Tips & Techniques

How to move a layout from InDesign to After Effects

2012-02-09T19:55:00.001-06:00

It's quite common in tablet publications created with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to include animated covers or opening screens for feature articles. You may want to begin the layout of these screens in InDesign, and then take the layout you've created into Adobe After Effects to make it move....

A peek at the design of Money Magazine, tablet ed.

2012-02-07T16:13:00.001-06:00

If you are involved with designing tablet apps, you need to read this really good article about the development and design of the tablet versions of Money Magazine. Some interesting ideas about using swipe to "selectively reveal" images and text to the user.

Beware of this Apple Security Update

2012-02-03T14:14:00.001-06:00

[The following is a "guest post" by my friend Ed Klemz from Central Coast Solutions.] On 2/1/2012 Apple resleased Security Update 2012-001 for OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) - DO NOT install it if you use any older software (pre-CS5, Quark 8, Suitcase 3, etc.) as it will disable the 'Rosetta' code that...

Don't miss PePcon!

2012-02-01T08:48:00.001-06:00

If you use Adobe InDesign, you won't want to miss the Print and ePublishing conference (PePcon). I'll be speaking at the conference again this year, and would love to see you there! The previous two PePcon conferences have been just great. The speakers, presentations, and panels have all been...

A new DPS resource

2012-01-23T18:59:00.001-06:00

The folks at Technology for Publishing have created a really nice "how-to" book about the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (DPS). The book is titled DPSCreate™: Building Interactive Content. It can be purchased in downloadable form as a PDF or in a printed version. This clear, concise, accurate...

Creating "page turning" buttons in Adobe DPS

2012-01-13T14:29:00.001-06:00

Even though Adobe Digital Publishing Suite includes some built-in navigation functionality, you might want to include additional buttons to help the user navigate quickly and easily around your app. There are two ways to add links to other pages in a DPS app: you can select some text and use the...

Save the date!

2012-01-12T08:29:00.001-06:00

I just scheduled the next meeting of the Twin Cities InDesign User Group for Thursday evening, March 1, 2012 from 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. My friend Paul Trani, an evangelist at Adobe Systems, is going to demonstrate how the new Adobe Muse and Adobe Edge...

Adobe announces special upgrade offer

2012-01-11T13:52:00.001-06:00

In the past, Adobe has had a very generous upgrade policy. Users could usually upgrade from a version of the Creative Suite that was 2, 3 or even 4 versions back, and still qualify for upgrade pricing to the latest version. But in November, Adobe announced that this will change. Starting with CS6,...

How to reset a DPS iPad app as "unread"

2012-01-05T16:22:00.001-06:00

Many of the iPad apps created with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite use a horizontal-vertical navigation scheme. You swipe horizontally to move from section to section of the app, and then swipe vertically to read more in a particular section. This is pretty intuitive, but it can be clunky once...

DPS app design spotlight: Van Gogh's Dream

2011-12-19T11:24:00.001-06:00

(This is the fourth in an intermittent series of posts highlighting interesting or innovative apps built using Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.) Van Gogh's Dream is an amazing piece of work. If you have any interest in the work of Vincent van Gogh, this is a must-have. But even if you don't, it is...

DPS app design spotlight: Chased By The Light

2011-12-05T20:53:00.001-06:00

Apple just approved our latest iPad app, Jim Brandenburg's Chased By The Light. Lynn Phelps (Phelps Design) did the design, I did the technical production. This app is derived from the popular coffee table book of the same name. The RGB photos look stunning on the iPad...surpassing the best CMYK...

DPS app design spotlight: U of Dayton Viewbook

2011-11-23T09:43:00.001-06:00

(This is the second in an intermittent series of posts highlighting interesting or innovative apps built using Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.) Kudos to the designers who produced the University of Dayton Undergraduate Viewbook app. This free, vertical-orientation-only iPad app is a "viewbook" for...

Still on CS4 or older? Adobe announces upgrade policy for CS6.

