New to InDesign Cs4 is the Kuler panel. Kuler is an online reservoir of swatches that are shared from designer to designer around the world at no cost. It gives you the ability to explore, create and share colour themes around the globe. If you’re lacking in inspiration and can’t think of a colour for a theme, give it a go.

To access the Kuler panel within InDesign go to Window > Extensions > Kuler. The Kuler panel will now appear on your screen. There’s much I could say about Kuler, I don’t want to bore you, Kuler is way to cool for that. Watch the tutorial below.

For more information on this topic via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

Changing tools all the time can get really annoying, and having to go back and forth to the tool panel is something I try to avoid as much as possible. If you’re wanting to quickly pan and then zoom in to another area of your page or document, you may want to give the new Power Zoom feature a go.

If you want to access Power Zoom, press “H” on your keyboard to access the Hand tool. Now that the Hand tool is active, click and hold (don’t let go) for a second on the document page. InDesign now zooms your spread right out and a red rectangle appears on your screen, replacing your normal mouse cursor. InDesign is now waiting for you to move to another part of the spread or even another page altogether and release. When you release (let go) InDesign zooms your page into that spot with the same zoom level as previous. This is so quick and easy.

A variation on this is if you click and hold (don’t let go) and want to change your zoom magnification, you simply use your arrow keys on the keyboard to make the red rectangle smaller (results in a larger magnification) or larger (results in a smaller magnification).

Also, if you’re working away and don’t want to change tools, you can access the keyboard shortcut for the hand tool “Spacebar” and then use this Power Zoom feature in the same way. When you let go you’re back on the tool you had selected previously.

For more information on this topic via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

Contact sheets are a popular way of viewing a range of images quickly. InDesign CS4 now lets you create your own contact sheets by the familiar “File > Place” command.

To create a contact sheet go to “File > Place”, select a range of images (select one image then hold shift to select a continuous row of images) from the dialogue that appears and choose “Open”. At this stage you’re doing nothing other than placing images, the key now is to use the keyboard shortcut “Command + Shift” (Mac) / “Control + Shift” (PC). With this shortcut held, click and drag (don’t let go) on your document page; you will see a grid appear, indicating the arrangement of the rows and columns within your contact sheet. You can let go of the keyboard now, however you don’t want to release your mouse yet. Before you release, you can customise how many rows and columns appear and arrange the images to suit. All you need to do is use your arrow keys. Left and right will increase/decrease columns, up and down will increase/decrease rows.

If you have selected 10 images to place with an arrangement of 2 columns x 3 rows, you will find the place cursor will still be active with the four remaining images. Create a new page and follow the same steps to place the remaining images.

For more information on this topic via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

I’m excited to announce the launch of my new title at infiniteskills.com. If you’re looking for a thorough training guide to Adobe Photoshop Elements 7, this is it. You can check it out here.

Press Release

New Photoshop Elements 7 Tutorial - Training Video on CD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 10, 2009 - New York, NY - Infinite Skills Inc, a trusted source in cost effective professional software training, has just launched an exciting Photoshop Elements 7 Tutorial Video. Available on CD or via streaming video online, this comprehensive course has been developed to help users who have purchased Elements and want to use the software to its fullest advantage. Beginning with a detailed tour of the main interface and Organizer and covering everything from white balance to whitening teeth, users get a hands-on introduction to this versatile and often misunderstood program.

Because it costs so much less than its more established cousin, Photoshop Elements is often thought of as a watered down version of Adobe Photoshop. That couldn’t be further from the truth. While the first versions of Elements had their limitations, Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 delivers on the promise of offering a repurposed Photoshop focusing on home use. It utilizes many of the same features that make PS the go-to tool for professional designers and photographers, but it makes them easier to use. Users can work with layers, replace colors and create gradients, for example, but they also get the added functionality that comes with Elements’ photo organizing and sharing tools. Your photos weren’t taken to just sit on a hard drive, and Elements gives you easy options for creating your own photobooks, calendars and collages in a series of steps.

