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*** DesignGeek ***
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Tips and techniques for the digital designer
In this issue:
-- Adobe Bridge Tricks for Designers
-- InDesign and InCopy CS2 Patches Released
-- New Font Utilities for OS X (and soon, Windows)
Issue 45, 10/4/05
Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion
... for her clients, colleagues, random contacts and interested subscribers
(c) 2005 Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
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Adobe Bridge Tricks for Designers
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I confess, like a lot of graphic designers, I've been a little underwhelmed with Adobe Bridge, the free file management hub application that comes with every CS2 program. Until recently, my feelings ran along the line of "Are you kidding me? Yet another program to learn? Forget it. Let the full-time Photoshop geeks figure it out. I have publications to design."
But I have seen the light, thanks to Branislav Milic. His seminar on Adobe Bridge at the recent Creative Suite Conference in London clearly showed how useful it can be to the average designer -- indeed, he barely mentioned Photoshop at all. (Branislav is an articulate, opinionated, highly-skilled designer, refreshingly cranky and great fun to listen to, and is one of the top Adobe trainers and presenters in Europe.)
http://www.creativesuiteconference.com
http://www.milic.com
Here are a few Bridge tips gleaned from my own explorations as well as Branislav's seminar.
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View InDesign File Info
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You might have already heard that you can select an InDesign file in Bridge and see a list of fonts and color swatches used in it. You might have tried it out and said ... Where?
Two things: First, it only works with ID files saved in CS2 format. Second, once you've selected a CS2 .indd file in Bridge's thumbnails panel, you need to scroll down in the Metadata panel (lower left), past File Properties, past IPTC Core, to get to the Fonts and Swatches panels. If the panels are empty, wait a few seconds for Bridge to catch up and gather the information.
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Preview Individual Pages
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Which two programs in the Adobe Creative Suite support multiple-page files? Acrobat and InDesign. Does Bridge create thumbnails for each page so you can see them? Yes, for Acrobat. Sort of, for InDesign.
You can select a PDF in Bridge and see thumbnails of the individual pages it contains by using the Page Selection scroll bar in the Preview area (center left). If you switch to Filmstrip view, you can also use the Page Selection scroll bar under the PDF in the main panel, and in Slideshow view (Command/Ctrl-L), you can use the right and left arrow keys on your keyboard (bet you didn't know that). This works for PDFs created with any version of Acrobat or PDF Maker Thingie.
But select a multiple-page InDesign file in Bridge, and all you can see is a preview of its first page (assuming it's a CS2 file saved with the Preview box enabled -- files saved in earlier versions don't even have a thumbnail, just the InDesign logo). However, Branislav said he discovered "an hour before the presentation" that if you save an ID CS2 layout as a *template* (file extension .indt) in ID's Save As dialog box, then Bridge allows you to page through the file in the Preview panel, just as with a PDF.
If your workflow relies on InDesign CS2 templates, using Bridge to page through them is a great way for users to figure out which template to use from a folder full of similarly-named files. (Double-click the file's thumbnail in Bridge to open it up in InDesign.) It would be great if the Finder or Windows Explorer let you do this, wouldn't it?
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Speed the Plow
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One reason Bridge can seem slow ... okay, *is* slow ... is that every time you open a folder in it for the first time, Bridge has to build a cache file containing up-to-date thumbnails, metadata and file info data for the folder's contents. Branislav suggested that in the morning, "before you go make zee coffee," get Bridge to build its caches in advance.
To do this, open Bridge and select a parent folder (like "Projects" or "Photos" or whatever folder contains the bulk of your work) in the Favorites or Folder pane. Then choose Tools > Cache > Build Cache for Subfolders from the main menu. Go make zee coffee or check zee e-mail while Bridge goes to work. Now when you open your commonly-used folders in Bridge, all the thumbnails are there, instantly.
Note: The cache files take up a fair amount of room, so make sure you have plenty of hard drive space to hold them.
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Reveal Image Metadata in CS2 Apps
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Whenever you select an image in Bridge, you can see all the default metadata it contains in the Metadata and Keywords panels (lower left in the default Bridge window), as well as in the (XMP) File Info dialog box (right-click on the image thumbnail and choose File Info, or choose File > File Info).
Many of these fields are editable, allowing you add your own descriptions, keywords, and other info. Bridge lets you run searches of your file assets using metadata content as a criterion, and to save those searches as Collections.
Did you know you can access a placed image's metadata in InDesign and Illustrator too?
In InDesign CS2, select an imported image and choose File Info from the Info or Links palette menu. (Choosing File > File Info from the main menubar will just give you the metadata for the InDesign file itself, not for the selected image.) In Illustrator CS2 you can choose the same File Info command from Illy's own Links palette, even if the image is embedded. In either case, the same large XMP dialog box opens, revealing the image's resolution, pixel dimension, ICC profile, digital camera settings, keywords, favorite Simpsons character, and so on.
