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*** DesignGeek ***
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Tips and techniques for the digital designer
In this issue:
-- Make a Quality PDF Without Owning Acrobat
-- Quark 6.1 -- yes, 6.1 -- Easter Eggs
-- Add Your (Vector) Logo to a Photoshop Menu
Issue 16, 2/19/04
Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion
... for her clients, colleagues, random contacts and interested subscribers
© 2004 Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
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Make a Quality PDF Without Owning Acrobat
I was at a colleague's design studio the other day, and she was a little stressed out. She needed to send a PDF of a Quark 4 document to a client asap, but she didn't own Acrobat.
Normally that wouldn't be a problem for my friend -- her lead designer, who works out of his home, has Acrobat and does all the PDFing for the studio -- but he wasn't around. And the client needed the PDF *now*.
If she were running OS X, we could've tried opening the Quark 4 file in Quark 6 or InDesign, and "cheating" a PDF by using Apple's built-in Save As PDF function. This button appears in every OS X-compatible program's Print dialog. It doesn't create press-ready PDFs but it provides "good enough" ones in many situations.
Alas, she was still running OS 9, like a lot of designers.
Then it hit me -- let's try Adobe's free "Create a PDF Online" service! I had run across the site a few times over the past year but never needed to use it.
We went to the Adobe site to look for a link to the service. Adobe keeps it well-hidden. According to Google, only one page in the vast landscape of www.adobe.com has a link to the service, the main Acrobat Pro product page:
<http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/main.html>
...scroll down and look in the right hand column for a little image that says "Create Adobe PDF Online," and click it.
Or go right to the site (bookmark this because you'll never find it again):
<http://createpdf.adobe.com>
Adobe's Create PDF Online service allows you to upload a regular document to their server -- Microsoft Office files, most Adobe program files, most image format files, AutoCAD, WordPerfect, Rich Text, and PostScript files. They create a PDF out of it and either e-mail it to you or e-mail a link to where you can download it. You can even upload a Paper Capture type of file and they'll OCR it for you (convert a scanned page to searchable text).
The first five PDF conversions are free, so there's nothing to lose.
After registering my friend's e-mail address with the site, we wrote the Quark 4 file to PostScript and uploaded it. The turnaround from uploading a file to getting your completed PDF isn't specified explicitly, as far as I could tell, but her 12-page PDF came through in just a few minutes. And it was perfect! We checked it in Reader and then sent it off to her client.
Crisis averted! Thanks, Adobe.
When you've used up your free trial you have to sign up for one of the paid subscriptions: Either $9.99 a month or $99.99 for a full year of as many PDF conversions as you want, subject to their restrictions (which are pretty lenient). Compared to Acrobat Pro's SRP of $449, that's a bargain.
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Quark 6.1 -- yes, 6.1 -- Easter Eggs
In the previous issue of DesignGeek, one of my stories was about how a Quark staffer leaked to the Quark listserv that their long-awaited 6.1 update was going to be released "pronto-like." Right before I sent out the issue, I checked Quark's site one last time so I could provide a big scoop, but there was no announcement.
Two hours after I sent it out, a bunch of DesignGeek subscribers e-mailed me to say that the free 6.1 update was just put up on Quark's site. Ah well! ... there went my Jimmy Olson dreams, heh. But, I take comfort in the hope that the story prompted subscribers to check Quark's site and discover it on their own...
<http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/61update.html>
It's a 60+MB download, so if you're on a modem, you may want to have them ship you the update on a CD, which is free, but takes 6-8 weeks to arrive. You'll need the QuarkXPress 6.0 Install CD to run the updater, but you won't have to re-activate the program again.
Briefly, the update fixes a bunch of bugs in 6.0 of course (that's the point of these incremental updates) for both the Mac and Windows platforms, but also makes it compatible with the current Mac OS, 10.3 (Panther). Feature enhancements seem sparse -- you can import an Excel chart as a Quark table, and it comes with the Edit Original XTension (which you could always download for free from the Quark site to use with 6.0).
More info and tips on 6.1 when I've had a chance to play with it, but for now, let me mention a couple Easter Eggs in Quark 6.X.
(Newbies: In the parlance of computer geeks, "Easter Eggs" are hidden goodies in programs -- little animations or pictures, sometimes even full-fledged arcade games, that the programmers inserted for fun. Users can only reveal them through arcane keyboard and tool combinations. Not every program has an Easter Egg, but many do: <http://www.eggheaven2000.com/>)
First, for Mac users, the Alien Delete, present in v4 and v5 but gone in v6.0, has returned:
1. For best effect, change the View to Fit in Window
2. Select any text or picture box (best if it's a small one in the center)
3. Press Command-Option-Shift-K
4. An alien marches in from the side of the document and deletes the box with a multi-colored zap gun, then disappears. Cool sound effects too.