Written and led by professional multimedia consultant Neil Oliver, the tutorial shows you how to get professional quality results from your own home with a program that costs a fraction of traditional industry software. There are plenty of manuals on the market that promise to make learning the software quick and easy, but they rely on text descriptions and static screenshots for their examples. These intuitive instructional videos show you how to get your results directly from the Elements interface, with realtime walkthroughs that appear exactly as they do on your own computer.

While the course is built with a beginning, middle and end, it also gives you the freedom to easily skip around and learn at your own pace. Lessons are divided into short, digestible segments based on the subject covered, and that makes it especially easy for more experienced users who just want to learn specific techniques or review. There are several project-oriented lessons that show you practical uses for Elements 7, such as patching together multiple shots for a panorama or optimizing images to be used on the web. With a diverse array of topics covered and an intuitive format, the tutorial video truly has something to offer everyone.

About Infinite Skills Inc

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Free demo lessons and more information on the Photoshop Elements 7 Tutorial on CD can be found on the infiniteskills.com

Not sure if you noticed, this site was down for about 4 hours. I started off this morning thinking, it’s about time I posted something on creativementor.com.au. Before I started my post, I noticed a new version of Wordpress was available for upgrade. Thinking nothing of it I clicked the upgrade button, didn’t I…

Turns out that wasn’t the best idea. The upgrade failed, whilst failing it deleted all the files on my database and the database itself. That’s about 18 months of posts gone. You could imagine the type of response…

Well I didn’t react as you might expect. It was more of a deer in the headlights reaction. I got up, went down the road and got a coffee, made a phone call and here we are. All restored.

It wasn’t by my own genius either, lucky my hosting company keeps a backup of the past three weeks.

Sorry for any inconvenience…

Once you have created a button, you need to apply an action to it in order to build functionality into your button. You have two controls over the functionality of your button, the Event and Action. The Event allows you to control when the action will become active. The Action controls the behaviour of the button.

Here is a list of the different Events and Actions available:

EVENTS

On Release: When the mouse button is released after a click.

On Click: When the mouse button is clicked (without being released).

On Roll Over: When the mouse pointer enters the button area defined by the button’s bounding box.

On Roll Off: When the mouse pointer exits the button area.

On Focus: When the button receives focus, either through a mouse action or pressing the Tab key.

On Blur: When the focus moves to a different button or form field.

ACTIONS

Close (PDF): Closes the PDF document.

Exit (PDF): Exits the application, such as Adobe Reader, in which the PDF document is open.

Go To Anchor: Jumps to the specified text anchor.

Go To First/Last/Next/Previous Page: Jumps to the first, last, previous, or next page in the PDF or SWF file.

Go To Previous View (PDF): Jumps to the most recently viewed page in the PDF document, or returns to the last used zoom size.

Go To Next View (PDF): Jumps to a page after going to the previous view. In the same way that a Forward button is available in a web browser only after someone clicks the Back button, this option is available only if the user has jumped to a previous view.

Go To Page (SWF Only): Jumps to the page in the SWF file you specify.

Go To URL: Opens the web page of the specified URL.

Movie (PDF): Lets you play, pause, stop, or resume the selected movie.

Open File (PDF): Launches and opens the file that you specify. If you specify a file that is not PDF, the reader needs the native application to open it successfully.

Show/Hide Buttons: Toggles between showing and hiding specified buttons in the exported PDF or SWF file.

Sound (PDF): Lets you play, pause, stop, or resume a sound clip.

View Zoom (PDF): Displays the page according to the zoom option you specify.

InDesign also allows you to add rollover functionality to a button. This can be done from the State Appearances section of the Buttons panel. Once an object has been converted to a button, it now has three different appearances. Normal, Rollover and Click. Normal lets you maintain the original appearance of the button, Rollover is where you can create a different appearance when someone hovers over the button, and Click allows you to have yet another appearance when someone clicks on the button. To change the appearance of a State, simply select your button, then double click on the particular state you are wanting to edit. That appearance will now be active (highlighted in blue), you can edit the object whilst it’s in that appearance, and it will only affect that State. When you’re done editing your appearances, it’s best to double click back on the Normal State so your design looks as expected. When you export to PDF/SWF the rollovers will be present.

