I’ve blogged in the past about Bob Stucky’s great scripting solution, which enables you to invoke InDesign from within Bridge, in order to generate a truly editable InDesign contact sheet.

I’m tickled to announce that Bob has updated the script for CS5, and it’s even better than before. You can now include your Bridge ratings (in color!), and create separate masters for the first page and the remainder of the document. You can completely customize a template and invoke it when you create the contact sheet. It’s quick, it’s slick, it’s really trick (and I love it).

Bob has posted a video here, showing all the cool new features.

As before, the Bridge Contact Sheet is priced at a paltry $30 (and it’s easily worth at least twice that). It can be purchased here. (NOTE: The Contact Sheet solution for CS4 is still available on the Creating Scripting suite, if you haven’t upgraded to CS5.

IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that you need both Bridge CS5 and InDesign CS5 to benefit from this; apparently some very confused users have not understood that a script that works from within Bridge to wake up InDesign would have nothing to wake up if they didn’t already have InDesign (as we say here in Dixie, “bless their little hearts”).

I’ve found this solution indispensable for creating contact sheets when I do retouching jobs: I view the contact sheet in InDesign to evaluate all images at once. It’s so easy to see all the photos together simultaneously and determine whether they’re as consistent as I thought (is the singer’s dress exactly the same shade of green in every image?). If I need to fix an image, I can use Edit Original in InDesign to crank up Photoshop, perform the necessary edits, and update the InDesign file. Easy peasy.

If you’re a printer or photographer who wants to create scatter proofing sheets, this solution is quick and painless. The ability to create a custom template with your logo and company information lets you create output that’s not just practical, but marketable.

TIP: Generate a contact sheet using the default settings, and then examine the Object Styles that are used for the caption frame (”captions”) and image frames (”images”), as well as the Paragraph Style (”labels”) that’s used for the caption text. When you create a template, you can include these styles, modified to suit your preferences. For example, I modify the “captions” Object Style to delete its black stroke, and change the “images” style to center the images.

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When you’re building complex Photoshop files, Layer Comps are a great way to store the visibility of layers that constitute versions of the image. For example, if Layers 1, 3, and 5 are Version A, Layers 2, 4, and 6 are Version B, and Layers 7, 8, and 9 are Version C, you can create three layer comps that let you access each version of the image with a single click. A Layer Comp can also store the position of layers, as well as the visibility of Layer Styles (such as drop shadows, inner glows, bevel & emboss, etc.). Layer Comps make it easy to keep track of versions while you’re experimenting, and when you want to quickly show a client those versions without trying to remember which eyeballs to turn on/off. 

Layer Comps can also be invoked by InDesign’s Object Layer Options feature, to control the visibility of layers and effect in placed PSD files; this is especially handy when you’re creating different appearances for interactive buttons. It was while creating buttons that I discovered a bug in the way InDesign handles Layer Comps. If you use Object Layer Options to manually turn layers off and on, all is well. My images had just one layer, but multiple effects (aka fx, aka Layer Styles) applied to the single layer. So I couldn’t invoke separate layers in InDesign, and had to rely on Layer Comps to control the visibility of effects that constituted each version of the button art.

I discovered that, unless you have the first Layer Comp in the Layer Comps panel list selected when you save the file out of Photoshop, you’ll never be able to reveal that first Layer Comp in InDesign. It allows you to select the Layer Comp, but ignores its settings and instead displays the layer comp that was selected when you saved the file. So you can never invoke the first layer comp in InDesign, unless it’s the selected comp when the image is saved.

As you can see in the image above, the first layer comp should just be the plain green text. But InDesign displayed the “Add Rocks” layer comp when I invoked the plain green text comp. Aaarghh (and, of course, it was late at night).

Moral of the story? If you’re relying on Layer Comps in InDesign, make sure the first layer comp in the Layer Comps panel is selected when you save the image, even if you think you won’t use it. It’ll save you the confusion and frustration that had me banging my head on the keyboard at midnight!

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Don’t you just love the tabbed document display in Creative Suite 4 applications?

If you do, you’re in the minority, judging by the number of people who ask “How do I change that?” often followed by “What were they thinking?!” I can help a bit with the first question, but I can’t answer the second one. I guess it’s part of the increasing Macromediafication of the application interfaces: perhaps the flat gray architecture is meant to be chic and soothing, and maybe the tabs are intended to conserve screen real estate. Whatever the explanation, here are some tips for returning to the Land of Floating Windows, as nature intended.

Photoshop

Open Preferences > Interface. UNcheck “Open Documents as Tabs” and “Enable Floating Window Docking.” If you just uncheck “Open Documents as Tabs,” document windows will still insist on docking if they’re dragged near each other.

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InDesign

As in Photoshop, open Preferences > Interface and uncheck “Open Documents as Tabs” and “Enable Floating Window Docking.” Heave great sigh of relief.

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Illustrator

Alas, Illustrator only lets you get halfway there: You can turn off the option to open documents as tabs, but you can’t prevent documents from docking if you move them too close together. Some strange magnetic force compels them to huddle together for warmth.

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Feature Requests

Here’s an idea: if you dislike the tabbed interface, put a note in the suggestion box. Fill out the Feature Request form on the Adobe website and ask that this compulsive behavior be an option, not the default.

]]> http://www.claudiamccue.com/2009/11/please-dont-put-it-on-my-tab/feed/ 10 http://www.claudiamccue.com/2009/09/indesign-cs4-604-update-fixes-style-mapping/ http://www.claudiamccue.com/2009/09/indesign-cs4-604-update-fixes-style-mapping/#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:25:01 +0000 Claudia http://www.claudiamccue.com/?p=683 If you have to import Microsoft Word files and map Word styles to InDesign styles, here’s some good news. Although the option to save style mappings as presets was first offered in InDesign CS3, it didn’t work in CS4. The preset name was saved—but it was empty!