Windows users who follow those steps (press Control-Alt-Shift-K) will see the selected box "melt away" instead of an Alien Delete (and no sound effects). I'm pretty sure that's not new for Windows Quarkers, though.
Mac users who were aware of the alien in previous versions knew that if they did this five times in a row, a second easter egg appeared (a larger alien comes in from the other side, and shoots a bazooka at the first alien -- no I'm not kidding), but latest reports from geeks in the field feverishly trying this out say it hasn't returned. Yet. (Maybe 100 repetitions?)
And for both Mac and Windows users, try this v6-only Easter Egg (thanks to David Blatner for cluing us in, though he says you didn't hear it from him):
1. Select any item
2. Choose the Rotate tool
3. Press Command-Option-Shift-~ [that's a tilde], on Windows press Control-Alt-Shift-~
I'll leave it up to you to see what happens. David suggests you try it with the Caps Lock key on too.
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Add Your (Vector) Logo to a Photoshop Menu
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to add your logo's shape in vector format (crisp, sharp edges at any size) to your Photoshop files right from a menu in Photoshop? Here's how.
(Actually, this works with any vector artwork, but logos seem a particularly useful application.)
1. Open up your logo in Adobe Illustrator. Check Illy's preferences, in the Clipboard options, and make sure that AICB format is enabled. Doing this allows you to maintain vector path information in your clipboard.
2. Select your logo and copy it to your clipboard.
3. Switch to Photoshop and either open an existing file or create a new one. It doesn't matter which, you'll only use it as a temporary holding area.
4. Choose Paste, and from the Paste Options dialog, choose "Paste as Shape Layer" and click OK. (Obviously this will only be an option in versions of Photoshop that allow you to create shape layers, but most recent versions do.)
5. Your logo appears on a new shape layer in your document.
-- A limitation of this technique is that all that's pasted is the shape itself, not the fill. You can change the fill color in Photoshop, but if you're trying to reproduce a multi-colored logo, this won't work.
-- A strength of this technique is that you now have crisp, sharp outlines of your logo, which you can easily resize (use Free Transform), edit, convert to raster, use as a mask, use as a clipping path, etc.
To save your logo (or whatever artwork) as a custom vector shape in Photoshop, allowing you to quickly recall it for use in other Photoshop files, do this final step:
6. With your logo's shape layer still selected, go to Photoshop's Edit menu and choose Define Custom Shape. Give it a name and click OK.
You can now delete the Shape layer you pasted in, if you want.
Now... to recall the same shape for use in other Photoshop files, follow these steps:
1. In Photoshop's tool box, click on the Shape tool (under the Text tool). It doesn't matter which shape you select, the default Rectangle Shape is fine.
2. In the Shape Tools Options bar at the top, click on the last shape (looks like a blobby star), which is Custom Shape.
3. When you select Custom Shape in the Shape Options bar, a new dropdown menu appears to the right of it, allowing you to choose any shape Photoshop knows about. Click on the dropdown menu and scroll down past the default shapes until you see the little icon of the custom shape (the logo) you saved and named previously. Select that shape.
4. Drag diagonally on your Photoshop file. A new shape layer is added, containing your logo, and the length of the drag defines its dimensions. Hold down the Shift key as you drag to maintain its original proportions.
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IS 2004 YOUR YEAR TO MASTER YOUR DOMAIN?
You can fully master the latest versions of OS X, Photoshop, InDesign, QuarkXPress, Illustrator, Acrobat, GoLive, and the rest of the designer's toolbox in far less time than you think! Just call in HerGeekness for an enjoyable session or two of targeted training (Mac or Windows) for you or your staff in the program of your choice -- starting at the level you're at, going to the level you want to attain, using the files you actually work with.
All clients receive three years of 24/7 follow-up support by phone or e-mail, too -- it's like having your own personal consultant at your beck and call, and can save you hundreds of dollars in per-incident support calls direct to the software companies.
Anne-Marie provides authorized Quark and Adobe training at your workplace for groups of one to ten or more, in the Chicago area and throughout the country. Out-of-the-office training in Seneca's bi-platform studio or Mac classroom is also available. Recent clients include the Chicago Cubs (that was cool!), McDonalds Corporation, the Chicago Tribune, and World Book Publishing.
Detailed information including pricing, student pix and unsolicited feedback are here:
http://www.senecadesign.com/training/
... or contact her directly to talk about your training needs and get a friendly, no-obligation quote:
mailto:amarie@senecadesign.com
Phone: 312-946-1100
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DesignGeek is a free bimonthly publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a cross-media designer and authorized Adobe and Quark training provider. She owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (http://www.senecadesign.com/).
To subscribe to DesignGeek or read archived issues, go to its home on Seneca's site: http://www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/subscribe.html
To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page.
Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at info@senecadesign.com
Copyright 2004 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in DesignGeek may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement.
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