For more information on this topic via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

Buttons allow you to create real control over how a person will interact with your dynamic PDF/SWF. You can create buttons that will to go to particular page, take a client to your website, send you an email, open a file or even open a movie. In this post I’m going to show you how to create a button.

You can create a button from any text frame, graphic frame or object within InDesign. To create buttons it’s best to work from the Buttons panel. This can be found in the Window menu “Window > Interactive > Buttons”. When you’re ready to create a button, simply select the object with the Selection tool and click on the “Convert to Button” icon (see image below) at the lower right of the buttons panel.

Once your object has been converted to a button, you will see a button icon appear within the lower right of the object. This is a visual indicator only, it won’t print. If you cant see this little button icon within your new button, it may be for a few reasons; 1. You may need to zoom in on the object a little, 2. You may be in preview mode. If so, hit “W” to exit/enter preview mode, 3. You may have “Hide frame edges” on - to turn this off go to the view menu and choose “Show Frame Edges”.

Once you have converted an object to a button you can convert it back to a normal object by selecting it with the Selection tool and clicking where the “Convert to Button” icon was. It is now a “Convert Button to a Object” icon.

Rather than creating your own buttons InDesign, CS4 has some sample buttons built right into the application. You can access these sample buttons directly from the flyout menu of the Buttons panel (see image below), or you could change to the Interactive workspace. The sample buttons will be docked on the right of your screen. The sample buttons panel won’t be found within the Window > Interactive menu, don’t get caught out.

To add one of these sample buttons to your layout, first select it and then drag it directly to your layout. One advantage of using these sample buttons is that they are already interactive with actions applied. We’ll be looking at adding interactivity to buttons in the next post.

For more information on this topic via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

This video tutorial explains where in InDesign the interactive features are found. It also shows you the built in workspace for working with interactivity.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

Thanks for joining me today! Below you will find the links to the working files…

Dynamic SWF after interactivity was applied

PDF document explaining interactivity

INDD working file (no links)

You might also want to check out this link for more info on InDesign’s interacitve capabilitites from Adobe Support.

Did you know InDesign can export to Flash and SWF? Did you know you can create interactive documents with movies, sound, buttons, rollovers, hyperlinks, bookmarks, page transitions and much more?

Check out my recent eSeminar on all thing interactive http://pacific.adobe.acrobat.com/p37436991/.

…

If you’ve ever wanted to get a clear look at your design without all the distracting ruler guides and margins, then you need to go into Preview mode. There are four preview modes available when viewing your document page, Normal, Preview, Bleed and Slug. “Normal” is how you’ve always previewed your document pages, with all the ruler guides and margins visible. “Preview” removes all the ruler guides and margins from view giving you a clear look at your design so you can accurately conceptualize how the design is looking. “Bleed” and “Slug” do the same as “Preview’ with the addition of the document bleed or slug now being visible.

To access your preview mode simply press “W” on your keyboard. By default when you press “W” you will toggle between “Normal” and “Preview” modes. If you want to access the other preview modes you need to locate the preview icon at the very bottom of the tool panel. If you click and hold for a second, a menu will appear where you can specify which mode you want. Once you select that mode from the tool panel, it will be set as the default preview mode when you use the keyboard shortcut “W”.

If you have trouble remembering to check for bleed within a document, you really should set “Bleed” as your default preview mode (as well as using InDesign CS4’s new Preflight feature). With bleed as your preview mode you can quickly scan over the page edges and drag out any images for frames that should be bleeding off the page.

For more information on this topic via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

Libraries are the next step in the evolution of a Snippet. Basically a Library is a placeholder for multiple Snippets. The advantage is they are always at the ready in their own library panel, and you get a preview of the Snippet within the Library panel.

To create a Library go to File > New > Library. A dialogue will appear, you can choose where to save the Library file and also name it accordingly. When done, choose Save. Now a new Library panel will open with the same name you just created.

