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Document Presets vs New Page Sizes.xml: Adding page sizes

August 18, 2019 1 Comment

A recent forum post concerning adding page sizes to InDesign’s Document Setup highlighted two different ways to accomplish this task. This article will explain both methods, and the strengths and weaknesses of each method as while they both perform similar tasks, they are not the same and can complement each other.

First method: Saved Presets

Before beginning, it is worth noting that when making a new document in InDesign, users will be presented with one of two different interfaces. In the latest version of Creative Cloud, the default user interface looks like this:

There is also the Legacy interface that long-time InDesign users will be more familiar with:

To choose to use the Legacy user interface, go to the InDesign Preferences (Command+K for Mac, Control+K for Windows) and check the Use Legacy “New Document” Dialog checkbox on. Alternatively if the new default look is preferred, uncheck the dialog box.

Making a saved preset in the default “New Document” dialog

Go to the New Document dialog box (Command+N for Mac, Control+N for Windows) to show the user interface.

Once open, go to the right hand side of the dialog box and enter the measurements, orientation and other desired options.

To save the preset, click on the icon to the right of the Preset Details heading and a new prompt will appear to save the preset.

Once named and saved, the preset can now be accessed in the Saved portion of the user interface.

Be careful in this window as deleting a saved preset will remove it without prompting for a warning.

Making a saved preset in the Legacy dialog

Go to the New Document dialog box (Command+N for Mac, Control+N for Windows) to show the user interface.

Once open, enter the measurements, orientation and other desired options. To save the preset, click on the icon to the right of Document Preset dropdown and a prompt will appear to save the preset.

Once named and saved, the preset can now be accessed Document Preset dropdown of the user interface.

The preset can be deleted by clicking the trashcan in the top right corner of the dialog box, but unlike the default interface, a warning dialog is presented.

Managing saved presets

Regardless of the interface used to make the preset, they are managed by going to the File Menu, Document Presets, then Define. This will present a new dialog box:

From this dialog box, it is possible to save presets so that they can be shared with others as a .dcst file; load preset .dcst files that others have created, as well as make new presets, edit or delete existing presets. Again, a warning will be presented if a preset is to be deleted.

Note though that when making a new preset or editing an existing preset that the Legacy dialog box is used.

Second method: New Page Sizes.xml

This other method calls upon an XML file that InDesign references for custom-made sizes. On a Mac, it can be found here:

/Users/your_own_username/Library/Preferences/Adobe
InDesign/your_version_of_indesign/language_installed/Page Sizes/New Page Sizes.xml

e.g.
/Users/JohnCitizen/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign/Version 14.0/en_US/Page Sizes/New Page Sizes.xml

This file can be edited to add custom sizes. By default, the XML file looks like this:

The syntax to create a new page size looks like this:

The <Name> tags refer to the name of the page size that the user will see in the New Document dialogs. The <Width> and <Height> tags refer to the measurements and these measurements are in points. Each page name, width and height are wrapped in their own <PageSize> tag.

For this example, I’ve taken in all A, B, C, D paper sizes as well as some imperial sizes and saved the XML file.

Anyone interesting in having this file can do so by downloading it here.

When I now open the default New Document interface, the new options now appear in the Print portion:

And here is what it looks like in the Legacy user interface:

Distinctions between Document Presets and New Page Sizes.xml

The default user interface will allow users to add Document Titles to new documents and also allow users to see page sizes at a glance, as opposed to the Legacy interface where page size measurements are only visible once a preset or page size is selected from the dropdown.
Selecting Create Alternate Layout from the Pages panel will show a new dialog box that contains pages added via the New Page Sizes.xml file. These page sizes will be able to be selected from the dropdown, while page sizes made via the saved presets will be unavailable.

The New Page Sizes.xml will only add names of page sizes, widths and heights; while adding presets stores more information such as total number of pages, page orientation, page size (including pages that can be accessed from the New Page Sizes.xml), amount of columns, margin dimensions, bleed and slug settings, and whether to have facing pages or primary text frames.

Filed under Housekeeping, Page Layout Tagged with Adobe, Adobe InDesign, DCST, Document, InDesign, Preset, XML

Add a “Night” mode to InDesign

July 14, 2019 Leave a comment

In the same way that different political or religious views can polarise a group of people, so can one specific InDesign feature: Light or Dark interface.

