10.28.11

October 4th Meeting Wrap-Up

Posted in Meeting Wrap-Up, October 2011

Our last meeting on October 4th was about working smarter with preferences, presets, libraries and templates, along with some tips and tricks.

Chapter Business:

  1. The December meeting will be a holiday party with food and a gameshow. Erica will post a poll on this website to help with planning.
  2. A meeting comment form will be posted on this website in the future to help gather feedback and ideas about meetings.
  3. Erica found a nifty script for converting buttons in InDesign to fillable PDF fields: TOMAXXI Forms.
  4. The idea of having an informal networking get-together on the month between IDUG meetings was discussed, but not finalized.
  5. The possibility of having a job opportunities and Q&A page on this website was discussed again. That will require getting Buddy Press up and running first.

Highlights from “Don’t Re-invent the Wheel” – presenter, Erica Gamet

  1. Preferences: Set them with no document open to make them “stick” for all new documents (units, fonts, frame fitting, eyedropper, etc.).
  2. Keyboard shortcuts: Make your own if there isn’t one, or change an existing one.
  3. Presets: For document set-up, PDF output, printing, etc.
  4. Libraries: Use this for symbols, logos, crop marks, and other things that you use a lot that are created in InDesign.
  5. Layers: Did you know that there is a setting for “paste remembers layers” on the layers panel menu?
  6. Templates: Once you finish a document that you will update in the future, but with new content, save it as a template (.indt) and remove the text and photos, but leave the frames.
  7. Graphic Standards Files: Create them for each client, so you can always start with (import) the right colors, fonts and styles.
  8. Swatch exchange files: Make them to reuse your favorite color palettes across the Creative Suite.

Tips & Tricks – presenter, Erica Gamet

Erica showed us lots of little productivity tricks and fun tips for working smarter. She showed us how to close and save all windows at once, quick switching between color panel modes, CS5′s rounded corners and CS5.5′s new anchored objects…among many others.

While we can’t list them all here, you should try using the grid mode (Gridify feature) as well as making different size pages in one document and exporting them all to one spread in a PDF (nice for presentations).

Our next meeting (party!) will be on December 6, 2011. Stay tuned here for a poll and more info.

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