To add a Snippet to your Library, select the element or elements you want to include as a Snippet, then drag them to the Library panel. Now you have a Snippet saved in your Library. If you want to give it a name rather that leave it call “Untitled”,  just double click on the Snippet and rename it within the dialogue that appears. If you want to do this quickly hold down Option/Alt when you drag your page elements into your library panel. Now you can rename them on the fly.

To place a Library Snippet back on your document page simply drag your Snippet from the Library panel to the document page. The Snippet will be placed wherever you drop it. Alternatively you can place the Snippet in the same location that it was in when it was created. To do this accurately you need to make sure the document size is the same as it was when that particular Snippet was created. Then “Right click” or “Control click” on the Snippet and choose “Place Items”. Now the elements are placed in exactly the same position as when they where created.

The library file you create is not document specific, it will remain open for every document you open. If you want an individual library for each job, create a new one with each job and save it in the same location as your Indesign file. Then you need to open the correct Library file depending on the job you’re working on. To open a Library double click it or go to File > Open.

A great advantage of Snippets and Libraries is that you can share or email them off to your colleagues.

For more information on this topic via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

Snippets can save you loads of time, especially when it comes to repetitive elements that you use over and again.

To create a Snippet, all you need to do is select either an individual page element or multiple page elements. For instance, I could select just a logo or I could select a logo and a text frame. Now all you need to do is drag the selected elements to your desktop. I know that may seem strange at first, however now you’ll see a file has been created on your desktop. It should have a file name similar to this: Snippet_3001C897A.idms. You may want to rename it so it has some relevance to what it actually is, especially if you’re going to be creating lots of Snippets.

This Snippet can now be placed bank into any other new or existing document. To place on your page simply drag the Snippet back onto a document page. You could also place the Snippet as you would any other graphic using File > Place.

It may benefit you to go through your jobs and make as many Snippets as is relevant, so you can easily place all sorts of design elements very quickly next time round, instead of having to dig through old archives to find what you’re looking for in the future. You can create a Snippet of as many items as you like. You could even create a Snippet of a complete page.

The best thing about Snippets for me though, is the fact that a Snippet is generally really small in file size, meaning I can email it off to someone on the other side of the world. They then can place that Snippet directly onto their document page.

Any swatches and styles associated to the elements within a Snippet will automatically come into a document when that Snippet is placed on a page.

Two things to be aware of are:

1. Snippets created in CS4 aren’t compatible in CS3 by default
2. If you create a Snippet of a linked graphic and send that Snippet to someone else, they need to have access to the location of that link in order for it to not appear as missing. If they don’t have access to the link you will need to send it to them and get them to relink to it in the links panel.

For more information on this topic via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

If you need to copy pages from one document to another, don’t be fooled into using the old Copy and Paste method. Instead use “Move Pages”. Using ”Move Pages” allows you to move your pages between documents while maintaining a lot of the document specific attributes like margins, bleeds, master pages, swatches and styles. Copy and Paste just doesn’t compare.

For ideal results, it’s best if the document you’re copying from and to have the same page dimensions (width and height). If they aren’t it will still work, however the alignment of the page items will be slightly different.

From the “Pages” panel select the page/s you’re wanting to move or copy, by clicking on their page number. Now selected, go up to the flyout menu within the pages panel and choose ”Move Pages”. A dialogue now appears which lets you set what pages you want to move, where you want them placed within the document, and what document you want to move them to. You must have the document you’re wanting to move the pages to open. When set choose “OK”. There’s no real indication that anything has happened, however if you switch across to the document you moved the pages to you’ll see that everything worked nicely.

For more information on this topic via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

You have the ability to set your own custom Indent when working within a paragraph. Insert your type cursor before the character you want to indent, then go to the “Type” menu and choose “Special Characters > Other > Indent to Here”. An indent is now set at that point. Every line of text after that indent will now line up exactly with your custom indent. This eliminates the need for unnecessary tabbing and all the other crazy work arounds people use to do this.

