InDesign, tips and friends

I’m very stoked to have been asked to speak during this year’s CreativePro Week event (happening online again). This year I’ll be presenting 2 sessions on Adobe InDesign.

10 Essential InDesign productivity tips

Let’s kick off Day 2 with a fast-paced, fun-filled tip-a-palooza to boost your productivity! We’ll zip through a ton of handy tips and tricks that every InDesign user needs to know. Plus, you’ll get amped to soak up all the InDesign goodness the rest of the conference will bring.

• If you’re not customizing InDesign, you’re not doing it right
• Essential shortcuts
• What to do when something (inevitably) goes wrong

New InDesign features you should be using right now

You’ve been using InDesign for a long time, but why are you still using it the way you did 5 or 10 years ago?! Adobe has released a ton of new features, but most InDesign users don’t take advantage of them. Take this opportunity to get up to speed again and learn what you’ve been missing!

More information here.

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It’s that time of the year again! Adobe MAX, the biggest creative conference in the world is again taking place. However this time it is from the comfort of our couches and office chairs. But this years online edition does come bearing gifts. Because you can register for Adobe MAX for free and access all of the +350 sessions of the conference. So pretty amazing stuff if you ask me. And I am honored to be a part of Adobe MAX again!

My Adobe MAX speaker shirt was sent in the mail.

How to combine Photoshop-Illustrator-InDesign

My session at MAX this year is about using Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign as a powerhouse combination to save time, simplify your workflow, and create impressive work. Discover the value and benefits of using native file formats in each application to make roundtripping easy, and learn how you can speed up production workflows using techniques involving file placements, snippets, linking or embedding files, and much more.

The session is split into three separate sessions in order to make them easily consumable. After all nobody likes to sit in on a 90 min virtual session.

In Part 1, you’ll learn how to manage content in InDesign by:

• Using linked Photoshop snippets
• Using Photoshop layer comps to simplify your workflow
• Knowing the difference when placing Illustrator layers versus artboards
• Nesting InDesign documents

In Part 2, we’ll focus on bringing content into Photoshop by:

• Learning various ways of importing Illustrator artwork
• Discovering the value of InDesign snippets for mockups
• Learning how to use nested layer comps

In Part 3, it’s all about Illustrator. You’ll learn how to upgrade your artwork by:

• Discovering how to exchange text with InDesign
• Nesting native Illustrator documents
• Using linked Photoshop snippets to your advantage

Be sure to register for my session here.

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This is something that’s been on my bucket list for a long time and was finally able to make this a reality. In January of this year I traveled to sunny Carpinteria (CA, USA) to record my first LinkedIn Learning course (formally Lynda.com). I am not new to the world of recording, however this was my first time working on a personal project of this size. And instead of recording short videos from the safety of my home office, I spent a good amount of days in a professional recording booth working with my producer.

The result: Photoshop-Illustrator-InDesign Powercombo for Design

As a designer, you’re used to using a myriad of different tools, like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. And often, you need to place, import, or paste content from one of these applications into another. But choosing the wrong technique or file format can sometimes lead to restrictions in your workflow. Typical symptoms of this are difficulties round-tripping between applications, having to flatten layers, or having to save multiple versions of the same file. All of this can result in lost time or unnecessary additional files for you to manage. In this course, we explore the best ways to navigate Adobe’s flagship applications, using real-life production techniques you can apply in your print or online design workflows.

The courses is designed for anyone that wants to do more with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign and includes both old and new techniques. The inspiration for my course came from my years working as a designer. I almost every project in this course is based on a specific project or situation that I encountered myself and was able to solve using these exact same techniques. So I hope this course will be useful to everyone.

Be sure to check out my course and try some of the free videos!

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I started out my career as a graphic designer, getting my hands dirty on every design product Adobe could come up with. But after a few years I learned that I had an even bigger love for teaching Adobe products to designers in a classroom environment and speaking at conferences. So that’s what I did for the next 8 years, through out Europe, the US and Australia, before I joined Adobe in 2015.

Last year, I was a guest speaker at Adobe MAX 2016 in San Diego. And I was thrilled to learn that my suggestion to organise an Adobe InDesign session for advanced users was approved. Not only was I excited to put on my (classroom) trainer shoes again, I got to host a hands-on lab session for 100 people at a time. And the best thing of it all was that I got to do that 3 times in total during the MAX conference.

