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*** DesignGeek ***
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Tips and techniques for the digital designer
In this issue:
-- InDesign/InCopy 4.03 Patch Released
-- Using CSS in HTML E-mails
-- Quark's Own Blog
-- My Recent InDesign Tips
Issue 54, 6/27/06
Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion
.. for her clients, colleagues, random contacts and interested subscribers
(c) 2006 Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
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InDesign/InCopy 4.03 Patch Released
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Late last week, Adobe quietly released software updates for InDesign CS2 and InCopy CS2. According to the ReadMe file that accompanies the installation, the 4.03 update fixes a number of pesky anomalies and glitches in both programs, including ones involving incorrect font remapping, weird EPS output, unexplained slowdowns and unexpected quits.
Interestingly, a number of the problems -- er, Resolved Issues -- that the ReadMe says that 4.03 fixes are related to the InDesign/InCopy workflow -- like problems, sorry again, issues with incorrect text wraps and un-updatable inline images in Assignments.
A particularly nasty bug that in certain situations caused all of an InCopy-using editor's hard work to disappear is also fixed, according to the Read Me. Here's how it put the error: "After editing and saving a file in InCopy, the file loses all content and generates error messages when updating or attempting to re-open the file in InCopy."
Holy moley!
Windows InDesign users need to download and install "MSIdnAPIsMP.EXE" (a link to the file on Microsoft's site is in the ReadMe) in order to "completely" solve an issue involving maintaining certain links when files are opened cross-platform.
If you're not an InDesign or InCopy user but you're morbidly curious, you can read the whole ReadMe yourself without running the update:
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/328368.html
And while I'm on the subject, here's what Quark says they're working to fix in QuarkXPress 7:
http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/7knownissues.html
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Let Your Program Fetch the Update
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To update your copy of InDesign or InCopy, just go to that program's Help menu and choose Updates. That starts up the Adobe Updater utility program, which queries Adobe's web site about any updates available for any CS2 program you have installed on your computer. The updater is set to run automatically every month by default, but why wait?
If the updater found anything, it'll tell you, "Hey I found some updates." You could just trust it and click the Install button, but if you're obsessive like me, click the Show Details button instead. Click the InDesign CS2 (or InCopy CS2) 4.03 Update checkbox to install just that patch for now.
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Or Find it Yourself on Adobe's Web Site
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A good thing happened when Adobe merged the Macromedia site with its own back in May, it created a dedicated page just for Creative Suite users to see what patches are available for their programs and to cherry-pick the downloads.
Updaters for Macintosh Creative Suite (CS1 and CS2):
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/collection.jsp?collID=1&platform=Macintosh
Updaters for Windows Creative Suite (CS1 and CS2):
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/collection.jsp?collID=1&platform=Windows
InCopy CS/CS2 updates are here:
Downloads for Macintosh InCopy CS1/CS2
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=30&platform=Macintosh
Downloads for Windows InCopy CS1/CS2:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=30&platform=Windows
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Using CSS in HTML E-Mails
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I personally never opt to receive a company's e-mailed communications as HTML -- I always choose the "Plain/Don't Know" option. It's not because I have a slow connection or I'm a Luddite, it's because my e-mail program, Eudora, completely sucks at interpreting HTML. It's a fantastic program in just about every other regard, so I continue to use it. I think of it as a wonderful husband who has one large, annoying flaw, like being an ex-felon, or even a White Sox fan.
Tiplet for Eudora users: To see how a badly-garbled HTML e-mail *should* look, and to figure out where the buttons are that you can click, open the message in its own window and choose File > Open in Browser.
Nonetheless, like a lot of web designers, I'm frequently asked by clients to create HTML e-mail templates for their use in marketing campaigns.
The easiest way to do this is to create a stand-alone web page in your web authoring program of choice, use absolute URLs for your a=href's (links), and then use that page's code in your client's e-mail template. Most often, they'll be asking you to paste the code into the "Create a Custom Template" step in a hosted e-mail marketing service like Constant Contact or Campaign Monitor:
http://www.constantcontact.com
http://www.campaignmonitor.com
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Web Standards Support
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But before you make your first click in your web authoring program, think about your client's audience ... and your client's pocketbook. These e-mail campaign services aren't cheap. You want to make sure that the HTML template you design will be readable to the people the client is paying to send them to.
You thought designing a web page for cross-browser compatibility was hard? Try designing one for cross-e-mail compatibility!
You've got your PC-based e-mail programs: Outlook, Outlook Express, and AOL 9, for the most part, but also if the audience is corporate, you've got Lotus Notes to contend with.