If you want to speed things up, you could “Right Click” (Two button mouse) or “Control Click” (One button mouse), you could also use the keyboard shortcut “Command” + “\” (MAC) or “Control” + “\” (PC).

For more information on this topic via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

Have you noticed when you’re working within a text frame with your type tool active, you can’t pan around to another part of the document page without adding multiple spaces to your text? This is a regular annoyance for a lot of InDesign users.

The solution is simple! If you are working with text and you have your type tool active within a text frame, simply hold down “Option” (MAC) or “Alt” (PC). You have now temporarily changed to the Hand Tool and can navigate around your page freely. When done, let go of Option/Alt and you can continue working with your text. This eliminates the need to use scroll bars or manually select different tools from the tools panel.

You could also try ”Command” (MAC) or “Control” (PC) which allows you to move the active text frame.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

Object Styles allow you to capture object specific attributes such as fill, stroke, corner options, paragraph styles (my fave), text frame options, baseline options, story options, text wrap, anchored objects and frame fitting options. You can also capture transparency attributes and effects.

In previous posts this month we have looked at how to create styles, style overrides, redefining and breaking the link to the style, so I’m not going to go over that here with Object Styles. The methods are the same, just remember when working with an Object Style you need to be working from the “Object Styles” panel.

For more information on this topic via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

You can embed a Drop Cap within a paragraph style easily. When you create a new paragraph style go down to the “Drop Caps and Nested Styles” tab. From the Drop Caps section, simply enter how many lines you would like the Drop Cap to cover, and also how many characters should be included as a Drop Cap.

You can also choose to apply a character style to your drop caps. If you haven’t yet created one, you can create it directly from the Character Style drop down menu, choose “New Character Style…”.

For more information on this topic via Adobe Help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

Occasionally when working with paragraph and character styles, you will need to detach a style from your text. The process is quite simple and it works the same from both the Paragraph Styles and Character Styles panels.

To detach a paragraph style simply insert your type cursor within a specific paragraph, go to the fly out menu (located top right) of the Paragraph Styles panel and choose “Break Link to Style”. You’ll notice now that the previously active (highlighted blue) paragraph style is now no longer active.

With character styles you need to select the characters first, then go to the fly out menu (located top right) of the character styles panel and choose “Break Link to Style”. You’ll notice now that the previously active (highlighted blue) character style  is now no longer active.

“Break Link to Style” will also work in the same way with Object Styles, just select your object first then choose ”Break Link to Style” from the Object Styles panel.

For more information on this topic via Adobe Help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

It wouldn’t really be practical to create styles within one document and then have to re-create them in the next. Once you save a document that contains paragraph and character styles, you can use those styles in any document you like from that point on.

From either the “Paragraph Styles” or “Character Styles” panel, open the fly out menu (located at the top right of the panel) and choose “Load All Text Styles…”. A dialogue box will appear, asking you to navigate to the InDesign document that you’re wanting to load the styles from. Once located, select it and choose “Open”.

A “Load Styles” dialogue box will appear. Make sure you have checked any of the styles you’re wanting to bring into your document, any that you don’t want should remain unchecked. The way you tell which ones are paragraph styles and which are character styles, is by looking at the little icon next to the check box. Paragraph Styles are represented with a paragraph icon whilst character styles are indicated with an upper case letter A. You’ll notice also if you click on one of the styles you can see its attributes within the “Incoming Style Definition” box.

If you are bringing in a style that has the same name as one already in your current document, from the “Conflict with Existing Style” column, you can choose either “Auto Rename” or use “Incoming Style Definition”.

For more information on loading styles via Adobe help click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

Nested Line Styles let us apply a character style to one or more lines within a paragraph. There really easy to create and apply, see video tutorial below.

To access Adobe Help for more info on Nested Line Styles click here.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]
[See post to watch Flash video]

Nested Styles allow us to customize a paragraph style, giving us even more creative effect and control when working with text. Put simply, a Nested Style is a character style embedded within a paragraph style.

To achieve the result above, create a paragraph style of some text and call it “Body”, then open the style options dialogue for that style. There are a few ways to open the style options dialogue, you can right click (two button mouse) or control click (one button mouse) on the “Body” style, you can even double click on the style name within the paragraph styles panel which will also open the style options dialogue.

