -- Permanently Enable Track Changes? Issue 4, 4/30/07 Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion ... for her InCopy students, colleagues, and interested subscribers (unsubscribe link at the bottom) (c) 2007 Seneca Design & Training, Inc. ========================== Where's My Story? ========================== Finding a particular story in Galley or Story view can be frustrating if the layout or assignment you've opened has a lot of workflow stories. All those grey story separator bars look the same, and you find yourself scrolling up and down looking for any recognizable text in the specific story you're trying to edit. The next time you find yourself in Needle in Haystack mode, do this: Go back to Layout view and drag over the first few words in your story to select them. Now switch back to Galley or Story. Your selection should be at the top of the window, with its gray story bar right above it. (Making a selection before switching views is also great for quickly finding text in the middle of a story in the new view.) That's not the tip, though! This one is: To make this story easy to find throughout the rest of your editing session, Option/Alt-click on the triangle in your story's separator bar. That one click will collapse all the other stories into their separator bars except for the one you're working on. Now, the only text visible in Galley/Story is the text belonging to your story. Note that if your story was towards the bottom of the window, this "collapse all others" technique appears to work *too* well and you end up with an empty window! Don't panic, it's just that InCopy didn't change the scroll bar position. A single tap on your keyboard's Home key will autoscroll the window to the top and reveal the content. ========================== Personalize InCopy's Defaults ========================== Do you constantly change the same settings over and over again when you're working in InCopy? Perhaps you always turn on Show Hidden Characters? Or you always switch from the default Story view to Layout after opening a new file? Take a few minutes today and set the program up to run the way you want it to, by default. Application defaults are easy to modify in InCopy; just choose your desired Preference settings, palette arrangements and menu choices when no documents are open in the program. To be doubly sure your changes are permanent, quit out of InCopy after tweaking its defaults, then start it up again before you open any documents. Here are a few changes that a lot of the editors I've worked with find useful: ----- Default View ----- InCopy's default is to show you a newly-opened file in Story View, which most users find less than helpful with an unfamiliar layout or assignment. If you go to the View menu (with no documents open, remember) you'll see a checkmark next to Story. Change the default by choosing Layout. That's it! From now on, all the files open in Layout view from the start. ----- Drag and Drop Editing ----- The ability to drag selected text from one location and drop it elsewhere in the story is a "love it or hate it" feature for most users. InCopy's defaults are to split the difference: it's enabled in Galley/Story but disabled in Layout. Go to InCopy > Preferences (or Edit > Preferences on Windows) and select the Type category to reveal the Drag and Drop Text Editing checkboxes. By default, only the Galley/Story one is checked. If you're a "love it," turn on the checkbox for Layout so the feature is available in any view; if you're a "hate it," turn off the checkbox for Galley/Story so it's disabled everywhere. ----- Palette Arrangement ----- Have you taken the time to create a custom Workspace (Window > Workspace > Save Workspace) for yourself? Choose that workspace with no documents open and it'll be the default palette arrangement the next time you open InCopy. However, since InCopy remembers palette locations from one editing session to the next -- that's a feature not a bug, son -- you'll need to reset them to your workspace quite frequently. A solution to that is to assign a keyboard shortcut to your workspace in Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts > Product Area: Window Menu (scroll down to the entries for Workspaces). That way, a quick tap on F1 or whatever key you assign to your workspace will clean them right up. ----- Dynamic Spelling ----- When Dynamic Spelling is enabled, InCopy does on-the-fly spell checking a la Microsoft Word, adding non-printing red squiggly underlines to words it doesn't recognize in its dictionary. Right-clicking (Ctrl-clicking with a one-button mouse) on the flagged words reveals a list of suggested corrections to choose from, as well as commands to ignore the word or to add it to the dictionary. It also flags capitalization errors and repeated words with a green squiggly. InCopy has Dynamic Spelling turned off by default. If you'd prefer it enabled in all your documents, choose it from the Edit > Spelling fly-out menu with no documents open. You could always turn it off (just choose it again, it's a toggle) if it gets too distracting in certain stories. ----- Others ----- There are a ton more defaults you can change -- hide guides, turn off Tool tips, show the Structure panel -- so InCopy works the way you want it to work. I hope this short list gets you motivated to explore! ========================== Permanently Enable Track Changes? ========================== Speaking of tweaking default settings ... At least once a month, an InCopy user e-mails me and asks if Track Changes could be turned on by default for all stories. The answer is no, unfortunately. While it seems at first that it *is* a customizable default -- you can turn it on with no documents open -- it only applies to documents you create from InCopy's File > New command, not to layouts or assignments or the workflow stories they contain. The only way for one of these stories to "remember" that Tracked Changes should be active is for an InCopy user to check it out, turn on Track Changes, and check it back in. You can automate this somewhat, though: 1. Before anyone checks out any stories, have an editor, a production manager, or a designer with InCopy open the layout (the .indd file) in InCopy and shift-click all the assignment names in the Assignments palette, including the "Unassigned InCopy Content" one if it has any stories. (If you're not using Assignments, just select the Unassigned category). 