If only you could reveal that info in InDy's and Illy's Place dialog boxes, allowing you to find the image with the right keywords or resolution before you import it, you'd be all set. Oh wait, since you can use Bridge to Place files (File > Place) or drag and drop them into your files, I guess that's covered.
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InDesign and InCopy CS2 Patches Released
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Heads-up that Adobe posted bug fix updates for both InDesign CS2 and InCopy CS2 a couple weeks ago, bringing both programs up to version 4.01. The patch eliminates a few of the strange little bugs I've seen people reporting on the forums, such as Unexpected Quits during spell checks and missing inline images. You can read the list of all the fixes in this PDF:
http://www.adobe.com/special/indesign/id401update/Adobe_InDesign_CS2_4.0.1_ReadMe.pdf
The easiest way to download Adobe updates and install them is to use the Adobe Update Manager, which is like Mac OS X's "Software Update" feature for all the applications in the Creative Suite. To access the Adobe Updater program, open any program in the suite and choose Help > Updates. After consulting with Adobe's web site, the program will list all the updates available for the Suite programs you have installed. You can set it to download and install them, or just download them but install them later, or ignore them altogether.
Alternatively, you can always go to the Adobe Downloads page (got to be one of most heavily-trafficked pages on the web, don't you think) on their web site, click on the program/platform that applies to you, and get updates manually:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html
Personally I've taken to going directly to the New Downloads page, which I find easier to use -- less scrolling and clicking:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/new.jsp
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New Font Utilities for OS X
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Almost a full year ago, I wrote a DesignGeek story about how to edit screen font suitcases in OS X:
http://senecadesign.com/designgeek/dgarchives/designgeek31.php
I said there were two choices: Morrison Software's FontDoctor, and <ack> Font/DA Mover 4.1, old old Macintosh system software that runs in Classic.
Both solutions are still viable ... but let's leave Font/DA Mover behind, shall we? I can't remember the last time I booted Classic. Luckily, FontDoctor is up to version 7 and is available for Windows, too. The Mac version costs $69.99 and the Windows version only $49.99, for some reason:
http://morrisonsoftdesign.com/with_fl/index-1.html
But what I find exciting is that Insider Software, the makers of the highly-regarded font management utility, FontAgent Pro, came out with their own Suitcase Editor a couple weeks ago:
Font Smasher for OS X
http://www.insidersoftware.com/SM.php
Font Smasher lets you open up screen font suitcases and edit them in OS X, which is fantastic by itself. But Insider is a cool company, so they took it further ... Smasher matches screen to printer fonts, checks fonts for corruption (if they accept a bribe, it reports them to Internal Affairs -- amazing), cleans up flaky font caches from OS X, Adobe, Microsoft and QuarkXPress, previews fonts, and more.
If you currently own FontAgent Pro, there's a limited time offer to purchase Font Smasher for $24.95; otherwise, it's $49.95. You can download it directly from their site and start fixing your font suitcases today.
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Linotype's Free Font Management App
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What is it with September and fonts? Last month also saw Linotype's beta-ish release of FontExplorer X, a free font management utility for OS X (Windows version coming soon):
http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX
The features look good -- even does auto-activation without a plug-in -- and the price is certainly right. I haven't tried it myself, but lots of designers on the online forums have and so far they're reporting good news.
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Apple's New Quicktime Movie on Font Management
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Apple's web site has a few free online seminars -- Quicktime-based tutorials that you have to register for, for some reason -- on topics of interest to designers. The one that I took a look at last week was a new one promisingly called Font Management for Creative Professionals:
http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/fontmgmt/apple/index.html?s=203
After going through the dumb process of multiple registration screens, as though it were a live seminar you had to reserve a seat for, I arrived at the Quicktime videos for the font seminar. There's three of them, actually: One from Apple about font management in OS X, one from Extensis on using Suitcase, and one from Insider Software (see above) on using FontAgent Pro.
The one from Apple is interesting; it gets slightly risqué ("Design professionals will probably want to replace some of the fonts Apple installs in System > Fonts with their own versions , here's how you do that") but it doesn't go deep enough. For example, the guy never mentions which of those System fonts *cannot* be replaced without hobbling your system. He just goes on to the next topic.
Another example: Watch as the Apple guy reveals that Adobe installs fonts into its own Fonts folder (in /Application Support/Adobe/Fonts), and hey, to make them available to "non-Adobe programs like Microsoft Word, Macromedia Dreamweaver or QuarkXPress" (!), just move them into one of OS X's Library/Fonts folders. But he doesn't mention that you should leave Adobe's "Reqrd" folder there (easy to miss because it's mixed in with all the fonts), otherwise Adobe apps won't work. So caveat viewor.
The videos by Extensis and Insider are well done and really help explain how their products work, and how they integrate with OS X's own font management system. I liked them.
You can see a list of all the design-related Apple online seminars here:
http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/index.html
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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/).
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Copyright 2005 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
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