Next, click on the “Drop Caps and Nested Styles” tab. From the “Nested Styles” section you need to choose “New Nested Style”. Now you need to tell the current “Body” paragraph style what character style and rules will be applied to our “New Nested Style”.

The first thing we need to do is to select a character style from the drop down menu. If you have previously created a character style it will appear in the drop down menu. If you haven’t, new to InDesign CS4 is the ability to create a style from any location that you can choose a style. So if you need to create a style at this stage choose “New Character Style…” from the drop down menu. When the new character style dialogue appears, keep things simple and change the character colour only. From the character colour tab, change your character swatch colour to Cyan. Now rename your new character style, we’ll call it “Cyan”. When done choose “OK”. Make sure your “Cyan” character style is now selected within the nested styles section.

The next step is to establish the rule which determines how the nested style will be applied to the paragraph. There are loads of options available here, however we are going to keep things simple, choose “through 1 Words”. When done, choose “OK” and the style options dialogue will close.

You should now see all paragraphs that have the “Body” style applied now also have every first word appearing in cyan. We have now embedded a character style within a paragraph style in its most basic form. I would encourage you to explore the other options available when setting up a nested style, the video tutorial below explains the other options in more detail.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

I was very impressed by the standard of the exams this time round. The content was relevant to new CS4 features, the questions were clear and made sense, the difficulty level of the questions were high, and the exams were consistant across the board. Overall it made for an exciting challenge.

Adobe has done a great job of improving the exams, we’re a thousand times ahead of the CS3 equivalent. Congratulations to all the people involved.

I don’t like to toot my own horn, though anyone who’s interested in my scores can see the screenshots below.

Im glad it’s over!

WARNING - If you haven’t heard of or seen “Next Styles” in action you may want to consider watching the video tutorial below before you read this post.

Once you have created your styles, InDesign paragraph styles allow us the ability to style our text quickly and easily by setting up a next style. Put simply, a next style is a rule that you give a paragraph style telling it what should happen when you close a paragraph and start a new one. In our previous document we set three paragraph styles (header, sub header and body). Now we have these set, all we need to do is go into our “style options” dialogue and tell our styles what should happen to the next paragraph when we press return/enter.

Before we get started there’s a few things we need to consider so we don’t muck up our existing text. As a rule when editing styles it’s best to make sure you have no text frames selected, and also that your text cursor isn’t active within a text frame. These two scenarios are the number one reason people get frustrated with paragraph styles, so be careful.

Now that we don’t have a text frame selected, and our type cursor isn’t active within our text, go to the paragraph styles panel and locate the first style which you want to be applied to your paragraph. In our case it is our “Header” style. Now double click on the “Header” style and the “Style Options” dialogue will appear. You should be looking at the “General” tab by default, in the middle of this dialogue you’ll see a “Next Style” drop down menu. This is where we tell the “Header” style to follow with our “Sub Header” style, so choose “Sub Header” from the drop down menu. Now choose “OK” to close the “Style Options” dialogue.

Now we need to tell InDesign what to do after our “Sub Header” paragraph. We simply repeat the first step again, though this time we will choose “Body” as our next style. Double click on the “Sub Header” style in the paragraph styles panel, when the “Style Options” dialogue appears choose “Body” from the next style drop down menu. Now choose “OK” to close the “Style Options” dialogue.

We’re almost there! Repeating the last step again, this time we’ll open the “Style Options” dialogue for our “Body” paragraph style, and this is where we need to make a serious decision. Do we want our text to repeat the loop again, or do we want every paragraph style from this point on to maintain our current “Body” paragraph style?

If you wanting to keep the current “Body” style active, do the following. From the next style drop down choose “Same Style”. Now every new paragraph you create will have the “Body” style applied. Choose “OK” to close the “Style Options” dialogue.

