Real World Adobe InDesign CS4- P24 pot

      A key point here is that the preight warnings do not, by them- selves, mean that something is wrong with your document. Even the warnings produced by the Basic prole are not necessarily bad. It all depends on your workow and printing process. For example, the Basic prole will always ag images that use the RGB color space. It might be that RGB images are ne in your workow—it’s up to you to decide whether to ignore the error message or not. In similar fash- ion, you might want to set up custom proles that alert you to benign, but possibly unexpected, conditions in your documents. Dening preight proles. To dene a preight prole, follow these steps (see Figure 11-18). 1. Display the Preight panel. 2. Choose Dene Proles from the Preight Panel menu. InDesign displays the Preight Proles dialog box. 3. Click the New Preight Prole button (“+”). 4. Enter a name for your new prole. 5. Work your way through the dierent areas of the dialog box, turning preight checks on and o as necessary. 6. When the preight prole includes all of the checks you want it to, click the OK button to save the prole. To use the prole, select the prole name from the Prole pop-up menu in the Preight panel. To edit the prole, return to the Preight  - Preight Panel Choose Preight Panel from the Preight pop-up menu. Use the Preight Document option turn the Preight feature on or o. If preight is on, you can double-click the Preight icon to display the panel. e Preight panel gives you a quick look at the status of the preight check. If anything is amiss (according to the current pright prole), you’ll see it reported here. When you select an item in the Error list, the Info area shows more detail about the error. Click the link to go to the page containing the error. Dene the range of pages you want to check using these controls. Choose the preight prole you want to use. Click this icon to embed the preight prole in the document. Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 691Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 691 08/04/2009 05:56:04 p.m.08/04/2009 05:56:04 p.m.  .    - Dening a Preight Prole Proles dialog box, select the prole name in the list of proles. e Preight panel will ll in with the conditions you’ve dened for the prole. Make any changes to the prole you want, then click the Save button to save the prole. Performing a preight check. Once you’ve selected a preight pro- le, all you need to do is turn it on. To do this, display the Preight panel (choose Preight Panel from the Preight pop-up menu), then turn on the On option. You can control the range of pages checked using the options at the bottom of the Preight panel. As InDesign checks your document against the preight condi- tions dened in the prole, any errors found will appear in the Pre- ight panel. Links in the Preight panel will take you to each error. Embedding preight proles. You can embed a preight prole in a document, which means that the document can travel to other sys- tems and still be checked for the conditions you dened in the prole. To embed a prole, select the prole from the Prole pop-up menu in the Preight panel, then click the Embed Prole button to the le of the pop-up menu. Saving Preight Reports. To save a preight report (the list of errors shown in the Error section of the Preight panel) as a text le or PDF, choose Save Report from the Preight panel menu. InDesign Click the + button to add a new Preight prole. InDesign displays the settings for a new prole. Work your way through the settings to dene the error conditions you want to look for during a preight check. Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 692Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 692 08/04/2009 05:56:04 p.m.08/04/2009 05:56:04 p.m.        - Preight Options Dialog Box displays a standard le dialog. Enter a le name and folder for the le, then choose the format you want to use to save the report from the Save As Type pop-up menu. Click the OK button to save the report. Setting Preight Options. e Preight Options dialog box (choose Preight Options from the Preight panel menu) gives you a way to dene various settings for the way that InDesign interprets and uses preight proles (see Figure 11-19). Settings in this dialog box are pretty much self-explanatory: choose whether you want to use a particular prole as a default, whether you want the prole to check master pages and page items on the pasteboard, and so on. If you ever work with les created by others, we think you should keep the Use Embedded Prole option turned on—this is the default for good reason. Without it, you might not notice the prole someone else has set up, and end up “correct- ing” mistakes that aren’t mistakes at all. You can assemble all of the les needed to print the publication using the Package plug-in (this is similar to QuarkXPress’ “Col- lect for Output” feature, or PageMaker’s “Save For Service Provider” plug-in). InDesign also creates a report containing detailed informa- tion about your document, including fonts and pictures you used. en all you have to do is get the folder to your output provider. To “package” a publication, follow these steps (see Figure 11-20). 