InDesign Justification by Mike McHugh

If you have ever wanted to control how full justfication behaves in Adobe InDesign, have a look at this Adobe TV episode from Mike McHugh.

Adobe, InDesign, Mike McHugh

How to get the most from “Get Info”

Great little article from theappleblog.com which goes through the details of the Get Info (command I) panel. Very useful for changing which application is opening which file types. For example, if (for some reason) you want Preview to open all your PDFs instead of Acrobat – you can change this here.

Check it out here

Apple, Apple Mac Support, Mac OSX, Tip

Are you missing out on Creative Suite Features?

Terry White goes over some of the features you may be missing if you are on an older version of Adobe Creative Suite. This episode goes over features that were introduced in CS2, CS3 and CS4 for Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator.

Adobe, Creative Suite, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Terry White

Universal Type Server – Creating and Sharing Font Sets

Extensis’ Universal Type Server brings your fonts into a single centralised font store. This ensures your fonts are consistent across your studio, reduces font conflicts and does away with hunting for missing fonts. Fonts and shared Font Sets are automatically synchronised to users, ensuring that everyone is working with the latests fonts. The Universal Type Client is the user interface with the servers fonts and has the same basic look and feel of Suitcase Fusion 2.

Here are a few quick tips for creating and sharing font sets with Universal Type Client.

Creating new Fonts Sets

Highlight the font workgroup that you wish to make the new set within. To create a new font set click on the blue ‘Create a new set’ button in the bottom left.

Enter a name for the font set, now you can drag fonts from within the workgroup to the font set.

To remove a font from a set, just highlight the font and press Delete.

To activate all fonts within the set at once, highlight the Font Set then click the blue Temporary or green Permanent button on the top left.

Create Font Sets from within InDesign

This is useful if you have a document open containing all of the fonts for a particular client, project or publication. Open an appropriate document and ensure all fonts are active. From the ‘Type’ menu go down to ‘Universal Type Client’ and select ‘Create Document Set…’.

When prompted enter a name for the Font Set and click ‘OK’. The new set will appear in Universal Type Client containing all active fonts from within the current document.

Sharing Font Sets

If people are working on common projects it can be very useful to create and share a common font set to all users. All users can create their own sets, but to share a set to all users you need to be a Font Administrator.

Using the Universal Type Client, highlight the set that you wish to share, then right-click and from the drop-down menu select ‘Share Set’.

You can add and remove fonts, rename or unshare font sets and the changes you make flow down to everyone after the next synchronisation.

Apple Mac Support, Extensis, Font Management, Font Sets, Suitcase, Tip, Universal Type Server

Auckland InDesign User Group meeting coming soon…

Those not registered with the Auckland InDesign User Group should head over to the site and sign up as soon as you can. We expect that the first meeting for 2010 will be announced very shortly – and you need to be registered to get the invite!

It is a free two hour session every three months giving you some new tips and tricks, industry news and free beer/wine and foods afterwards!

Adobe, Auckland InDesign Users Group, Creative Suite, InDesign

10 Little-known features in Photoshop CS4

Here are ten little-known features of Photoshop CS4 brought to you by AdobeTV.

Adobe, Creative Suite, Photoshop

iPhone Tips and Tricks

Here are some quick tips for using your iPhone.

Restart iPhone: Press and hold the home and top button together until you are requested to turn the phone off. Then press the top button to turn back on.

Take Screenshot: Hold down home button and press the top button. A white flash occurs and the photo is saved to your camera roll.

Scrolling to the top of a page: Tap the top bar, near the clock.

Copy a web-link or open in a new page: Double-tap and hold down on the link.

Save images out of Safari: Press and hold the image.

Apple, iPhone, Tip

Customise your Finder window

Ever get sick of constantly having to widen your columns in the Finder in order to see entire filenames?

If so, there’s something you can do about it:

Open a finder window in column view, then holding down the Option and  keys click at the bottom of the column divider ( ❘❘ ) and drag it out to whatever width you desire. Now when you close that Finder window and open a new one your columns will remain the way you left them. Yay!

Apple, Apple Mac Support, Finder, Tip

AdobeTV – Layers tips for Photoshop CS4

This episode from AdobeTV has tips for duplicating layers, merging duplicates, blending layers, auto selecting and creating a reverse layer mask with just one click.

Adobe, Creative Suite, Photoshop

Spark custom pricing

One of the least known features of Spark is its custom pricing feature. If you have access to Database->Customers, you can click into a customer record and go to the Custom Pricing tab. In there, you can choose from all Labour and Material products and set pricing for that customer only. This pricing will then be used for all Proposals and Invoices.

NOTE: This feature works as long as in your Administration->Preferences, your “Calculate Time Cost Based On” is not set to “Staff”

Job Management, Project Management, Spark