However, if you’re wanting to loop back again so the following paragraphs start from “Header” then “Sub Header” and “Body”, you simply choose “Header” as your next style. Once done choose “OK” to close the “Style Options” dialogue. So now every fourth paragraph will be the beginning of a new loop.

Now it’s time to put our next styles in action. There are two main ways you can get Next Styles to work for you. You can have your styles apply as you type (Option 1) or you can have them apply to your text when you’re done (Option 2).

Option 1: To apply your styles as you type, create a new text frame, then choose the “Header” style from the paragraph styles panel. This step is very important, if your “Header” style is highlighted blue in the paragraph styles panel, you’re on track. Start typing your header text. When done, press return/enter. You have now created a new paragraph, and you’ll notice that the sub header style is now active within the paragraph styles panel and is being applied to your sub header text, when you type in your sub header text it will already be formatted correctly. When done, press return again. Now the body style is active, type in your body text and you should have three different paragraphs each formatted accordingly. If you press return/enter now you will either loop back to the header style or continue typing with the same style depending on the option you chose from the next style drop down in the style options dialogue.

Option 2: To apply your next styles to existing text, you have three options.

1. Apply next styles to all paragraphs within the selected frame - Select your existing text frame, with the “Selection” tool, then from the paragraph styles panel “right click” (two button mouse) or “control click” one button mouse and choose “Apply Header then Next Style”.

2. Apply next styles only to the selected text within the frame - Select some or all of the text within your frame and from the paragraph styles panel “right click” (two button mouse) or “control click” one button mouse and choose “Apply Header then Next Style”. If you selected three paragraphs, only those three will be styled, if you chose all the paragraphs within the frame, all paragraphs will be styled.

Take advantage of Next Styles where you can. They may not work in every situation, but when they do they’re priceless. Click here to access Adobe Help for more info on nested styles.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]

An override is the name for any style that has different formatting attributes applied when compared to its default style. So far we have been working with three paragraph styles (Header, Sub Head and Body) and one character style (Number). Let’s say I closed the document down, and then someone else opened that same document and started changing the header text within from blue to green. Let’s also assume that that person didn’t know what a style was. When done, happy with themselves for doing the changes oh so quickly (Ha!), they shut down the file with no regard to how reckless they’ve been. So next time you open the file your suspicious of the documents new appearance and you’re ready to investigate.

Simply place your text cursor within the paragraph style which you want to check, open the Paragraph Styles panel and you will see your highlighted paragraph style (in blue). However, now you also see a little plus (+) symbol. What’s the deal, you say? Well, that little plus symbol is your indicator from InDesign that someone has tinkered with your style. The plus symbol simply means the style has an override applied, or in other words, that someone has changed the default style colour, which was blue, to green.

You have a few options at this point; you can remove the override, or redefine the style. Removing an override is like using undo. Once you remove that override, the text reverts back to its original style state. To remove an override, place your cursor within the affected paragraph, and from the Paragraph Styles panel click on the clear overrides icon located at the bottom of the panel. A quicker way to remove an override is to hold down “Option” (MAC) or “ALT” (PC) and click on the relevant styles name. Both ways will remove the little plus symbol and revert the text back to its original state (blue).

Now if you didn’t want to remove the override, and you wanted to permanently change the header text to green, you wouldn’t clear the override. Instead, you’d redefine the style. Redefining a style affects every single paragraph of text within your document that that header style has been applied to (something to keep in mind). To redefine this style now, insert your type cursor within the relevant paragraph, and from the Paragraph Styles panel open the flyout menu located at the top right of the panel and choose “Redefine Style”. Now the override disappears, and your style has been permanently changed throughout the document to have green as the default character colour.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]
[See post to watch Flash video]

Character Styles behave in the same way as Paragraph Styles, however there are two main differences you should be aware of. The first is that a Character Style only captures formatting attributes specific to a particular character. The types of formatting captured are Basic Character Formats, Advanced Character Formats, Character Colour, Open Type Features, Underline Options and Strikethrough Options.

