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Inklude (sic) Mixed Inks into Illustrator

April 26, 2021 Leave a comment

A feature which is strangely absent from Adobe Illustrator (yet present in Adobe InDesign) is mixed inks. This gives the user the ability to make a new swatch based on percentiles of other swatches that can include spot colors, along with process colors.

InDesign’s mixed ink feature also allows groups of mixed ink colors to be made, based on how much of each ink should be in each swatch, and the increments they should differ by.

For pure spot color work, this can create colors that would otherwise require using blend modes such as multiply or darken to create similar colors. However, from a prepress standpoint, mixed inks have several advantages over applying blend modes to objects to achieve the same effect.

Embellishments

For digital devices that can apply inline varnishes, mixed inks make sense. In the following example, the headline requires a varnish

Usual way of doing this would be to create a second layer with an identical headline, but set to a Varnish spot color on another layer, with either a transparency effect such as darken or multiply applied; or overprint turned on from the attributes menu.

That’s fine if the position of the artwork is final, but if the design is in a state of flux, that requires moving the varnish to be in the same position as the type.

A solution is to use InDesign’s mixed ink to create a new mixed ink swatch. In this case, I’ll call it Varnished Headline, and give it 100% of the black and 100% of the varnish spot

This solution also applies to other common embellishments such as embosses, foils, raised varnishes, etc.

White Masks

When preparing label artwork for clear or metallic substrates, white masks have to be prepared so that the color art can appear correctly above the substrate. Take for example this logo to be printed over a silver background.

Again, by using mixed inks, it is possible to make a white mask that doesn’t require another layer, blend mode, and can move with the artwork. In this example, three colors would be created: the white mask; Red and a white mask; and Black and a white mask – the last two being mixed inks.

The art can then be recolored so that the red now uses the red mixed ink; the black now uses the black mixed ink; and the paper now uses the white mask ink.

Notice that the gold cup does not contain a white mask – that is because the gold color – when printed on a silver stock – will appear more like a gold foil.

Double-Hit Prints

On one or two spot colour jobs that have large areas of solid ink coverage, occasionally the same colour will be applied twice on the press as to hide any mechanical ghosting from the printing process.

In the above example, one plate would be for the solid color, and a second – though stippled plate – would be for the undercolor to hide the mechanical ghosting. This color can be set up using InDesign’s mixed inks.

But this is missing from Illustrator!

Despite the mixed ink feature being available in Adobe InDesign, it is notably absent from Adobe Illustrator. This is frustrating as artwork that usually requires the three solutions above is often prepared as Adobe Illustrator artwork, requiring old-school solution of layers and blend modes.

If you feel that this missing feature deserves to be in Adobe Illustrator, make sure to let the Illustrator Uservoice know!

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/31966252-mixed-ink-swatch-like-indesign

Filed under Embellishments, Handover, Housekeeping, PDFs, Post-Press, Proofing Tagged with Adobe, blend modes, darken, illustrator, InDesign, mixed ink, multiply, Overprint

Shortcut to rotate in fractions

April 6, 2021 Leave a comment

A colleague of mine recently had a task of inserting lineart scans into an InDesign file and then rotating the images so that they were straight on the page.

During this process, he’d asked:

What’s the shortcut for rotating an image by a fraction of a degree?

While I can remember many of the shortcuts used in InDesign, I couldn’t remember a shortcut for this item, and after consulting my InDesignSecrets shortcut poster I realised that there isn’t one. There is a shortcut to increase the angle from 1 degree to 5, but not smaller increments… which I thought was something that people would have asked for by now.

For the task he was doing, he definitely needed one, otherwise the workflow was:

Select the item to rotate;
Go to the rotate tool;
Type the fraction and click OK
Check the result and if further adjustment was required, click back into the rotate tool and type a new fraction and try again until acceptable.

A shortcut would definitely make this easier.

Tomaxxi to the rescue

Luckily, one was easy to find online. Scripter Marijan Tompa (whom some may know by the name Tomaxxi) wrote an article on how to write such a script.

In my colleague’s case, the script only needed to be adjusted by changing the angle from 45 in Marijan’s example to 0.1 like so:

var myTrans = app.transformationMatrices.add({counterclockwiseRotationAngle:0.1});
var myObj = app.selection[0];
myObj.transform(CoordinateSpaces.pasteboardCoordinates, AnchorPoint.CENTER_ANCHOR, myTrans);

The script was saved as rotateAnticlockwise.jsx and added to the scripts. A second copy was made but this time adjusted from counterclockwise to clockwise like so:

var myTrans = app.transformationMatrices.add({counterRotationAngle:0.1});
var myObj = app.selection[0];
myObj.transform(CoordinateSpaces.pasteboardCoordinates, AnchorPoint.CENTER_ANCHOR, myTrans);<code>

This too was saved as rotateClockwise.jsx. and added to the scripts.

From here, my colleague could then go to the scripts palette and run the scripts as required.

Similarly, my colleague could make sure that scripts was checked from the quick apply menu.

And from here, go to quick apply by pressing Command + Return and typing the first few letters of the script. This choice would stay in the quick apply so need only be done once.

But the title of the article was a shortcut, so shortcuts had to be applied. That is easily done though by going to the Edit Menu and selecting Keyboard Shortcuts.

In the next dialog box, choose Scripts from the Product Area, navigate to the appropriate script, then place the cursor in the New Shortcut text field in the bottom right and press the keys to become the new shortcut. If the type beneath says [unassigned] it means it won’t interfere with other shortcuts, so click Assign. Do the same for both scripts, choosing different shortcuts for both.

Done. My colleague now had his shortcuts and could rotate the images without having to keep moving his cursor to the rotate panel and manually key in entries.

