Claudia McCue

The forms auto-recognition feature in Acrobat X Pro is powerful and fast — it creates form fields based on elements in the PDF (such as lines, boxes, circles, etc.), and names them according to nearby text. While you often have to tweak the results  — for example, creating fields it missed, renaming fields with paragraph-long names — it can be a timesaver. So why wouldn’t you always use it?

Recently, I worked on a large project with lots of numbered fields, and that experience sort of sharpened my thinking about auto vs. manual. Because I needed short, concise field names on pages with tons of neighboring text, I decided that renaming would take as long as creating from scratch, with less chance of error. On pages like the one shown above, I could’ve created all 40 fields almost instantaneously by letting Acrobat auto-recognize them, but I elected to create them by using the Place Multiple Fields feature.

That probably sounds like the long way around, but there was a method to my madness. I’ve created two videos to explain.

In the video for Part I, I show how I created the fields using the Place Multiple Fields feature.

In the video for Part II, I show how Acrobat’s auto-recognition feature would’ve handled it. Yes, it’s much faster, and no, I didn’t do it the “long way around” for billing purposes
At the end of Part II, I explain how important the field naming conventions are, and why my method allows me to take advantage of that, whereas Acrobat’s approach messes that up.

Oh, and just so you know, creating this 40+-page interactive form is really fun — I love the mechanics of creating and refining forms (how twisted is that?)

This was brought to my attention by a friend at EBSCO Media.
The scenario: You’ve created a dieline in Adobe Illustrator, which uses the manually created global spot color “Dieline.” It’s set to, say, a fluorescent green for easy identification.

Place the AI file in InDesign; the dieline spot color is added to the Swatches panel. So far, so good.
Select the dieline art and choose Edit Original.
In Illustrator, change the spec for the dieline spot color to, say, red, and save the file.

Return to InDesign. Although the Links panel shows that the link is updated, the swatch appearance and the artwork appearance have not changed.

The only way to fix this is to delete the artwork, then delete the swatch and and re-import the artwork.
NOTE: Sometimes it DOES work as it should (i.e., updating the link DOES change the appearance of the artwork and swatch.) But most of the time, it doesn’t.
And…If you use a genuine PANTONE spot color from one of the sanctioned color books, it behaves as it should: change to another PANTONE color in Illustrator, and InDesign will update the swatch and the placed artwork.

Since you’d probably be using the homegrown-spot approach only when you’re creating components such as dielines and varnish plates, the actual color really isn’t important: It’s only important that a plate is generated. But it’s still odd that either InDesign ignores the change, or Illustrator doesn’t successfully communicate it. Guess it’s Just One of Those Things.

I love the concept of Kindle — and it’s not limited to the Kindle device. I can read a bit on my Kindle, then pick up my iPad and, with the Kindle app, continue a book. I can even crank up the Kindle app on my Android phone and continue to read. Let’s hear it for the Kloud!

A couple of months ago, Amazon notified me that my account had been compromised, and thus had to be shut down: I would have to create a new account and start over. The result was that all the Kindle purchases under the old account would be wiped out. While there are a number of books I wouldn’t want to buy or read again (that’s another post), some of them are important keepers. I had to deregister my Kindle, iPad, and smartphone, losing all the archived titles in the process.

How would I remember all the books that were held in archive in the Kindle Kloud? Well, Amazon was kind enough to send me a list of every book I’d purchased in the last two years. I blanched when I looked at the list — holy cow, I’ve been spending a lot on books! Of course, that’s the beauty (and danger) of the Kindle: It’s so painless to buy a book with a simple click.

I’d just resigned myself to the expensive prospect of repurchasing the books I wanted to preserve, or having to request that Amazon reinstate my purchases to the new account, when I received another email from Amazon customer service, informing me that they’d given me a gift card in the amount of all my Kindle purchases since the beginning! And it was not limited to the books I’d purchased: it’s just a blanket credit to my Amazon account.

Now that’s customer service with a smile! And a hug. I was stunned.

I would’ve just repurchased my favorite books anyway; it never occurred to me to ask for reimbursement. Now, with thoughtful customer service, Amazon turned bad news into a gift, and created a lifelong customer in the process.

If you’re a longtime user of Adobe products, you’re probably accustomed to using Command-Spacebar (PC: Control-Spacebar) to zoom in. It works in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and other apps.

But it seems (initially) to be broken in Acrobat X. Since you’re already traumatized by the radically-changed interface in Acrobat X, you may just assume that the old zoom shortcut is broken. You press Command+Spacebar, and nothing happens. You just figure, well, it was fun while it lasted.

All is not lost, however; you just have to use a bit of finesse. It’s a one-two punch: press and hold the Spacebar first, then — a half-second later — press and hold the Command or Control key. Voilá (which is French for “Zoom tool”), you can now click and zoom. It’s still the same combination of keys; you just have to press them in order (then hold) rather than simultaneously.

And no, I don’t know why. It’s one of those Great Mysteries.

You may not have considered this, but software has to be regionalized to accommodate multiple languages. As you might expect, translating technical terms and interface components can be a challenge. But it’s important to make it easy for end-users to interact with the software.

In that spirit, I propose this change to the Buttons panel in InDesign, to be deployed in the Southeast U.S., where I live:

(We don’t click buttons down here in Georgia. We mash ‘em.)

If you haven’t already, download the 10.1 update for Acrobat X on the Mac. Now you can use the TouchUp Object tool to edit images and vector content. Have no idea why this was broken when Acrobat X shipped (see my earlier post here). But it’s all better now. You may commence to fixing all those problem PDFs your clients are sending you.

Apple’s iPad paved the way, and competing tablets are inevitable. An intriguing post on the Adobe site hints at future tools for creating engaging content for multiple platforms. Watch Colin Fleming’s video here.

Can the Star Trek TriCorder™ be far behind?

In the olden days (pre-CS5), I’d build a book cover in one page, based on the dimensions of the front and back covers, plus the width of the spine. That approach was fine — unless the spine width changed. But now, using the spiffy new Multiple Page Size feature in InDesign CS5, it’s much easier to deal with changing spines. Here’s how: Continue Reading »

A student brought her MacBook to class and asked me to troubleshoot her new install of CS5. It would lock up when starting up, with the SBBD (Spinning Beach Ball of Death). I tried resetting preferences, to no avail. She had no third-party plug-ins, no font auto-activation — none of the common culprits. It was a clean install.

Poking through the Adobe forums, though, I came across a thread on the same problem. One poster found that deleting the SING.InDesignPlugin cured the problem.

Sure enough, that did the trick! She is now SBBD-free, and InDesign launches and runs with no problem. I didn’t have this problem on either my desktop Mac or my laptop, so I don’t know why it affects some folks but not others. But I’m passing it on in hopes it will help others.

The plug-in is here:

Applications> Adobe> InDesign CS5> Plug-Ins> Text> SING.InDesignPlugin

The forum thread is here (search for the poster “lipstickdesign”):

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3024920

I’ve uploaded a Zip file containing two Photoshop exercise files and a PDF step-by-step guide to help Photoshop users overcome their fear (or hatred) of the Pen Tool. Here’s the link on the Practicalia website. It uses some simple geometric shapes, starting with straight segments and corner points, then moves up to curved segments. To get you ready for drawing around real objects, there’s a helpful bit on changing directions — corners to curves, and back again. Finally, the time-honored Photoshop ducky is used to give you a taste of using the Pen Tool on more organic shapes.