Introduced into InDesign CC in 2013, this change brought InDesign in line with other Creative Cloud products that had a dark interface. That said, I was not a fan and chose to remain a user of the light interface.

Many years later and Apple released the macOS Mojave with its Dynamic Desktop and Dark mode. The Dynamic Desktop feature shows a bright desktop during daylight hours and a dark desktop during the dark hours. In addition, popular apps also followed suit allowing users to switch from the usual view to a “night mode”.

In addition, I have found myself working late into the night on projects, and have found that a darker interface during these hours is easier on my eyes. That said, I still like to use a light interface when working in daylight hours.

With this in mind, I wondered if it was possible to create an InDesign startup script that – upon performing a common task such as opening a file – would check the time of day and if it was beyond a certain time of the day, would invoke the dark interface… and it was.

I’ve now added this script to the site and it can be downloaded from here or the scripts/download pages. As this is a startup script, it has to be added to the Startup Scripts folder (see Ole Kvern’s excellent instructions for doing so here).

The script can also be modified to suit by going into any text editor such as textedit or notepad and editing the following lines of the script:

if (hours <= 7 || hours >= 18)

This indicates the hours of the day. In the script, 7 = 7:00 am, and 18 = 6:00 pm.

app.generalPreferences.uiBrightnessPreference = 0.0;

This refers to how dark the interface should be. 0.0 is totally dark, 1.0 is bright, but values from 0.1-0.9 can be used as well.

app.generalPreferences.pasteboardColorPreference = 1;

This refers to the color of the pasteboard. The number 1 will match the pasteboard color to the interface, whereas 0 will leave the pasteboard white.

So technically it’s not a night-mode per se, but for those who like the light interface until the night-time hours, this script may be something to consider.

Filed under Colours, Housekeeping, Scripts, Uncategorized Tagged with Adobe, Dark, Dynamic Desktop, InDesign, Javascript, Night, script

Made it to Adobe Make-it 2017

August 6, 2017 Leave a comment

Moments before the start of MAKE-IT 2017

Between August 2-3, the International Convention Centre in Sydney played host to the Adobe MAKE-IT conference, a gathering of close to 2,000 creatives and design professionals from Australia, New Zealand and beyond. While I was unable to attend the sessions on August 2 as the sessions were sold out, I was lucky enough to attend the conference on August 3 thanks to my employer – Openbook Howden Print & Design – providing me the leave at very short notice, for which I am truly grateful.

Speakers on the day of the conference included several creatives in differing fields including an animator using a variety of media; a conflict-zone photographer; a craft-based designer; a social media “disruptor” and author of the “Sharpie-art Workshop” book; and a self proclaimed “digital hipster”. Other speakers included several Adobe staff, including Adobe evangelists Paul Burnett and Photoshop guru Julieanne Kost.

While there were no jaw-dropping announcements about product releases or upgrades, Adobe did provide glimpses of ongoing upgrades and projects such as Project Felix, Adobe Character Animator, Adobe XD, Lightroom enhancements, Adobe Stock improvements, and a revamp of their Youtube site to make easier to follow tutorials.

The conference also provided me an opportunity to catch up with several speakers who had presented sessions the previous day, and whom I have met before at various CPN conferences such as PEPCON, The InDesign Conference and CreativePro Week.

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Jesús Ramirez, Julieanne Kost, Mark Heaps, Karen Alsop and Colin Flashman at Adobe MAKE-IT 2017. Photo credit: Mark Heaps.

As someone who uses InDesign for most of their work, I was a little deflated that the software barely had a mention during the conference. Nevertheless, programs that were more familiar to the rest of the audience such as Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects – applications I also use regularly – featured predominantly.

It was great to see so many people both in attendance and watching online, and hope that not only that the event can return next year, but with greater scope to be the “Mini-MAX” event for Australians who can’t necessarily make it to Adobe MAX in the USA.

Filed under News Tagged with Adobe, conference, MAKE-IT, PEPCON, speaker

Better Infographics for Data Merge with Chartwell Bars

June 26, 2016 1 Comment

While speaking at the 2016 PEPCON in San Diego along with Co-presenter David Creamer on the topic of Data Publishing, I presented an older tip that allows shapes to change size based on numerical values that appear in Data Merge. The tip requires the Chartwell typeface, particularly the Chartwell bars font. I’d mentioned at the time that while it was a novel tip, I didn’t have a practical purpose for it. I’d also mentioned in my presentation about using knockout groups in InDesign to hide information and had demonstrated it using my “Parkway Drive” demonstration where it is used to hide parts of a sign that changes size, but again felt there should be a better use of this tip.