1. Choose Package from the File menu (or press Command- Option-Shi-P/Ctrl-Alt-Shi-P). InDesign displays the Printing Instructions dialog box. 2. Enter contact information in the Printing Instructions dialog box—this information will appear in the nal text report that InDesign adds to the package you’re creating. Package Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 693Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 693 08/04/2009 05:56:05 p.m.08/04/2009 05:56:05 p.m.  .   When you choose Package from the File menu (or click the Package button in the Preight dialog box), InDesign displays the Printing Instructions dialog box. Enter your contact information and any notes you want to include in the elds; these instructions will be saved as a text le. Aer you click the Continue button, InDesign displays the Package Publication dialog box. Choose the les you want to copy to the package folder. Enter a name and location for the pack- age (the publication le and any other les you choose to copy). Click Package to save the document and associated les to the folder you selected. If you’re copying fonts, InDesign displays this message aer you click the Package button  - Packaging a Publication for Remote Printing 3. Click the Continue button. InDesign displays the Create Pack- age Folder dialog box. Set the options you want and enter a name for the folder that will contain the packaged publication. When you turn on the Copy Fonts or Copy Linked Graphics option, InDesign copies the les to the folder you specify. e Update Graphic Links in Package option tells InDesign to set the links for non-embedded images to the images in the pack- aged folder (rather than leaving them linked to the original les). It’s pretty rare that you’d want to turn this o. When you turn on the Use Document Hyphenation Exceptions Only option, InDesign ags this document so that it won’t reow when Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 694Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 694 08/04/2009 05:56:05 p.m.08/04/2009 05:56:05 p.m.       someone else opens or edits it on a machine that may have dif- ferent dictionaries and hyphenation settings. We generally turn this on when sending the le to an output provider. 4. Click the Package button. InDesign creates the folder and copies the publication and the les you specied into it. If the Copy Fonts option was turned on, InDesign also alerts you that copy- ing fonts may be a violation of your rights. Adobe fonts can be copied to send to an output provider, but some font vendors don’t allow this (though we’ve never heard of anyone being taken to court for this). When you send this folder full of les to your printer or ser- vice bureau, make sure you remind them that there is a le called Instructions.txt in there that they should read. In fact, we sometimes rename this le “READ ME.txt” to make it stand out better. Finally, if you’re working on really large les with hundreds of megabytes of images, you need to be careful with the Package feature so that you don’t run out of hard disk space. All the News at Prints to Fit Printing is all about thinking ahead. When you create a new pub- lication, you really should be thinking “How the heck are we going to print this thing?” By the end of the production process, you’ll be tired, cranky, and less able to deal with any problems that come up— so make your decisions about paper size, color selection, and graphic le types as early as you can. Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 695Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 695 08/04/2009 05:56:05 p.m.08/04/2009 05:56:05 p.m.  Most of the time, we tell a program (an application, a plug-in, or our system soware) what to do by manipulating the program’s user interface—we click, drag, and type. Scripting is a way of telling a program to perform the same tasks and accomplish the same things. e dierence is that, with scripting, we don’t have to click the but- tons, type the characters, or choose the menu items. e script does it for you. Scripting is what computing is supposed to be about: having your computer take over boring, repetitive tasks so that you can spend more time playing World of Warcra: Wrath of the Lich King. Er, we mean, concentrating on your creative work. Scripting also gives you the ability to add the features you need to InDesign now, rather than waiting for Adobe to give them to you. Even better than that, scripting gives you a way to customize InDesign to match your publications and habits to a degree that Adobe is never going to provide. We’re convinced that the reason many people have not taken up scripting is that they’re scared. ey think scripting is dicult, and is only for people with advanced computer science degrees. And they tell themselves that they’re too “intuitive” and “artistic” to master the minimal analytical skills required to write a script. Scripting  12 Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 696Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 696 08/04/2009 05:56:05 p.m.08/04/2009 05:56:05 p.m.       