2. Choose Check Out from the palette menu (or press Command/Control-F9) to check out all the stories in the palette selection. 3. Go to the Track Changes menu and choose Enable Tracking in All Stories. 4. Finally, close the file, clicking the OK button at the prompt to check in all the stories. So ... doable, but not ideal. An "enable Track Changes" checkbox in InDesign, something the designer could turn on as they export stories, would be a great feature request for the next version (CS4) of InDesign; or even something in InCopy that would do the same thing. Take a second to fill out a Feature Request, the time is ripe! (And I know for a fact that the right people read these): Adobe's Feature Request Form <a href="http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform">http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform</a> *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* MASTER THE INCOPY WORKFLOW WITH HERGEEKNESS! Do you like what you read in InCopyFlow? Find anything useful? Bring me or any of my hand-picked Associate Geeks in for a session or two of hands-on training for your designers and editors; here in Chicago or any other city near an airport, and you can have this level of expertise all to yourself. All training comes with three years of 24/7 follow-up support for each student by phone or e-mail. To learn more, or hear what other clients have to say, contact us or fill out the no-obligation "Request a Training Quote' form on Seneca's site: <a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html">http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html</a> Recent InCopy/InDesign workflow training clients in Chicago and parts beyond include Advanstar Media (trade magazines); Marquette University (collateral and catalogs); Perfection Learning Corp. (textbooks); St. Mary's Press (book publisher); Tyndale House Publishers (book publisher); and Abercrombie & Kent (travel brochures). *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* ============================================= InCopyFlow is a free publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a design studio owner, software trainer and publishing consultant. She's an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in InDesign and InCopy and an independent Adobe Certified Instructor specializing in helping workgroups master the InDesign/InCopy workflow. Anne-Marie owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (<a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/">http://www.senecadesign.com/</a>). Don't hog this all to yourself! Pass it on to your hard-working colleagues so they can learn some tips too, they'll thank you for it. This part is for them: To subscribe to InCopyFlow, send an e-mail to me at <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> with "Subscribe InCopyFlow" in the Subject line. You don't have to include anything in the body area of the message, but if you don't mind, I'd love to know your company, title and city/state, and anything else you'd like to add. Anything you send is kept confidentially by us and is never shared with third parties. To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page. Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at <a href="mailto:info@senecadesign.com">info@senecadesign.com</a> Copyright 2007 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in InCopyFlow may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. =============================================

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InCopyFlow 03: New Features in CS3; Pasteboard Notes

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:35:00 GMT

***************************** *** InCopyFlow *** ****************************** Tips and techniques for Adobe InCopy/InDesign Workflow Users In this Issue: -- InCopy CS3 New Features -- DIY Solution: Pasteboard Notes Issue 3, 3/29/07 Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion ... for her InCopy students and interested subscribers (unsubscribe link at the bottom) (c) 2007 Seneca Design & Training, Inc. ========================== InCopy CS3 New Features ========================== Adobe officially unveiled the newest version of its Creative Suite line-up this week. Thirteen applications upgraded to CS3 status, they're sold stand-alone or in various combinations to comprise one of six Suites, due to ship in late April 2007: <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/">http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/</a> If you click "Compare Editions" to see the product matrix, you'll see lots of familiar faces. CS3 versions of InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator, of course. Also Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash. And A/V software like Premiere and Soundbooth. But InCopy CS3 is nowhere to be found. Despite the CS3 moniker, it's not part of any official Suite. Yet you'd think they could at least