2011-11-17T14:11:00.001-06:00

In a recent blog post Adobe announced pricing for Creative Cloud, which, among other things will offer subscription pricing for Creative Suite products. But also in this blog post is the folowing nugget: "With regards to upgrades, we are changing our policy for perpetual license customers. In...

DPS app design spotlight: Nat Geo slide show

2011-11-16T18:58:00.001-06:00

(This is the first in an intermittent series of posts where I plan to highlight interesting or innovative apps built using Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.) National Geographic is doing some interesting things in their DPS apps. A couple different photo treatments in the November 2011 issue of...

InDesign section numbering shortcuts

2011-11-02T14:09:00.001-05:00

InDesign's Numbering & Section Options dialog box is useful for changing the starting page number of a file, changing page numbering in the middle of a file, changing the page numbering style, and more. The obvious way to access this useful dialog box is to choose Layout > Numbering &...

A peek at things to come?

2011-10-17T11:33:00.001-05:00

I had the good fortune to attend Adobe MAX 2011 two weeks ago in Los Angeles. My head is stuffed full of all kinds of new stuff that I learned at this amazing event.A highlight of the conference was the "Sneak Peek" presentations, where Adobe engineers shared bits of technology that "may, or may...

Compressing video for use in DPS

2011-10-15T23:10:00.001-05:00

Use the following checklist to ensure that video content is optimized for tablet apps you create with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (DPS).[ ] Save the video in .mp4 format with .h264 encoding[ ] Scale and crop the video to the exact size that you want it to play in your DPS app before placing it...

DPS: Stop a video at the last frame

2011-09-26T09:42:00.001-05:00

A technique being used by many publishers of content-rich tablet apps such as magazines is to have a video play on the cover or the first page of a feature, and then have the video "freeze" at the last frame. This can be done using Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. Johannes Henseler first documented...

Image resolution for iPad publishing

2011-09-15T15:42:00.001-05:00

Don't miss this post I just wrote for InDesignSecrets:What is the minimum image resolution required when designing for the iPad? The answer might surprise you...

Photoshop Extended for DPS

2011-09-14T14:45:00.001-05:00

If you are planning creating apps with Adobe InDesign and Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, I strongly recommend that you have Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended in your tool set. Here's why.If you're not aware, Adobe Photoshop CS4 and newer comes in two "flavors": Photoshop and Photoshop Extended. Both...

A use for Photoshop's Polar Coordinates filter

2011-08-30T13:55:00.001-05:00

In a recent Photoshop training session at a manufacturing client, they had some artwork that they needed to "wrap" around a roughly-cone-shaped vase. They had the artwork below, which shows the artwork as you would see it looking at the side of the vase. However, their vendor wanted the artwork...

Sharing folios with Adobe DPS

2011-08-22T10:23:00.001-05:00

One of the great features of Adobe Digital Publishing Suite is the ability to share folios that you create with a select audience of reviewers, approvers and collaborators. Here are a few things you need to know about this.1. When you share a folio, you will be prompted to enter the email addresses...

Clean text in InDesign

2011-08-15T07:20:00.004-05:00

I first wrote about Text Cleaner way back in 2007 on this blog. Text Cleaner is a cool Macintosh program that makes it easy to "clean" text of multiple spaces, double hyphens, multiple tabs, line breaks, etc. It's a standalone application, but will clean the text you have selected in InDesign,...

InDesign template resources

2011-07-29T11:18:00.001-05:00

Starting an InDesign layout from a template can be useful in many ways. They can be a way for an inexperienced InDesign user to create a complex project quickly. Deconstructing a well-designed template can be a good way to learn more about InDesign. Templates can be a useful way for non-designers...

Book recommendation

2011-07-19T14:05:00.001-05:00

The last few days I've been perusing "Vector Basic Training: A Systematic Creative Process for Building Precision Vector Artwork" by Von Glitschka. Anyone who is serious about learning how to do vector illustration better in Adobe Illustrator needs this book.The core objective of the book is to...