Be Not Afraid You do not need to know how to write scripts to be able to run scripts. is is a misunderstanding that prevents many people from even trying scripting, even though existing scripts might save them enor- mous amounts of time and trouble. Even if you don’t want to write scripts, or know anything about how they’re written, you can use scripts. For that matter, chances are quite good that you know someone who is interested in writ- ing scripts for you, and would be willing to do so for the occasional expression of admiration (or beer). All you need to know is how to install scripts—and that’s very simple: just put the script in the Scripts Panel folder in the Scripts folder inside your InDesign folder. When you do this, the script will appear in the Scripts panel in InDesign. You can also put an alias (Mac OS) or shortcut (Windows) to a script or folder in the same folder. at's all there is to it. at’s pretty simple, right? If not, we’re not certain you should be using a computer at all (or driving a car, for that matter). To run a script, double-click the script name in the Scripts panel. ere are a few other options, as discussed in “Using the Scripts Panel and the Script Label Panel,” later in this chapter. Many scripts will display a dialog box (or other user interface item). Next, we encourage everyone to consider learning to write scripts. Ole says: “Look. I’m practically a high school dropout, and my background is in illustration, not computer science. I have never taken a single class on programming. As a rebellious teenager I did my best to ignore the sciences and to panic at the sight of even simple equations (in psychoanalytical terms this makes sense: my father was a high school algebra teacher). “I got over it. ese days, I write scripts. You can, too.” System Requirements What do you need to write and run scripts for InDesign? e follow- ing things:  e standard scripting system for your computer (if you plan to use the platform-specic scripting languages rather than JavaScript). You probably already have this. Installing Scripts Running a Script Writing Scripts: How Hard Could It Be? Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 697Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 697 08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m.08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m.  .    e InDesign scripting documentation and sample scripts.  A good understanding of the way InDesign works.  Condence. It also helps to have a repetitive task that you wish you would never have to do again. is is not required, but it helps. InDesign supports an Adobe version of JavaScript called Extend- Script. ExtendScript complies with the ECMA JavaScript 1.5 stan- dard, and adds a few features to make it more useful for scripting a desktop application (as opposed to a web browser). InDesign JavaScripts are cross-platform—they run in both the Windows and Mac OS versions of InDesign. ere are a few minor dierences between platforms—but they’re limited to the way that the scripts work with les and the operating system (as you’d expect). If JavaScript is cross-platform, why does Adobe bother supporting the platform-specic languages? First, because scripters might prefer those languages. Adobe’s goal should be to increase the number of lan- guages that can be used, not to limit them. Next, because InDesign’s JavaScript does not know how to communicate with other applica- tions on your system (such as FileMaker or Access); the platform- specic languages do that very well. Luckily, we can use both, and we can tie the platform-specic and platform-independent languages together with InDesign’s “do script” method, which lets scripts run other scripts. A JavaScript, for example, can run an AppleScript, or a VBScript can run a JavaScript. For an example of the latter, take a look at the FindChangeByList.vbs example script, where Ole uses a snippet of JavaScript to add a le browser dialog box to a VBScript. Note: Some InDesign JavaScripts have the le extension “.js”, which is the standard extension for JScripts in Windows, they will not work if run from the operating system (at best, you’ll get an error message). Instead, run these scripts using InDesign’s Scripts panel. Try to get in the habit of using the “.jsx” extension, rather than “.js”. On the Mac OS, all you need is AppleScript. You almost certainly already have it installed, but in case you don’t, it comes on the Mac installation CD. If you can’t nd your installation CD, you can download AppleScript directly from Apple (http://www.apple.com). What’s the easiest way to tell if it’s installed? Search for a le named “Script Editor” (this is the application you use to write and run JavaScript Mac OS Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 698Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 698 08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m.08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m.       