throw us a bone in a sidebar or footnote, huh? A little link to the InCopy CS3 page? ("Oh yeah, while we're talking about CS3, here's another CS3 program...") Ah well. InCopy likes to play hard to get. Here you go -- <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/incopy/">http://www.adobe.com/products/incopy/</a> Despite the wonderful quote at the top -- heh -- the InCopy CS3 web page still looks a little "under construction" to me. The new features it lists are somewhat generic ("Text productivity improvements") and there are no screen shots. I'm hoping that Adobe will fill in the page with solid information in coming weeks. In the meantime, you can click the page's "Learn about new features" text link for a few new paragraphs of details. You might also want to visit the more robust InDesign CS3 product page (<a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/">http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/</a>) and its Feature Tour movie; remember, the two programs share 98% of their DNA, especially as far as text processing features are concerned. Like InDesign CS3, InCopy CS3 now has table and cell styles, text variables, much-improved and powerful bulleted and numbered lists, Find/Change with GREP for variable search and replace routines, and so on. And heads-up: For the first time, the default InDesign CS3 installation includes all the Live Edit plug-ins necessary for an IC/ID workflow. Every InDesign user will have a Notes menu, for example, even if they're not using InCopy. I love how this small decision by the engineers will remove a major stumbling block for curious users who want try out the workflow. Okay, let's move on to the new features specific to InCopy and the workflow itself. ----- Remote Workflow Support ----- The big new feature is support for remote InCopy users via e-mail based Assignments. From InDesign CS3 designers can "package" an assignment and send that one single package file via e-mail to an editor away from the office. Remote InCopy users just double-click packages to open them directly in InCopy, where they appear just like a regular Assignment. When they're done editing stories, off-site InCopy users can use their Assignments panel to re-package it for sending to another remote editor, or they can package it for returning to the designer. Story check-in/check-out, and updating returned, modified files is handled automatically by the packaging routine. It's all very slick and for this feature alone is worth the upgrade, in my opinion. I wrote up a detailed article all about the new Package commands, complete with screen shots, for InDesignSecrets.com: <a href="http://indesignsecrets.com/remote-workflow-support-in-incopyindesign-cs3.php">http://indesignsecrets.com/remote-workflow-support-in-incopyindesign-cs3.php</a> ----- Assignments Improvements ----- InDesign CS3 users can now drag and drop text frames onto the Assignments panel. Just drop the selection on the New Assignment icon and let InDesign do the driving automatically. It creates a new assignment (you're prompted for the name and type of assignment) and saves it, exports and saves the InCopy .incx files, creates folders on the server to hold everything neatly, and associates the .incx files with the new assignment in the panel. All with just a single drag and drop! It can do all this automatically because CS3 now names and saves .inca and .incx files to default locations with default naming conventions, quietly and behind the scenes. Sweet. I was happy to see that assignments now include low-res image previews. Now, even if the original image is not accessible, InCopy users see the image preview instead of a gray box as in CS2. Also, the problem with automatic page numbering is fixed. InCopy users see the same page numbers in their layout that the InDesign user sees, regardless of where the spreads in the assignment are located in the full layout. Designers will be glad to learn that they can finally use the Export All commands (Export All Stories to InCopy, for example) without inadvertently exporting master page items, which are now excluded automatically. ----- Story Ordering and Renaming ----- This feature is very cool, and will be quite welcome by many InCopy users. After you open a layout or assignment in InCopy, you can go to Story or Galley view and drag the story bars around to re-order the stories. Yes, folks, you can finally put the stories in a logical order (headline, followed by byline, followed by main story, with all the captions at the end, for example) so that galley proof printouts make sense. Also useful: After you check out a story, you can rename it in the Assignments panel. Haven't you ever wished you could change "Magazine_Issue-story1-There once was a man from Nantu.incx" to "Nantucket feature.incx"? And rename the rest of the other stories in the panel so you could make sense of them? Now you can. The best part is that changing the names here in your Assignments panel doesn't change the actual filenames on the server, so existing links and lock files remain safely intact. Renamed stories "stick" with the files even after you check them back in. ----- Other Tweaks ----- Stories and pictures that are not "managed" (haven't been exported to InCopy) appear ghosted back a bit in InCopy's Layout view, making it easier to find the content you're supposed to work on. They appear normally, though, when you change the Screen Mode to Preview from the View menu. Also, new keyboard shortcuts have been added to make navigating Galley and Story view stories a bit easier. ----- Pricing ----- The most useful information on Adobe's InCopy CS3 web page (other than the quote) is that it tells you