However, it was on my 15 hour flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne where I thought of a new and much more practical purpose – creating infographics. I also thought about getting some sleep, but that was a fool’s errand!

Once I arrived home, I tested out the theories I had during the flight, and while the results were mixed, I was happy with what had been achieved.

Ultimately, I have created three techniques for anyone making infographics. In all instances, I’ve colored the chartwell bars font as black so that the technique can be demonstrated, but in application the type (and its spacer) would be given the color “none”:

1 – Infographics as scaleable shapes.

This uses the method described in an earlier indesignsecrets.com article that I have written. Rather than rewrite the tip, the link to that article is here. The point of difference is that the shape being transformed into an infographic is what is being scaled.

There are some drawbacks to this method.

First, the shape has to allow the chartwell bars font to expand from the left to the right without getting caught on any part of the shape, so not every shape will work. Bottles that were used in the example were fine because they meet this criteria.

Second, there is a lack of precision, especially concerning low numbers as the graphic scales. This appears to be because there is a minimum size that the graphic can shrink to.

2 – Data that is pasted into a vector

This method works the same way with the exception that the data is in a rectangular shaped textframe that is pasted into the target shape, and also given a 2mm spacer object to allow low figures to be presented. The 2mm spacer is a 2mm square that is an inline object before the figures in the chartwell font.

For anyone wondering why such an odd technique was used to add 2mm to the frame, I had tried using a 2mm left align or a 2mm inset space in the shape itself but these presented issues.

3 – Hiding an image underneath

This works the same way as method 2 with the exception that rather than being pasted into the graphic, it is pasted above the graphic. An additional anchored object that is larger than the infographic is then pasted after the figures in chartwell bars and given very specific values in the anchored object dialog box, along with being given the fill color of paper and a multiply effect of 0% from the effects panel. The frame with the values is then grouped with the infographic that is underneath and the “knockout group” checkbox is ticked.

To make the effect more impressive, an “after” graphic is added that is the same size as the infographic but has different properties to make the difference in the values clear to the reader.

Moving forward

By itself, these techniques aren’t that impressive if creating one-off graphics, but if preparing infographics for variable data (whether for a catalogue or direct mail) I’m sure that readers will find these methods quite useful. These are not the only infographics tricks I have recently discovered, so watch this space.

Filed under Digital Print, Page Layout, VDP Tagged with Adobe, Adobe InDesign, chartwell, Chartwell Bars, Chartwell Font, Chartwell Typeface, colecandoo, Data Merge, Infographic, Variable Data

Next Beta Script: Data Merge Cut and Stack Assistant

January 24, 2016 Leave a comment

As a regular user of Data Merge, I often have to assemble projects that require cut and stack impositions. Most of the time, I prepare my files one-up at the correct size and output to PDF, knowing that the RIP of the digital printer has imposition software that has the ability to prepare cut and stack style impositions.

If cut and stack is an unfamiliar term, it is a style of page imposition where the subsequent pages appear on the sheets below until the end of a stack, and then begin again at the top of the sheet in this continuous pattern.

Unlike bookwork that may have a maximum page count of under 1000 pages, cut and stack impositions can deal with page counts in the hundreds of thousands… enough to make any imposition program buckle.

Another way of handling cut and stack impositions is to prepare the imposed base in Adobe InDesign, and then manipulate the data so that rather than being one long list, the list is split into columns based on the amount of pages-to-view on an imposed sheet. This is a quicker method as there are less pages to process and no imposition software to use, but there is the time taken to split the data appropriately, and will suffer any human error that went into manually making the revised database.

Frustrated with this situation, I decided to create a script that would take a large database and repurpose it for a cut and stack imposition. On that note, I present to you my latest script.

The imposed base is created in Adobe InDesign with text frames in place for the data merge placeholders. The script is then run and prompts the user for the original data. An interface appears asking the user for:

The records to process;
The amount of records in a set;
The amount of sets in a stack;
How to process last records (in case the stack sizes are uneven); and
Any other identifiers visible in the database.

Once OK is clicked, the script creates a duplicate of the original database and arranges the data appropriately, and launches the Data Merge palette so that the imposed base placeholders can be populated.