AppleScripts). If you can’t nd it, you’ll have to install it from the Mac OS X installation CD. Alternative script editors are available—if you’re planning to do serious AppleScript development, we strongly recommend Script Debugger, from Late Night Soware (http://www.latenightsw.com). Script Debugger is an astonishingly good piece of soware, well worth its purchase price. And no, we are not paid to say this. InDesign can run uncompiled AppleScripts—script les saved as text. To use an uncompiled AppleScript, save the le with the le extension “.applescript” (or “.as”) in the Scripts Panel folder inside the Scripts folder in your InDesign folder, and then run the script from the Scripts panel. On the Windows side, you’ve got a number of options. ere are (at least) three dierent scripting systems claiming to be the system stan- dard: Visual Basic Script (VBScript), Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), and various forms of Visual Basic (VB)—including Visual Basic 6, Visual Basic .NET, and Visual Basic 5 Control Creation Edi- tion (VB5 CCE). ey’re all from Microso, and they’re all variants of the Basic programming language. Almost all of them work. Our Recommendation: Use VBScript. To write a VBScript, all you need is a text editor. Notepad does the job quite handily. You don’t need anything to run a VBScript—you can run them from Explorer or from InDesign’s Scripts panel. If you run them from InDesign’s Scripts panel, though, they’ll run much faster. Using VBScript makes distributing and deploying your scripts easier, too. Since they’re just text, they’re easy to post on web pages or send to other people. e InDesign sample scripts are provided in VBScript, so you’ll have a lot of code to work with that won’t require much translation (as it would if you were to try to use them in VB.NET, for example). Our Further Recommendation: Use VBA to develop VBScripts. Troubleshooting (debugging) VBScripts can be dicult. All you can do is run the script and then note any error messages that appear— and they’re not particularly useful. What you need is a real program- ming environment, where you can step through the lines of your script one by one, as you can when you use Visual Basic. Visual Basic for Applications, the version of Visual Basic that’s built into most Microso Oce applications, works quite well for developing VBScripts for InDesign. Chances are pretty good that you’ve already got an Oce application. Windows Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 699Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 699 08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m.08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m.  .   VBA works very well for developing VBScripts for use in InDesign. You can write your VBScript in VBA, making certain that you don’t use part of Visual Basic that does not exist in VBScript; debug the script, and then, when everything works the way you want it to, copy the contents of the subroutine to a text editor and save it as a VBScript (.vbs) le. We’ll talk more about this later in the chapter. About VB.NET (and newer versions). VB.NET is a tremendous step backwards for the Visual Basic language in terms of performance, ease of use, and ease of learning. We could rant for hours (and have) about how messed up VB.NET is (at least from the standpoint of a scripter), but, for now, we’ll content ourselves with saying that the only reason one should use VB.NET for InDesign script development is if your script depends on some feature of VB.NET that is not avail- able in any of the other, better, versions of Visual Basic. We can’t think of any, right at the moment. In addition, and though InDesign works with VB.NET, there are some InDesign scripting tasks that are much more dicult in VB.NET than they are in other versions of Visual Basic. Finally, if you plan on deploying your scripts as VBScripts, VBA makes a better development system than VB.NET, as VB.NET does not understand the Variant data type. Because Variant is the funda- mental VBScript data type, this is a problem. We know of InDesign scripters who are using C#, C, C++, Perl, Python, JScript, OSA JavaScript, Delphi, and other languages to drive InDesign. If your favorite programming language can connect to the platform standard means of passing messages between appli- cations (that’s OSA/AppleEvents on the Mac OS and DDE/COM in Windows), it can probably communicate with InDesign. We’re not going to spend any time on those languages, how- ever, because, frankly, we have more than enough to do explaining VBScript, AppleScript, and JavaScript. Forgive us. Learning About InDesign Scripting Once you’ve gathered and installed the soware you need to start scripting, you need to learn about how InDesign implements script- ing. You’re in luck—you’ll nd the scripting documentation, sample scripts, on the InDesign scripting home page: http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/scripting/index.html Other Scripting Languages Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 700Real_World_Adobe_InDesign_CS4b.pdf 700 08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m.08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m. [...]