how much it'll cost. Upgrading from InCopy CS1 or CS2 is the same price, only $89. I think that's quite fair. A new copy will set you back $249, same as before. Remember, if you're going to be ordering more than four or five new copies for your workgroup, go with the Transactional Licensing Program (aka Open Options). You'll probably save some money, especially when the next upgrade comes around, and serial numbers are much easier to manage. You can buy under the TLP either directly from Adobe or from a reseller. More info on the program is here: <a href="http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/openoptions/tlp.htm">http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/openoptions/tlp.htm</a> There are no tryouts of the CS3 programs available yet on Adobe's web site, all you can do is preorder. But historically, Adobe starts posting fully-enabled 30-day tryouts a few weeks after the applications are officially released (shipping) ... so check their Downloads page sometime in May. ========================== DIY Solution: Pasteboard Notes ========================== Most users in an InCopy/InDesign workflow make at least some use of the Notes feature (Notes > New Note). They're a great way for editors and designers to communicate with each other within the file itself, without worrying about compromising the text flow or accidentally including some sort of in-house business in a final printout. But Notes fans soon find themselves wishing for more. It's hard for designers to find the notes, for one thing, since they're almost always working in Layout view and those tiny icons are hard to spot. And I've frequently heard editors wish there was a way to insert a note next to an image or in a margin area, or in a story someone else has checked out. A clever way I've seen some publishers work around the limitations is via "pasteboard notes." These are not notes per se, but extra text frames in the pasteboard area, outside the boundaries of the page so they don't print. Typically, the layout designers add a little 2" by 4" text frame on either side of each 2-page spread in a publication and export them to InCopy so editors can check them out. If they're using an Assignment-based workflow, they include the pasteboard text frames (just the ones next to the assignment stories) in each assignment. People can still use the Notes feature in stories they've checked out, of course. But now they have a little whiteboard sort of area next to each page they can use as well. An editor might check out the pasteboard frame next to an article they're working on, for example, and then enter some notes about the article itself, like "Mary: Please enlarge the headline frame so I can fit a second line, or you could bring the picture to its right down a bit and then widen the frame." And then, when Mary updates her layout, she'll clearly see the editor's notes appear next to the spread. Editors can use large type, perhaps in color (via the Swatches palette or even via a "Joe_notes" Paragraph Style that the designer creates for each editor) so their text is easy to read even when the view is scaled down enough to show the spread and the pasteboard. Other users can check out the same pasteboard note and add their own comments and notes below those of their colleagues. I have a couple clients that use pasteboard notes like the slugs they used to attach to paper proofs; as a means of signing off levels of approval for each spread in the document. The text frames look like little forms complete with checkboxes and their logo. Finally, designers can optionally add a Slug area to the layout (File > Document Setup > More Options) so that whenever they print a layout from InDesign, or export it to PDF, they have the option of including the slug area. This way, the pasteboard notes appear in the output as well, safely outside of the trim area. ============================================= InCopyFlow is a free publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a designer, publishing consultant and certified Adobe training provider specializing in helping publishers master Adobe InDesign and the InDesign/InCopy workflow. She owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (<a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/">http://www.senecadesign.com/</a>). To subscribe to InCopyFlow, send an e-mail to <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> with "Subscribe InCopyFlow" in the Subject line. You don't have to include anything in the body area of the message, but if you don't mind, we'd love to know your company, title and city/state, and anything else you'd like to add. Anything you send is kept confidentially by us and is never shared with third parties. To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page. Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at <a href="mailto:info@senecadesign.com">info@senecadesign.com</a> Copyright 2007 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in InCopyFlow may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. =============================================

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InCopyFlow 02: Text Macros, InDepth Seminar

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:28:00 GMT