Why I came up with my session

During my years of learning Adobe software and visiting conferences and fairs, I found that my biggest gripe was that I almost never found people or speakers with real top level knowledge. So during events I’d come up with my list of questions that I wanted to ask the speaker or trainer at the end of their session (yeah, I was THAT guy), but was disappointed to learn that it was hard to get definitive answers from them. Plus, many of the “advanced” sessions I did were also usually too basic, probably to try and get more attendees by making them more accessible. So for Adobe MAX, I wanted to give the attendees a session they could really benefit from, with techniques they could use almost every day based on my own experience as a designer and trainer. But also fast-paced, using advanced functionality that would inspire InDesign veterans to do more with the product. So I came up with projects and scenarios for the automation of common print projects like catalogs, business cards and brochures using style automation, shortcuts and regular expressions. And I named my lab session the InDesign CC Deep Dive.

The women of Walt Disney’s Animation

At the end of one of my Deep Dive sessions a lady approached me, enquiring if she could ask me a few extra questions. Her name was Tamara Khalaf and she’s the Head of Design for Walt Disney Animation Studios in Los Angeles. Her questions were related to a large project she was working on and I could tell this project had a very high priority. Tamara was working on a huge 400 page book called “Ink & Paint – The women of Walt Disney’s Animation” by Mindy Johnson. A book that talks about the history and contribution of women in Disney’s studio, and how they painstakingly brought pencil drawings to vibrant, dimensional life. Sensing the importance of her project, I suggested Tamara to meet up with her a few hours later at the conference Community Pavilion, where we could sit down to further discuss her project. Of course Tamara came well prepared and brought the entire project with her on a USB drive. I spent the next hour combing through her InDesign document, trying to understand how it was structured, styled, how text input was managed and what Tamara’s main questions were. And just like Tamara suspected, despite having a well structured document, she was losing way too much time on individual text frames, call out boxes, spacing, captions, headers and other design elements. Luckily for her I was able to teach her a few tricks and techniques that allowed her to automate most of these aspects so she could spend more time on the rest of the layout. In the end, I gave her as much information as I could during the limited time we had and she was visibly happy with the things she had learned. She saved her work and packed up the notes she so vigorously took during that hour and went on her way. A few months later I received a thank you message via LinkedIn from Tamara, saying she finally finished the book and that it was ready for print. She even wanted to send me a printed copy but in the end the 2.8kg book was proven too expensive to ship to Belgium.

InDesign CC Deep Dive – 2017

Fast forward to today. Recently, I was asked back to Adobe MAX 2017 in Las Vegas to teach the same InDesign Deep Dive session. My 2016 session had apparently awarded me a “MAX Master” title and I received further kudos for being the top overall speaker.

Adobe InDesign CC 2017 Deep Dive

And to my surprise, I had received another message from Tamara saying she was again attending Adobe MAX and that she brought a printed copy for me to take home. And before I knew it, I was kicking off my lab session and noticed her sitting behind one of the lab computers again. Following along, taking notes, and learning as much as she can from the updated course exercises. After my session had ended she came up to the stage to say hi again and explained how she finished the project during the months following our initial acquaintance. And in her hands she was holding a massive book. “Here”, she said. “We finally printed it, and I brought you a copy, as promised”.

And before I knew it we were going through this amazing book. And not only was it beautifully and professionally designed, it also had so many stories about how all the classic Disney characters came to life. Inside the book I also found a hand written thank you note from Tamara, which I still keep at my desk at home, next to the book. A wonderful souvenir.

Last thoughts

I attend many events and conferences through out the year. And it’s hard to keep track of the many times when I’m showing off Adobe tricks during a live presentation or somewhere on the web. Tricks that matter and really influence the way designers work. And because of that it’s sometimes easy to forget that, as a presenter, we really have to keep that close relationship with the end user. Whether they’re working as freelancers, working for a small agency, or for a worldwide enterprise, designers are the same, everywhere. And the size of their contract or employer has nothing to do with the fact that every designer wants to learn techniques they can actually use and apply in their daily projects. And sitting down for a little while to actually talk about their work and suggest how they can make it better can go a long way. So never underestimate the power of a conference because it can change lives.

If you’re interested in purchasing the book, it’s available via Amazon.com

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The big one

As I made clear from my previous blog post about the conference last year, PePcon is something to look forward to. I’m into print and digital publishing workflows, design products and other Adobe solutions. But time and budget restrictions (that thing we all have) only allows me to attend a certain number of conferences a year. Especially when they’re overseas, like in the U.S. This means I need to plan my schedule and budget every year to make sure I spend these two resources as best as I can. And PePcon has been on the top of the list ever since I attended the very first time in San Francisco in 2012.