Given the scripts now had their own shortcuts, these were also visible in the scripts panel, just in case my colleague forgot what the shortcuts were.

But importantly because shortcuts were assigned, they could also be hot-keyed to his ergonomic mouse. Similarly, the commands could be hot-keyed to other inputs such as those discussed in a previous article.

On that note, I thought a shortcut like this would exist, given the amount of other shortcuts that allow for nudging/moving in smaller units. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments whether this is a specific use-case, or something to be pursued over at the InDesign suggestions.

Filed under Page Layout, Scripts Tagged with Adobe InDesign, InDesign, Javascript, KBSC, keyboard shortcut, rotate, rotate tool, script

Data Merge “Did You Know” Part Two

March 29, 2021 Leave a comment

This is the second article in the Data Merge “Did You Know” series. If you’ve not read the first article, be sure to do so here. Carrying on from the first article, let’s dive into more lesser-known Data Merge behaviours of Adobe InDesign.

Data is there… even if the link is missing

If you ever have to share a Data Merge file with anyone else but do not want to share the data with them but instead only give them the base InDesign file, note that simply removing the link doesn’t remove the data.

In Part One, I wrote that InDesign doesn’t package the source file of a Data Merge… but that doesn’t mean the data isn’t there. Take this example of a packaged InDesign file used for a Data Merge. While opening the document, there is a missing link warning.

Once the document opens, I can then see in the links panel that there is a warning next to this text file that was used as the source.

If I right click on the link, I can’t unembed the text file as it simply isn’t linked

However, if I go to the Data Merge panel and check the preview box, I can see the records that were in the unlinked text file.

If the file didn’t have fields added to the page, I can also add those fields to the page and check the preview button on and the data will appear for these records.

It also merges correctly to PDF and InDesign files.

Be aware of this if you ever have to package a Data Merge file to others whom you do not wish to provide unredacted data.

Merge fields can be removed via the hyperlinks panel

A Creative Pro article referred to this as “ghost hyperlinks” but it is a great way of solving issues where a newly provided data merge source file can’t be previewed because of a mismatch of source names.

By opening the Hyperlinks panel, it is possible to see the fields that InDesign is using for the data merge as they are within this panel, though they aren’t obvious at first glance.

If one of the hyperlinks is double clicked, it will reveal the field that is being referred to.

From here, a hyperlink can removed, thereby replacing the field codes in the document back to regular text.

Shift clicking during the import does not show options

If the show import options checkbox is toggled off when placing an image, it is possible to perform a “one-time” request to show the import options without clicking on the checkbox. This is done by holding shift and then clicking Open.

But this doesn’t work with Data Merge. A similar option is available when selecting a data source, though holding shift and clicking Open will simply open the document – the Show Import Options checkbox has to be checked if it needs to appear. Hopefully this is a bug that is eventually fixed.

Put linked images in the same folder as the source text file…

While it is possible to add images to a data merge project by supplying its link in the source file, I so often see users put the complete file path of the link being used in the field.

If the images are filed in the same location as the text file, the only item that needs to be added here is the name of the file.

However, this means the links need to be in the same folder as the source text file.

…or use relative syntax as well

It is also possible to use syntax that is relative to the folder where the database is. Take the following folder structure.

To link to these images, the database needs to use syntax for the previous folder and then folders above. That will look like this

..: is syntax for go back a folder, whereas / plus the folder’s name is syntax to look into that particular folder.

I hope you found this short series useful, and if you have any Data Merge “did you know” tips, please feel free to submit them either in the comments, or contact me via my contact page.

Filed under Handover, Housekeeping, VDP

Data Merge “Did you know” Part One

March 22, 2021 Leave a comment

Regulars to the site will know that many of my articles relate to InDesign’s Data Merge feature. Given the amount of tutorials already available online elsewhere concerning basic tutorials for Data Merge, the Colecandoo site focuses more on articles about Data Merge in relation to scripts, GREP styles, or advanced techniques.

But there is a middle-ground that hasn’t been covered in many Data Merge tutorials, nor here on Colecandoo, so over the next two articles, I will attempt to bridge that gap and highlight some lesser known issues that can become a problem if users aren’t initially aware of them.

Can’t package the data or links used in the data

When InDesign packages an INDD file, it will save a copy of the file and copy any links used in the document into a Links folder, and any fonts used (within licensing restrictions) to a Document fonts folder.

However, this does not extend to the source data of a Data Merge file, nor any links that the source data may refer to.

PDF made from merge is different to regular PDF

I have written about this before but ultimately when exporting a PDF directly from Data Merge, it makes a variety of PDF that is similar but not the same as a usual PDF, as the following options cannot be chosen.

The ability to merge to an interactive PDF
The page range (not the record range)
Spreads
Create Tagged PDF
Create Acrobat Layers
Hyperlinks

I’ve speculated why this might be the case in this article but until this addressed, it is a consideration to be aware of.

Headers with the same name

If the headers in a database are exactly the same name, InDesign’s Data Merge will add a sequential number after the first instance of the field name to make a distinction between the field names.

Colons can cause weird issues in the header

This featured briefly in my creative pro article “Troubleshooting data merge errors” but in short, colons used in field names can cause one of two dialog boxes when used in particular circumstances. Thankfully, if a colon appears at the start or end (or both) of a field name, the data will import without any issues, but if a colon is within the field, then a dialog box with the words “Generic extended parser error” appears.

If there are two or more colons in the field name (neither at the start or end of a field name), a dialog box that says “not well formed” appears.

UTF-16 is the format built for Data Merge

InDesign’s Data Merge is designed with UTF-16 text in mind. However, CSV and TXT files exported from programs such as Microsoft Excel usually export to UTF-8.