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*** DesignGeek (tm) ***
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Tips and techniques for the digital designer
In this issue:
-- InDesign Troubleshooting and Repair Webinar Next Week
-- Adobe's Answer to the App Store, Sorta
-- Make Illustrator CS4 Artboards Backwards-Compatible
-- Goodbye FTP, Hello DropBox
Issue 75, 5/14/09
Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion
... for her clients, colleagues, random contacts and interested subscribers
** Want more tips? Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/amarie **
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InDesign Troubleshooting and Repair
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This is coming up quickly, so I wanted to lead off with this news.
InDesign Troubleshooting and Repair
A one-hour webinar
May 21, 2009 10:00a – 11:00a PST
Register: http://idrepair.eventbrite.com/
*Early bird pricing ends midnight Friday, May 15*
[Editor's note: Obviously this webinar has already occurred, sorry. If you'd like to be notified in advance of all the webinars, seminars, etc. I do so you have time to register; please add your email address to my DesignGeek Events announcement list. Thanks! --Anne-Marie.]
If you work with InDesign files a lot, you have probably encountered the occasional problem child file -- the layout that won't print past page 12, or the swatch that won't delete, even though it's not being used. Of course, you can count on this happening right when the deadline's looming.
Or sometimes the program itself goes buggy. I remember one harrowing afternoon where every time I expanded the Links panel, the program would unexpectedly quit! And rebuilding InDesign's preferences -- the generic penicillin of InDesign fixes -- had no effect.
I was able to extricate myself out of that situation (and many more sent to me by my clients over the years) through a simple, step-by-step series of troubleshooting tests and fixes ... without having to reinstall InDesign itself.
That's what I'll be covering in my one-hour webinar, InDesign Troubleshooting and Repair, which is next week (yikes! how time flies). All you need is a browser to attend, and since the audio will be VOIP (over your computer speakers) you don't even need to make a phone call. In the live Q&A at the end, I can answer questions you type into the Chat window, or if you have a mic, you can just ask it directly.
You can learn more about the webinar at its registration page: http://idrepair.eventbrite.com/. The fee is $39.00 per connection, but if you register by Friday 5/15 at midnight, you can get the early bird rate of $29.00.
Even if you can't make the live webinar, your registration grants you access to the recording of the webinar afterwards, and the handout I'll be providing all attendees. Hope to see you there!
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Adobe's Answer to the App Store, Sorta
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Adobe is starting to convert the hoary old Adobe Exchanges into a sleek new set of Adobe Marketplaces.
Adobe Exchange: http://tr.im/adobeexchange
Adobe Marketplace: http://tr.im/adobemplace
Like Apple's App store, which provides iPhone and iPod owners a one-stop location to browse and buy third-party applications, the Adobe Marketplace will be a venue for Adobe customers to do the same.
Unlike the App store, there's no cost for "publishers" (developers and service providers) to post their offerings in the Marketplace, all you need is to log in with your Adobe ID and fill out a profile. Also unlike the App store (and more like Adobe Exchange), purchases and downloads happen at the developer's site, not in the Marketplace.
So far, only Air and Photoshop marketplaces are open for business. The Air marketplace is far more interesting than the Photoshop marketplace at this point, mainly because its focus is on actual third-party Air apps that you can download.
For example, I'm loving the CraigsList Desktop application, which lets me "skin" the craigslist.org web site, run searches, and save searches (so useful!).
CL Desktop: http://tr.im/aircraigs
In contrast, Adobe is currently positioning the Photoshop Marketplace as a central location to learn about Photoshop-related "products, services, and communities." Which means that the Photoshop Marketplace is already overrun with training company solicitations and ads for *other* Photoshop sites, the kind that review and link to Photoshop plug-ins, templates, brush sets. In other words, the reason I'm at the Photoshop Marketplace!
I'm really hoping that as Adobe rolls this out the marketplace to their other programs, that they reconsider its focus. I would love one central location that lists InDesign and Illustrator plug-ins, scripts, and templates, for example. (Or how about Acrobat add-ons? Or Bridge?). I already know how to find "related services and communities," because of this handy thing here in my browser called the Google search field.
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Make Illustrator CS4 Multiple Artboards Backwards Compatible
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When you save an Illustrator CS4 file with multiple artboards in native Illustrator CS4 format, the file extension is still plain old ".ai".
Earlier versions of Illustrator can open the AI file, but users will get the cryptic alert "This file was created in a newer version of Illustrator. If you import this file, some data loss may occur." When they open the file, they'll see only one artboard, the one that was labelled "1" in the original file. There is NO indication that there's a bunch of artwork missing from missing artboards.