Other conferences I’m looking forward to this year are the InDesign Conference and Adobe MAX, though I can’t confirm yet if I’ll be able to make it to those. As I explained in a previous blog post, my objectives for visiting conferences are:

1. Sessions: my primary focus is of course learning and attending sessions. So I need to be sure that I’ll pick up tips, new programs, or a new (or updated) sense of direction.
2. Organisation: because I’m personally involved with organising small events in Belgium I think attending sessions overseas gives me a great learning platform because I get to be an attendee myself. So the personal experience I get as an attendee helps me to get things organised for my own sessions and events. The things I pick up could be about how I enrolled, how communication is done, their social media policy, surveys, catering, support, etc.
3. Speakers and keynotes: because I regularly spend time in a classroom environment or on stage as a speaker I constantly pick up tips on improving my own presentations, my slides, technical setup and even get to observe how people improvise, answer questions, introduce themselves or (try to) be funny.
4. Networking: the previous bullets in this list are pretty straightforward and most people just go with the flow. But networking is different and I do believe that the word “work” in “networking” is a true fact. And it sometimes takes some courage to let yourself be heard during a session or just step up to someone out of the blue. But I’ve learned that growing your network and socialising with specialists, Adobe staff and like-minded people is key to growing your own business and staying at the top of your game.

… and PePcon ticks all the boxes!

Me and co-presenter Erica Gamet during a GREP presentation at PePcon ’14 in Chicago. Photo courtesy of PePcon.com

My PePcon 2015

This year I’ll be presenting the “DPS Fundamentals: Building Folios for Digital Publications” session, just like I did in Austin in 2013. This is a half day session that focuses on Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite solution, and will take place on 1st June. This is one of the so called pre-conference sessions where you get to learn more about a specific topic, and will have the chance to meet other people that share your interest.

Photo courtesy of Padi.com

During this session I’ll explain all the ins and outs about building digital publications using the DPS solution. This means we’ll focus on the Adobe DPS workflow and creation of interactive documents using Adobe InDesign and other CC programs to further enrich your documents. A few of the bullet points I’ll be discussing are:

• Getting started
• Building your first folio
• Converting a print documenten to digital publication
• Design tips
• How to set up a DPS workflow with your client
• Things to be careful for
• Previewing content
• Integrating audio, video, and animation into your layouts
• Engaging the reader with interactivity such as buttons, multi-state objects, and scrollable frames
• Dealing with Apple
• …

If you’re interested in this session, be sure to book a seat while they’re still available! All information, registration and full conference schedule is available on the official PePcon website.

Hope to see you all there, and never hesitate to come and say hi during the conference!

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Why this GREP expression?

I know you can use the “Convert URLs to Hyperlinks” in InDesign (available from the Hyperlinks panel fly-out menu), but when you’re changing text afterwards you’d have to run that command again. But now you can use a properly formatted GREP Style using the expression I described in issue #70 of the magazine.

Of course, like always, you’ll need a subscription to InDesign Magazine to be able to read the issue. And remember, monthly subscribers only get access to the current month’s InDesign Magazine. Annual subscribers get this month’s issue plus 10 years of back issues!

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What is PUBKON?

If you’re familiar with PePcon in the US you’ll probably already know what type of conference this is. It’s basically a 3 day conference, split up into 1 day of hands-on workshops and 2 days of sessions. These 45-min sessions cover a whole range of different publishing related topics like

• InDesign tips an techniques
• Digital publishing solutions like Adobe DPS
• Combining InDesign with HTML and CSS
• eBooks and other ePub related technologies
• Web publishing
• …

Photo courtesy of PUBKON.

My (English) sessions during PUBKON 2015

1. Making sense of the digital publishing landscape

There’s no denying it, publishing is going digital. But what does this mean, and what solution would best suit your business? What’s the difference between an ePub, interactive PDF, App Store app or online reader? It doesn’t matter if you’re completely new to digital publishing or just got started with it. You can get all your questions answered while we give you an overview of the digital publishing landscape. Possibilities, ideas, pricing, features, this session covers all the essentials.

2. Making long documents work for you

Do you sometimes need to make documents that are 50 pages or longer in InDesign? Then stop what you’re doing and attend this session to learn more about the awesome InDesign features for long documents. Learn about custom numbering systems, building a table of contents, managing multiple files, cross references and so much more. You’ll discover just how rich Adobe InDesign is and how well you can manage long documents.

Photo courtesy of PUBKON.

So it looks like I’ll have to brush up on my German (which will be a disaster after about 15 years) and look forward to spending a few days in Cologne.

PUBKON 2015 website

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In this month’s GREP I explain a technique that allows you to find double entries in lists. Ideal when you want to clear out lists of names. products or numbers.

Of course, like always, you’ll need a subscription to InDesign Magazine to be able to read the issue. And remember, monthly subscribers only get access to the current month’s magazine. Annual subscribers get this month’s issue plus 10 years of back issues!

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You can watch the video here:

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