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*** DesignGeek ***
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Tips and techniques for the digital designer
In this issue:
-- Excel Tables in Quark 6.1
-- Guide to Adobe CS's Free Fonts
IIssue 18, 3/24/04
Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion
... for her clients, colleagues, random contacts and interested subscribers
© 2004 Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
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Excel Tables in Quark 6.1
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So I installed the QuarkXPress 6.1 update recently...
http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/61update.html#download
...and then spent a few fruitless minutes in the "Get" dialog trying to import an Excel file as a table, one of the new features of this update.
I found the wily wascal hiding in the Table Properties dialog. Here's how to do it, along with some tips on how to work with Excel tables after you've got them in there:
1. Choose the Table tool (below the Picture Box tool) and drag out a rectangle with it, defining your table's initial width and height. As soon as you release the mouse, the Table Properties dialog pops up. Pay attention here, because you'll never be able to recall this dialog again for this particular table.
2. In Table Properties, ignore the fields for number of columns and rows, because importing the Excel workbook sheet will override your entries. Just click the checkbox next to "Link to External File."
3. In the resulting Table Link dialog, in Source, choose "Excel" for Type. Want to see what other types of files can be linked to a Table? Press and hold on the Type: drop-down menu. (I'll save you some trouble: Excel is the only choice. But let's be optimistic that other Types will be added in future releases, otherwise it wouldn't be a drop-down, right?)
4. Click the Browse button and navigate to the .xls file (the Excel worksheet) you want to import as a table. Select it and choose Open.
5. Now you're returned to the Table Link dialog, with the filename entered in the Source: Name field. Below that, two new areas are enabled: Table and Options. Some explanation and a couple tips:
In the Table area, you can choose a particular Sheet, if the Excel file has more than one; and you can specify a Cell Range, which is quite handy if you only need certain rows or columns, not the whole thing.
In the Options area, you can choose to include or ignore hidden rows and columns, format, geometry, and style sheets. (I didn't even know Excel had style sheets. I'm not a big Excel user, though.)
A tip here is to turn OFF "Include Geometry." That way, Quark will shoehorn your Excel data to fit inside the initial boundaries of the Table you drew out back in Step 1. You can always resize the table and its rows and columns later to get everything to fit.
If you keep Include Geometry turned on (the default), and you have a large spreadsheet, Quark will likely as not churn for awhile, thinking about it, and then give you an alert, "Item cannot be positioned off the pasteboard." In that case you're returned to your document and you have to start over.
6. When you're done with the Table Link dialog, click OK. Your Excel data is imported as a table into the Table boundary you drew out in Step 1.
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A New Type of Link
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Remember the key language in that Table Properties dialog ... "Link to External File". When you import an Excel file, you not only import the data, you set up a link to that external file.
In fact, if you go to Utilities -> Usage, you'll find a new tab there (in addition to Fonts and Pictures and a couple others) called Tables. Any Excel files you imported as tables will appear here, with the familiar status of OK, Modified and Missing.
That means if someone updates the Excel file, the Usage -> Tables area will show the status of the linked file as "Modified." If someone renames it or moves it, the status will be "Missing."
I haven't done a lot of testing of this, but I've noticed a few things so far:
- If you choose to Update an imported Excel table (because its status is Modified or Missing), you lose any text formatting you applied in Quark to the table. However, any changes you've made to the row or column dimensions -- the "geometry" -- are maintained.
- If you Undo the update, the Status for the file in the Usage dialog stays at "OK" instead of going back to "Modified" or "Missing." I don't know if this is a random bug in my particular installation or not. But I've yet to get it to work correctly after an Undo Update Table.
- When you Collect for Output, Quark doesn't also collect the external Excel files, in case you were wondering. But when you choose this command, or when you Print, Quark checks to make sure these tables are up to date. If they're not, you get the usual alert: "Some disk files for the linked tables in the layout are missing or have been modified. Continue?"
- There is no menu option or preference setting that I can find which will force Quark to embed the file in the document -- that is, to break the link -- as there is in InDesign. But see the next section for a workaround.
So at this point, I'd recommend that if you import any Excel files into Quark tables, and want to take advantage of the linking feature so your table data is always up-to-date, that you avoid formatting the table's text until you're sure you have the final version of the data. And be careful of Undoing an update!
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Breaking the Link
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To embed the .xls file into your Quark layout, breaking the link to the external file and removing its entry in the Usage -> Tables dialog, do this:
1. Follow the steps above to import the spreadsheet into a Quark table.
2. Select the imported table with the Item tool, go to the Item menu, and choose Table -> Convert Table to Text (or choose it from the contextual menu). Tun on "Delete Table" and click OK. Quark converts the table into a text box filled with tab-delimited text. You'll probably see an overset text icon, don't worry about it.
3. Switch to the Content tool, click inside the text box, and choose Edit -> Select All. This selects all text in the box, including overset text.
4. Go back to the Item menu and choose Convert Text to Table. Accept the defaults it suggests for the number of rows and columns, and click OK.
Quark creates a table for you that looks exactly like the table it created in Step 1, except it's now unlinked to any external file. If you go to Usage -> Tables, you'll see the link to the Excel file is gone.
And there ya go.
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Guide to Adobe CS's Free Fonts
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While the press releases and hoopla have died out to a great extent, many companies are just now getting around to updating to the Adobe Creative Suite.