You'd think that Adobe could've had given the hapless end user a little stronger warning, hmm? Something like, "This file contains multiple artboards. You will only see one." I mean, they were able to sneak in a little warning about the type engines changing between versions (remember Legacy text?), why couldn't they sneak in a warning about artboards? Sigh.
The lesson is this: If you're a fan of multiple artboards -- and who isn't -- but you sometimes need to share native AI files with users of earlier versions, you'll need to do some extra work.
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Don't Miss the Artboards Checkbox in Save As
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When you choose File > Save As in Illustrator CS4, and then from the dropdown Format menu choose EPS or PDF, extra controls light up in the Save As dialog box. Don't click the Save button yet, pay attention to these controls!
For example, if you choose the EPS format, the checkbox for Use Artboards and the Page fields become enabled. If you uncheck Use Artboards, then Illustrator creates one huge EPS containing all the artboards in their current locations.
Do you just want one EPS per artboard instead? Then turn on the Use Artboards checkbox, and specify which artboards (Pages) get exported. Illustrator will create one EPS file for each artboard, appending "01" and "02" to the filenames automatically.
When you Save As a PDF, the Use Artboards checkbox dims (but is checked), because it can't create one huge PDF encompassing all the artboards. You need to enter something in the Pages fields, which are enabled. Choosing All Pages, for example, would create a multi-page PDF out of your multi-artboard Illustrator file.
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Saving in Earlier AI formats
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What throws many Illustrator users off is this: Choosing Illustrator as the Format in Save or Save As -- in other words, creating a regular old AI file -- dims the Use Artboard and the Pages controls in the Save/Save As dialog box.
It's only when you get to the next dialog box, Illustrator Options, and choose a pre-CS4 Illustrator version from the dropdown menu at the top, that these controls reappear. A new checkbox labelled Save Each Artboard to a Separate File lets you do just that. There's a Page Range field as well so you can specify which artboards to save.
If you leave the Save Each Artboard checkbox unchecked, Illustrator will include all the artwork in every artboard when it saves the earlier-version AI file. What's cool is that it then converts each artboard's borders into guides, and neatly stores them in a bottom "Guides for Artboard" layer in the Layers panel. Twirl open the layer and you'll see multiple sublayers, one for each artboard's guides.
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Goodbye FTP, Hello DropBox
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My computing life has become significantly easier ever since I installed DropBox, the free "cloud computing" solution that works on Macs, Windows, and Linux computers:
DropBox
http://tr.im/dgdropbox
It's so simple it's ridiculous. Installing the small footprint program on your computer creates a folder called DropBox. You can put the folder anywhere you'd like, and you can add lots of subfolders inside it. It's just a regular folder on your drive, just like the other folders. When you run your backup program, it gets backed up too. It can sit on a server or shared drive if you like.
What's special, though, is that anything you put in the DropBox folder (or its subfolders) is automatically duplicated to the private DropBox servers, "up in the cloud." It all happens in the background. If you look, you'll see a little blue icon appearing on the file's icon in the Finder or Windows Explorer while it's uploading, and when it's synched with the cloud, the icon turns green.
You can share any subfolder or single file in the Dropbox folder with anyone else, either from the contextual (right-click) menu, or from your account in the Dropbox site. Once that person installs Dropbox (again, it's free), then Dropbox synchs up with *their* Dropbox folder. It makes no difference if they're on your local network or on the other side of the world.
And since it's not peer-to-peer filesharing, but cloud-synching, it means I don't have to have my computer turned on in order for you to synch with our shared files. The Dropbox servers are always on.
So, I've stopped attaching syllabus updates to emails or putting thing on the server in my office just to share them with my assistant, Sherri. I just shared one of the folders in my Dropbox folder with her so we both have access to the latest versions of the same files. Ditto with the files that David Blatner and I need to share for InDesignSecrets.com -- we just share some DropBox subfolders that contain projects we're working on. The synching is almost instantaneous, even though he's in Seattle and I'm in Chicago. Even my daughter (who's in Brooklyn, New York) and I share a Dropbox folder so we both have access to the same photos we both add on occasion.
There are many more features .... it keeps versions! it has a Public FTP-like folder! It's great for remote InCopy users! ... but you get the idea. It's simply drop-dead great.
You can have up to 2GB of information in your DropBox folder and not pay a dime. If you want more (like up to 50GB), then you can upgrade to a paid account. But if you use the link I gave above (http://tr.im/dgdropbox), then you should get a bonus 150 MB of free storage space, and because I referred you, I'll get some extra too. So ... thanks!
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DesignGeek (tm) is a free monthly 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).
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Can't wait for the next issue of DesignGeek?
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Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at info@senecadesign.com
Copyright 2009 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
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