The second thing you need to be aware of is the way you create and apply a Character Style. In a Paragraph Style you simply place your cursor within the paragraph to create and apply it. When working with Character Style you need to isolate a specific character in your text by selecting it with the type tool. When you apply your Character Style you need to make sure you have selected the character, or characters that you’re wanting to apply it to. One thing to remember is that a Character Style isn’t exclusive to one character only, you can apply it to the first three words in a sentence if you want.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]
[See post to watch Flash video]

If you’re using InDesign and not using styles, you’re living in the stone age… Let me show you how to save all the formatting attributes applied to a paragraph for later use, and then apply them to similar text in a one click action.

Before we get into that let me list the different types of formatting captured in a paragraph style. We can capture the following: Basic Character Formats, Advanced Character Formats, Indents and Spacing, Tabs, Paragraph Rules, Keep Options, Hyphenation, Justification, Drop Caps and Nested Styles, Grep Style, Bullets and Numbering, Character Colour, Open Type Features, Underline Options and Strikethrough Options.

Once you have formatted any text in a document, like a header, you don’t really want to do all the same formatting steps over again on every other header within your document. If you had a document with 20 more headers, chances are you’d be changing all sorts of formatting options for the next 10 minutes. However, if you create a paragraph style of the header text first you can go through your document, insert your type cursor within the header paragraphs, then click on the paragraph style you created and you’ll be done within a minute.

[Click play to watch video tutorial, will commence once downloaded in full]
[See post to watch Flash video]

For the next month I’m going to post loads of articles about Paragraph, Character and Object Styles in InDesign CS4. By the end of the month my aim is that you will have a complete understanding of Paragraph, Character and Object Styles. Are you ready for it… The clock starts tomorrrow, check back then for my first post on the basics of paragraph styles.

By now you’ve probably figured out I’m a no fuss guy with a no fuss approach to training. I love training, learning new things and improving my skills, however I also want to do these things with the least amount of time possible. That’s really why Creative Mentor was born, to provide training for people on a need to know, how do I do it, and how do I do it now basis. Thats also why I want to introduce you to Apex Web Media.

I’m often approached by people who will ask me where they can get an A-Z of video tutorials covering all things InDesign, from a beginners to intermediate perspective. Until finding Apex Web Media I hadn’t come across a great resource for people at this level.

Anyone who is a InDesign newbie or has been working in InDesign for a while needs to checkout to Apex Web Media. Apex Web Media offers both Online Training and Content Rich Training CDs covering InDesign and all the other Creative Suite applications. Their InDesign content alone covers over 244 different InDesign topics with a duration of 13.5 hours. You also receive the course working files so you can follow along with the author.

Some other advantages of Apex Web Media’s two training options (Online Training and Content Rich Training CDs) are listed here:

• Works on both PC and Mac platforms
• Suitable for beginners / intermediates
• The courses are equipped with closed captions
• Self-paced, users can control the speed at which they learn, the movies can be stopped,
  rewound or fast-forwarded at anytime
• The training aims to create a practical, hands-on learning environment in which the user can 
  master real life skills
• Users can evaluate the training for free, the first three chapters are available online and no registration is required to view the videos
• The training starts by covering the absolute fundamentals. Once the user is familiar with the
  basics the training moves forward to cover topics of a more complex nature. The lessons are sequential with each one building upon the last, however users are free to navigate to any potion
  of the course as they wish

The best part for me though is their extensive coverage of all the topics that are presented in a need to know, how do I do it, and how do I do it now format. This is something I’m sure people will appreciate greatly.

To take a look at their current InDesign Course check out this link Adobe InDesign CS3 Tutorial Videos

To see a full list of the Adobe based courses they cover see the following link All Adobe Tutorials

Well I’ve been an Adobe Certified Expert for some time now, and have finally ticked the box that allows me to officially call myself an Adobe Certified Instructor. I’m glad that process is over, however… now it’s time to take the CS4 recertification exams for InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. I cant wait (Sigh…). Experience doesn’t seem to count much in these exams so my head will no doubt be stuck in a book for the next few weeks. The one upside to that is I always come up with great ideas for video tutorials that end up as training content for creativementor.com.au, YAY!