***************************** *** InCopyFlow *** ****************************** Tips and techniques for Adobe InCopy/InDesign Workflow Users In this Issue: -- Fun with Text Macros -- "IC/ID In Depth" now OnDemand Issue 2, 2/28/07 Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion ... for her InCopy students, clients and interested subscribers (unsubscribe link at the bottom) (c) 2007 Seneca Design & Training, Inc. ========================== Fun with Text Macros ========================== Have you ever needed to type the same long company name, boilerplate blurb or multisyllabic mouthful over and over again in the same publication? Or every time you write a particular type of article or story in multiple publications? If you're not using InCopy's Text Macros feature to share the workload, you're missing out. By storing long names or phrases as entries in your Text Macros palette (Window > Text Macros), you can have InCopy automatically insert the entry's full text in any story whenever you type the short code or keyboard shortcut you assigned to it. Be kind to your typing muscles: Make with the macros. ----- Creating Your First Macro ----- Take a look at the stories you're editing in InCopy right now, and with your Type tool, select a phrase or name that's bothersome to type but will have to be entered again at some point. It can be just a few words long or even a few paragraphs long. Now, with the text selected, add it as a text macro. Open the Text Macros palette from the Window menu if it's not already open, then click the New Macro icon at the bottom of the palette (it looks like a dog-eared page). If you prefer menus, you could choose New Macro... from the palette menu instead, or if you're a keyboard shortcut fan, just type Ctrl-Alt-F8 (Command-Option-F8 on a Mac) right after you select the text. Any of these three methods will add the selection as a macro and automatically open the New Macro dialog box. ----- New Macro Decisions ----- There's just a couple things to do in the New Macro dialog box. First, enter a Macro code in the field at the top ... a short sequence of letters and/or numbers that you'll enter in the text flow whenever you want InCopy to insert the full text from the macro (what you had selected), replacing the code. Note that the code can't include spaces, tabs, or punctuation (except for an underscore) because that's what InCopy will be waiting for as its trigger to replace the code with the expanded text. Usually, an acronym makes sense. For example, if you made "Republican National Committee" into a macro, you might use "RNC" as the macro code. Macro codes are case sensitive; so typing "rnc" in the story wouldn't invoke the macro in this case. You'd have to enter RNC (all caps, just like you entered it as the code) to get InCopy to replace it with Republican National Committee. Next, decide if you want the macro text to retain its original formatting (the formatting used in source text you selected) whenever InCopy enters it. If so, turn on the Retain Text Attributes checkbox. Otherwise, leave the checkbox disabled, and the macro text will come in with whatever formatting is currently in effect when you type the code. Finally, you can add a keyboard shortcut to this macro if you want. Why would you need a keyboard shortcut if you've already entered a macro code? While it's a convenient alternative, the main reason is that if you disable the "automatic swap text for code" feature (in the Text Macro palette menu) the keyboard shortcut will be the only way to enter the macro text from the keyboard. Note that you can always insert macro text with the mouse: Highlight a macro entry in the palette and click the Insert Macro Text button (that weird x-arrow-z icon at the bottom of the palette), or press the command's keyboard shortcut, Shift-Alt-F8 (Shift-Option-F8 for Macs), and the text is inserted at the cursor position. Click the OK button to close the New Macro dialog box and give it a spin. Just start typing in a story and at some point, enter the code you assigned (be sure to precede the code with a space). As soon as you enter a space or punctuation mark after the code, InCopy replaces the code with the full, expanded macro text, and you can continue typing. Neat! ----- Text Macro Tips ----- If you have a lot of text macros, it can become difficult to remember which code enters what. Double-click an entry (listed by code) in the Text Macros palette and you'll see a preview of the full text in a scrolling window. Remember that you can include underscore characters in your code, so "Joe_bio" (for an author's bio) might be easier to remember than "Joebio". You can edit macro codes and keyboard shortcuts at any time in the same window that you see a preview. InDesign users have a handy feature called Libraries, a palette that lets them store oft-used page elements and drag and drop them into new pages and documents. InCopy users can use Text Macros in a simliar way. For example, you could save an entire pull quote or "upcoming events" listing (with multiple paragraph styles already applied) as a text macro. Even though you might not ever use that same exact text anywhere else, inserting the macro text will at least give you a head start in formatting (if you remembered to turn on the Retain Text Attributes checkbox), and sometimes a head start in the content itself, as in stories that get minor updates in successive issues. In fact, you could save a 5,000-word story as a single text macro. I'm not sure how that'd be useful, but I just tried it, formatting and all, and it worked. Even the footnotes survived. Once you get enthused about text macros, the next thing you'll want to know is how to share them in your workgroup. Unfortunately, InCopy doesn't have a built-in way to do so. (Fingers crossed for next version!) In the meantime, you could try sharing macro preference files. Each user's text macros are saved in a single file in their home directory, wherever their other InCopy preferences are stored. If you can find this folder, look inside for the file called, surprisingly enough, "InCopy TextMacros" -- that's correct, no