... and methods that comprise InDesign s scripting object model: the Object Model Viewer Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 714 08/04/2009 05:56:08 p.m 702 real world adobe indesign cs4 To use the object model viewer, choose Object Model Viewer from the ESTK Help menu The ESTK displays the Object Model Viewer Choose Adobe InDesign CS4 (6.0) Object Model (the other listings for InDesign display previous... myObjectList(UBound(myObjectList) + 1) End If Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 710 08/04/2009 05:56:07 p.m 698 real world adobe indesign cs4 Set myObjectList(UBound(myObjectList)) = myInDesign _ Selection.Item(myCounter) End Select Next If Not (IsEmpty(myObjectList(0))) Then myCutContents myInDesign, myObjectList End If End If End If Function myCutContents(myInDesign, myObjectList) For myCounter = 0... script from David’s web site—see “Where to Get the Scripts in this Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 716 08/04/2009 05:56:08 p.m 704 real world adobe indesign cs4 Chapter,” earlier in this chapter) Note that ¬ indicates a long line in this layout—do not enter a line break in the Script Editor MapStylesToTags.as tell application "Adobe InDesign CS4" if (count documents) > 0 then if (count paragraph... to item 1 of myBounds select myItem cut paste Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 708 08/04/2009 05:56:07 p.m 696 real world adobe indesign cs4 set myPageItem to item 1 of selection tell myPageItem to move to {myX, myY} else set done to true end if end repeat end if end tell 3 Save the script in the Scripts Panel folder inside the Scripts folder in your InDesign folder If you choose to save the file... an InDesign document ▶ LabelGraphics Adds a caption below every graphic in the document The caption can be the file name, the file path, the XMP author name, or the XMP description You can control the placement of the caption relative to the frame, the style used to format the caption, and the layer for the caption Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 702 08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m 690 real world adobe indesign. .. detail in the Adobe InDesign CS4 Scripting Tutorial) 1 Start InDesign and a Microsoft Office application that contains VBA We’ll use Excel, but other applications Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 711 08/04/2009 05:56:07 p.m chapter 12 scripting 699 Figure 12-3 CutContents Script Once you’ve entered and saved a script, select an object you’ve pasted other objects into Run the script, and InDesign will... writing scripts of your own Once you’ve got your script working the way you want it to, copy the contents of the Code window to a text file, delete the lines Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 712 08/04/2009 05:56:07 p.m 700 real world adobe indesign cs4 Figure 12-4 Debugging Scripts with VBA When you debug, you can step through your script and examine the state of variables—this makes finding problems...688 real world adobe indesign cs4 Once you’re there, you’ll need to click the Scripting Resources tab to display the scripting-specific goodies The Adobe InDesign CS4 Scripting Tutorial is a PDF that contains an introduction to scripting, and basic tutorials (including introductory scripts) The Adobe InDesign CS4 Scripting Guide comes in three flavors:... publication layout that would be difficult to accomplish by hand When there’s time, we turn to scripting for help Frequently, in the course of working on a script, Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 704 08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m 692 real world adobe indesign cs4 we’ll find a variation on the effect that leads us in an entirely new creative direction Scripting gives us time to experiment—and we think experimentation... Rem and uncomment the following line Rem Set myMap = myDocument.XMLImportMaps.Add(myXMLTag, _ Rem myParagraphStyle) End If Next myDocument.AutoTag End Function Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 718 08/04/2009 05:56:08 p.m 706 real world adobe indesign cs4 Drawing NINAs Have you ever played with a Spirograph? Or been fascinated by one of the geometric patterns created by M C Escher? Both authors admit . scripts, on the InDesign scripting home page: http://www .adobe. com/products /indesign/ scripting/index.html Other Scripting Languages Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 70 0Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf. Hard Could It Be? Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 69 7Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 697 08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m.08/04/2009 05:56:06 p.m.  .    e InDesign scripting. developing VBScripts for InDesign. Chances are pretty good that you’ve already got an Oce application. Windows Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 69 9Real_ World_ Adobe_ InDesign_ CS4b.pdf 699 08/04/2009