To recap, the Adobe Creative Suite is InDesign CS, Photoshop CS and Illustrator CS. That's the Standard version -- the Premium version also comes with GoLive CS and Acrobat Professional 6.0. Adobe VersionCue, a workflow management utility for Adobe CS program files, is included with either package. Details and pricing information are here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/faq.html
A question I hear a lot from new CSers is, "I thought it came with free fonts. I can't find mine. Where are they? And which are they?"
Answers to these questions are devilishly difficult to find in the product documentation or on Adobe's site. But I've cobbled together a cheat sheet from various posts on the Adobe forums, mainly authored by Thomas Phinney, Adobe's helpful font god (technical title: Fonts Program Manager).
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Where Are They?
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Installing the Creative Suite automatically installs the free fonts, all of which are in the cross-platform Open Type format.
In Mac OS X (OS 9.X doesn't support CS apps), the fonts are either in your root (not username) /Library/Fonts/ folder, or in the root's /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts/ folder.
In Windows, some fonts are in your normal Fonts folder, the rest are in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts\ folder.
On either platform, you can move the fonts out of Adobe's secret hidey-hole into your normal Fonts folder if you want them available to all applications.
However, there's one more free typeface available to you that doesn't get included with a CS install: the drop-dead gorgeous Brioso Pro. To grab that one, you need to register your CS serial number with Adobe. Then you're entitled to one of five "registration gifts," with a link to the Brioso Pro free download being one of them.
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Which Are They?
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Here's the definitive list of typefaces that come with the Creative Suite package. If you add up all the font variations within each family, there's a total of 211 free Open Type fonts.
Note that you get the same fonts with both the Standard and Premium packages, whether you purchase it as new or as an upgrade from Photoshop, and regardless of platform or special pricing/licensing (e.g., Education).
Adobe Caslon Pro
Adobe Ming Std
Adobe Myungjo Std
Adobe Garamond Pro
Adobe Jenson Pro
Bernhard Modern Std
Birch Std
Brioso Pro
Brush Script Std
Caflisch Script Pro
Century Old Style Std
Chaparral Pro
Charlemagne Std
Courier Std
Giddyup Std
Kozuka Gothic Pro
Kozuka Mincho Pro
Letter Gothic Std
Lithos Pro
Minion Pro
Myriad Pro
Myriad Std (Tilt & Sketch)
News Gothic Std
Nueva Std
Poplar Std
Prestige Elite Std
Rosewood Std
Ryo Kana Std
Stencil Std
Trajan Pro
Viva Std
Warnock Pro
Woodtype Ornaments Std
Tip: OpenType fonts names that end in "Std" (Standard) contain the usual number of glyphs (characters), the same as in a Type 1 or TrueType font, in fact they're usually straight conversions of existing TrueType or Type 1 faces. The advantage is that OpenType fonts are cross-platform -- the same file can be installed in the Fonts folder of either the Mac or Windows platform.
In contrast, OpenType font names that end in "Pro" contain an extended glyph set, such as Old Style Numbers, Discretionary Ligatures, and so on. Brioso Pro has so many fonts and glyphs, it's over 8MB in size!
The moral of the story: When you're scanning through your font menu looking for a typeface with lots of variations, choose one whose name ends in "Pro."
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UPCOMING HERGEEKNESS APPEARANCES
Chicago InDesign User Group - March 25, 2004 (Tomorrow!)
Capps Digital University, Chicago Illinois
6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
I'll be one of three presenters at the next meeting of the Chicago InDesign User Group. My dog and pony show will be all about style sheets. After a quick review of the basics, I'll show how to become a Style Sheet Power User. You'll learn innovative ways to use Nested Style Sheets for real-world projects, how to force InDesign to "take over" styles imported from Word files, how to base Paragraph Style Sheets on Character Style Sheets a la QuarkXPress, and more. Attendees will get a handout of Her Geekness' Top InDesign Style Sheet Tips and Mac/Windows keyboard shortcuts.
Details, map and registration:
<http://www.indesignusergroup.com/chicago/chi_next_meeting.html>
OS X Transition: A Survival Guide for Designers
April 5: Hilton Alexandria, Washington D.C.
May 17: Hotel Allegro, Chicago, Illinois <---- Look!
8:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
These are the next scheduled dates for the seminar I developed for Dynamic Graphics Training. Designed for OS 9 users about to move to OS X (the majority of Mac designers, in other words), I cover installation, new features, and in-depth review of the top issues: Fonts, Classic, Printers and Peripherals, File Sharing and Troubleshooting.
Details, other upcoming dates and registration:
<http://www.dgusa.com/dgt/dgt.aspx?viewcourse=13>
Mac Design Conference and Expo - June 2-4, 2004
Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, Illinois
I'm actually doing two seminars at the Mac Design Conference. One, "Marketing Your Creative Services Online" is about how use e-mail, online forums, and your web site to find new clients. I'll have lots of insider tips and down-to-earth how-to's that don't require a lot of money or programmer-type abilities. The other seminar, "Professional Layout Techniques," will help non-designers and newbie designers alike get a handle on successful ways to lay out publications for print and web.
Details and registration:
<http://www.macdesignconference.com>
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DesignGeek is a free bimonthly publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a cross-media designer and authorized Adobe and Quark training provider. She owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (http://www.senecadesign.com/).
To subscribe to DesignGeek or read archived issues, go to its home on Seneca's site: http://www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/subscribe.html
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Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at info@senecadesign.com
Copyright 2004 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
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