Now, the just-released 6.0.4 update fixes this shortfall, as well as some other issues. The PDF of the release notes can be found here.

Before you freak out, it’s not a common circumstance, nor is it a showstopper. Just thought you might like to know. Here’s the equation:

Place a layered PSD as an anchored object within a header or footer row in a multi-page threaded table, and then attempt to print to a PostScript printer. The job starts to print, then displays the above error dialog: “The Adobe Print Engine has failed to output your data due to an unknown problem.”

If it’s a single-page table (which makes header/footer rows pointless, but I digress), there’s no error. The same PSD placed in a plain old body row prints without problem, regardless of table length.

In my case, the printer is a Xerox Phaser 8400, but choosing any PostScript PPD produced the error, even if I attempted to generate PostScript using the tasteful Adobe PDF PPD. My little non-PostScript Epson inkjet printed with no problem. I could also export to PDF and print that to the Phaser successfully from Acrobat. So it’s not solely a Snow Leopard/Phaser issue.

This hit me as I was printing a handout comparing Acrobat Standard/Pro/Extended features. After narrowing down the culprit, I substituted a flattened PSD using a Photoshop path to silhouette it, and printed with no squawking.

NOTE: I suppose this marks me as a Luddite, but I never made the move to Leopard. I was reluctant to update my demo/training laptop because of early issues between Leopard and Creative Suite applications. To me, there was no compelling performance improvement, so I stuck with the old faithful cat. But when Snow Leopard was released, I thought I should catch up. I bought a Mac Pro desktop and started from scratch. With the exception of this oddball issue, it’s been fine. The new version of Suitcase runs fine, the apps behave, and all is well.

Let me know how Snow Leopard is working (or not working) for you.

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On another note, I’m over the cute cat names. How about just using the version numbers? Ten Point Six — what’s wrong with that? It’s definite, unambiguous, solid. Not fluffy.

Or memorable monikers like “Galactica” or “Bonaventure”? Maybe famous composers: “Hey! I just loaded Mozart!”

However, I’ve discovered an odd (and rare) bug with Smart Text Reflow. You’ll only encounter it under specific circumstances, if you perform the steps in a particular order. It happened to me while teaching an InDesign class, and it took some time to figure out that Smart Text Reflow was the culprit. I thought I’d spare you the aggravation by describing the problem so you can avoid it:

1. Create a facing-page document.
2. On the master spread, create a placeholder graphic frame on right page.
3. Create a text frame on left page of the master, create another text frame on the right page of master, and thread the frames from left to right.
4. Go to a right-hand document page in a spread—not page 1 (say, page 3), and place an image in the placeholder graphic frame.
5. Go to the left page of the same spread, and place at least enough text to flow into both threaded text frames on the spread. Don’t hold down Shift; just allow the text to flow according to the default Smart Text Reflow action.
6. Result: Graphic frame disappears, “flushed” to the next document page after the end of text flow. Doesn’t matter if the graphic frame is above or below the text frame, or even if it touches the master page text frame. The graphic frame may or may not have text wrap applied.

This behavior does not occur if:

• You place the text before placing the graphic.
• You shift-click to Autoflow the text (even though it’s going to flow anyway).
• The graphic frame is on the left-hand page.
• You start flowing text on page 1 or any other right-hand page.

What’s happening? Apparently Smart Text Reflow completely takes over: “The text must live! All other frames, get out of the way!” Keep in mind that the circumstances are specific and rare, and you may never encounter it. (If you teach from the Classroom in a Book, step carefully in Lesson 3.)

But did you know you can shop among multiple folders as you’re gathering up files to place in the page? You can, but there’s a little trick required.

If you choose File>Place, select some files in a directory, then switch directories and select more files, you’ll only pick up the latest group of files — earlier selections are ignored.

But if you select files from one folder, then return to InDesign without clicking in the page, you can choose File>Place again, and gather up another bunch of files. When you return to InDesign, you’re carrying all the files you selected from all visited directories.

In the circumstance that prompted my earlier post, a customer needs to add a TOC to the first page of their multi-page InDesign files in order to generate bookmarks in the exported PDFs. That’s the only purpose the TOC serves. For various reasons having to do with workflow and tracking, they can’t add an extra page (this is a retail environment, and they’re using multiple pages to hold multiple versions).

The solution is a bit of a kludge, but it works: they create the TOC, and then position the TOC text frame in the pasteboard, overlapping the left edge of the page by just a skosh. The text itself is off in the pasteboard, and doesn’t appear in the page when the PDF is generated.

There’s (almost) always a way

If you generate a Table of Contents in a file (or book) in InDesign, hyperlinked bookmarks are automatically generated when you export to PDF with Hyperlinks and Bookmarks options checked in the export dialog. Bookmarks make it easy for readers of the PDF to find information quickly: displayed in the Navigation pane in Acrobat or Reader, they serve as a dynamic table of contents that’s always available.

Sometimes I want the bookmarks in the PDF, but without a visible table o’contents in the file. In the past, I’ve generated my TOC in InDesign, but put it in the pasteboard. The text isn’t visible in the PDF, but the bookmarks are created.

Today I discovered that this trick doesn’t work in InDesign CS4! Instead, the TOC text frame has to have at least an edge hanging into a document page for the bookmarks to be created. While this isn’t fatal, it’s weird that the functionality has changed.

But in InDesign CS4, everything dragged to the Library is initially named “Untitled”— there’s no recognition of a graphic filename. Bummer!

There’s no mention of this in the user guide, and no options available in the Library panel to force it to behave as it did in all earlier versions. It’s like going into a real library, and finding that all the books just say “Book” on the spine!