space between Text and Macros. Replacing a user's anemic InCopy TextMacros file with a more robust one from another user's computer should work. ========================== "IC/ID In Depth" now OnDemand ========================== In the previous issue of InCopyFlow, I mentioned that I was about to do a live webinar (Adobe calls them "eSeminars") called "InDesign and InCopy In Depth," and invited you all to join me. Well, it went great, and if you were there, thank you for coming! I was finally able to cover topics that were more advanced than the ones in previous IC/ID eSeminars I've done for Adobe, which were all more introductory-level. I talked about assignments, InCopy templates, troubleshooting, creating back-ups of live projects, and more. Over 400 users attended the In Depth seminar, and most of them stayed to the very end, even though I went ten minutes over the allotted hour. If you weren't able to make the live presentation, no problem, because it's now available an an "OnDemand" seminar, meaning the movie is posted at Adobe's web site. A simple, free registration will prompt Adobe to e-mail you a direct URL to the recording, viewable in any browser. Here's the link to the registration page for the InCopy and InDesign In Depth OnDemand seminar: <<a href="http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=register_no_session&id=796112&loc=en_us&gt">http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=register_no_session&id=796112&loc=en_us&gt</a>; To see a list of all of Adobe's OnDemand seminars (including this one and my previous IC/ID ones), go here: <<a href="http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=list&type=ondemand_seminar&loc=en_us&gt">http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=list&type=ondemand_seminar&loc=en_us&gt</a>; Unfortunately, it's a huge list of seminars and they're not categorized by product. I think they're in some sort of chronological order, since my In Depth one is toward the end. If you use the "Filter by Product" drop-down menu in the right sidebar, you'll see that InCopy is not one of the listed programs! Sigh ... InCopy: Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. :-) ============================================= InCopyFlow is a free publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a designer, publishing consultant and certified Adobe training provider specializing in helping publishers master Adobe InDesign and the InDesign/InCopy workflow. She owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (<a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/">http://www.senecadesign.com/</a>). To subscribe to InCopyFlow, send an e-mail to <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> with "Subscribe InCopyFlow" in the Subject line. You don't have to include anything in the body area of the message, but if you don't mind, we'd love to know your company, title and city/state, and anything else you'd like to add. Anything you send is kept confidentially by us and is never shared with third parties. To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page. Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at <a href="mailto:info@senecadesign.com">info@senecadesign.com</a> Copyright 2007 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in InCopyFlow may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. =============================================

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InCopyFlow 01: Welcome, Free InCopy Seminar, Feature Requests

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:03:00 GMT

***************************** *** InCopyFlow *** ****************************** Tips and techniques for Adobe InCopy/InDesign Workflow Users Premiere Issue! -- Welcome -- "InCopy InDepth" Free Webinar 1/24/07 -- Need Your InCopy Feature Requests Issue 1, 1/22/07 Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion ... for her InCopy students and interested subscribers (unsubscribe link at the bottom) (c) 2007 Seneca Design & Training, Inc. ========================== Welcome! ========================== Hi there, and thank you for letting me through your e-mail filter. ;-) Welcome to the first issue of "InCopyFlow," my periodic e-mail of InCopy news and tips that I thought you'd appreciate. Most of you ended up on my initial distribution list because at some point over the past couple years I helped you learn Adobe InCopy. (Remember when I passed around a roster asking for your name and e-mail address? I had this e-zine in mind.) The rest of you are getting this because you clicked the "Sign up for my IC/ID Tips E-zine" link on my InCopy Resources page, here: <a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/incopy.html">http://www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/incopy.html</a> If you don't want to be on this list, please forgive the intrusion. Just scroll down to the bottom and click the Unsubscribe link. Nice and simple. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get an issue out. I've been overwhelmed and overbooked lately with other committments. "Get InCopyFlow out in January" was on my list of New Year's resolutions ... so now I can rest easy, and put off "Join a gym" for another couple months. One reason I felt compelled to get this going was because I'm involved in a few very interesting InCopy projects, some of which I'm not allowed to talk about until they go live, and I needed a venue to announce them when they did. Another reason is that virtually all of my training engagements these days are for InCopy/InDesign; and hearing feedback from *you* about what it's like to work in the IC/ID workflow makes me a better trainer for those just getting up to speed. I would like to turn this one-way e-zine into a listserv (mailing list) or other sort of forum where we can all talk to each other, but I haven't figured out the best way to do that yet. But plans are in the works. In the meantime, *please* e-mail me at <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> and let me know what you need help with, what topics you'd like to see me write about in upcoming issues. If you put "InCopyFlow" in the Subject line that'll help me find your e-mail among the hundreds I wade through every day. On to the show... ========================== "InCopy InDepth" Webinar 1/24/07 ========================== Are you going to be around this coming Wednesday (1/24/07) at noon CST? I'd like to invite you to a free, live web-based seminar I'm doing called Adobe InCopy/InDesign InDepth. The registration link is here: <<a href="http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=512310&loc=en_us&trackingid=RBBE&gt">http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=512310&loc=en_us&trackingid=RBBE&gt</a>; After you register, Adobe will send you an e-mail with the particulars including the seminar URL and an 800 number for the audio if you don't want to listen on your computer. The seminar will be 60 minutes long, including the final Q&A. Adobe invites people like me ("advanced" users and trainers/consultants) to host occasional webinars -- they call them eSeminars -- to help users learn more about their products. They're free, all you need to do is go to the webinar URL at the appointed time and sit back and listen for an hour or so. You can also use the eSeminar's Chat window to post your questions and if there's time, the presenter answers them during the last ten minutes. I've done a few eSeminars on InCopy/InDesign for Adobe in the past, but they've all been for people who aren't actually using it yet and want to learn more. This InDepth one is for people who are already using it and would appreciate learning more about how to use it fully and well. Actually, I'm spending Tuesday and Wednesday morning coming up with an agenda of what I'll talk about ... told you I was overbooked, right ... so now would be a great time for you to tell *me* what you'd like me to cover. I'm thinking: Assignments, InCopy Templates, Editing Keyboard Shortcuts, Application Preferences, Workspaces, and Troubleshooting. What do you think? Anything you wish you had known in your first couple months of using InCopy that would've made things easier for you? One problem with the Adobe eSeminars is that they're marketed mainly to creative types -- the designers, in other words. I'm hoping this InDepth one will pull in more editors, actual InCopy users, than before. I'll let you know! ========================== Need Your InCopy Feature Requests ========================== Have you found it frustrating that InCopy lacks some sort of Word feature or even InDesign feature that would really make your job easier? Let me know! I'm not saying I have any power to make it happen -- I don't work for Adobe -- but I do work closely with scripters and plug-in developers who could come up with a solution. Unfortunately, they're much more in tune with InDesign than they are with InCopy or the needs of InCopy/InDesign workflow users. I can only tell them so much, based on my experience using it in a limited way in our studio, and teaching it to other publishers (and fielding their support questions after training is over). A lot of you who've had me as your InCopy trainer know that I'm on a quixotic mission to get someone to develop what I call the "BigBBigI" feature ... just a simple large B and I somewhere, buttons you can click like Word has, so that editors can easily make a word bold or italic instead of digging through the Character palette or remembering the keyboard shortcuts. I didn't come up with the name, one of my students did, long ago and inadvertently. She raised her hand and asked, "Where's the big B and the big I?" it took me a few beats to figure out what she was talking about, but that question has turned out to be one of the most frequently asked. So if you have a feature request like that one ... so simple! ... or even a more complicated one, please e-mail me at <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> and let me know. I'll write up the ones you send me in a future issue of InCopyFlow and we can compare notes. ============================================= InCopyFlow is a free publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a designer, publishing consultant and authorized Adobe and Quark training provider. She owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (<a href="http://www.senecadesign.com/">http://www.senecadesign.com/</a>). To subscribe to InCopyFlow, send an e-mail to <a href="mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com">amarie@senecadesign.com</a> with "Subscribe InCopyFlow" in the Subject line. You don't have to include anything in the body area of the message, but if you don't mind, we'd love to know your company, title and city/state, and anything else you'd like to add. Anything you send is kept confidentially by us and is never shared with third parties. To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page. Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at <a href="mailto:info@senecadesign.com">info@senecadesign.com</a> Copyright 2007 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc. Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in InCopyFlow may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement. =============================================

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