Then you've your Mac-based e-mail programs: OS X's Apple Mail, Entourage, and Eudora (for us old-schoolers).
And *then* you've got your web-based e-mail programs like Gmail, Yahoo! (old and new), and Hotmail.
The e-mail universe is much more fractured than the web browser one, and none of these share the exact same support levels for HTML and CSS.
The best you can hope for is to design an HTML e-mail that gracefully degrades to something less-pretty, but just as functional, when the recipient's e-mail program has trouble with the code.
Using CSS will help.
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General CSS Guidelines
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Most web designers are used to creating a separate, stand-alone .css file that contains all their formatting instructions for CSS tags, then referencing that CSS file via a link in a web page's <head> section.
That'll work in most locally-run e-mail programs (except for Eudora and Lotus Notes), but won't work for web-based e-mail. Yahoo!'s e-mail needs the entire CSS spelled out in the <head>, Hotmail needs it spelled out in the <body>, and Gmail only supports in-line CSS (you spell out the style every time you apply it).
Isn't this fun?
You can use CSS to specify background *colors* in all the programs listed except (surprise) Eudora and Lotus Notes, but if you to bring in a background *image* using CSS, you'll find that Gmail ignores it.
If you construct your CSS carefully using semantic mark-up, e-mail programs that ignore some CSS features, but not others, should degrade into a "Rich Text Format" look with links intact.
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Specific Guidelines
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I could go on and on, but for most details, I'd just be parrotting the world's best web page that details everything you've ever wanted to know about CSS support in e-mail programs:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/archives/2006/03/a_guide_to_css_1.html
The author of the article, David Greiner (who I assume is a CampaignMonitor.com staff member) compiled clear and comprehensive charts outlining exactly which CSS features each program supports, divvied up into local and web-based programs. His charts even includes Thunderbird and Windows Live Mail, which I haven't mentioned.
David makes it clear that he stands on the shoulders of giants, linking to previous exhaustive tests of CSS support in e-mail programs by Xavier Frenette and Mark Wyner:
http://www.xavierfrenette.com/articles/css-support-in-webmail/
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/archives/2005/08/optimizing_css_1.html
The voluminous comments at the end of David's article are helpful as well, don't forget to read those.
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Quark's Own Blog
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Adobe staff members have been blogging merrily away for months now, I've cited some of their posts in previous issues:
http://blogs.adobe.com/blog-list.html
But whither Quark? Why haven't they jumped on the bandwagon?
Why, they have, but quietly, on little cat-feet, and tentatively, like they're not sure what a blog is for:
http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/seven/blog/
I've been monitoring this page since the first post went up in March, hoping at some point it'd really take off. Sometimes weeks will pass without a post, and I'm sure I'm going to get a 404 Not Found error when I mosey by for a visit. But nope, it's still hanging on by its fingernails.
It feels like they're so close to turning around their corporate culture, opening up communications with end-users, taking the leap into the Web 2.0 world, but they're ... just ... not ... quite ... there yet.
If they'd allow comments -- even moderated ones, like Adobe's -- you can be sure I'd be posting "that-a-boy, Quark!" comments to the entrepid writers, Marc Horne and Jonathan Ferman.
I know Marc's a DesignGeek subscriber, so I'll say it here: At-a-boy, Marc! Keep writing!
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My Recent InDesign Tips
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For the past month, David Blatner and I have been "stocking" our new InDesignSecrets.com blog (the one that hosts our podcast) with some useful articles. It's like moving into a new house and having to stock the pantry with staples. Once that's done then we just need to buy the weekly groceries.
Here are a few staples I've written that you might find useful -- I think you can figure out the topic by the URL:
http://indesignsecrets.com/rebuilding-indesign-preferences.php
http://indesignsecrets.com/changing-the-default-printer.php
http://indesignsecrets.com/indesign-interchange-format-inx.php
And here are some specialty items I've posted:
http://indesignsecrets.com/find-where-that-colors-used.php
http://indesignsecrets.com/modifying-polygon-shapes.php
http://indesignsecrets.com/live-previews-of-line-break-changes.php
http://indesignsecrets.com/tabletweaker-scripts.php
We have a shelf reserved for InDesign users who use an InCopy workflow, too:
http://indesignsecrets.com/smart-export-all-to-incopy-scripts.php
http://indesignsecrets.com/incopy-assignment-problems.php
Hope to see your comments there!
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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:
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Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at info@senecadesign.com
Copyright 2006 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
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