InDesign Tips
A friend sent me an e-mail asking about a few technique for InDesign and since InDesign is my favorite Adobe program he came to the right person. I decided to publish this for others that might need the same kind of help or to get feed back if you have any tips.
Start a New File Right
When you start a new file in InDesign you have a New Document set-up panel that comes up. If you start a document right then you won’t have to make changes in the end of the project that might really throw off your design. So first unless you are making a magazine or book you can uncheck Facing Pages. Face pages sets up your multi page publication in spreads. Set the number of pages your need. If it’s a front and back of lets say a postcard then select 2. If it’s a small size like say a 5x7 postcard front and back then you need to type in those dimensions. 7 being the Width and 5 being the height. In CS3 you need to click the button that says More Options. Then the Bleed and Slug will drop down. You want to have a .125 Bleed all the way around which is a 1/8 inch bleed. If the printer has a specific bleed size that is greater than that make sure to ask them ahead of time so you know. 1/8 is standard. You also want to change the Margins to .25 because that is your text safe area. Your images can bleed off the side and your color, but unless you expect text to bleed off the card you want to keep all text within that margin.
Small File Proofs
InDesign files are always going to be large. They are meant to be used for high quality printing. If you need a smaller file go to File > Adobe PDF Presets > Smallest File Size. This should be the file you use when you are sending proofs back and forth to clients.
Preflight to Check Images
When you finish a project in InDesign and you are prepping for the print process you want to do a Preflight on your files. In InDesign CS3 that feature is found under the file menu.
The Preflight menu will pop-up and if any files are missing links or wrong color file type (RGB vs CMYK) you will see a warning (little yellow triangle with a exclamation mark in it) that something is wrong with the file. If, lets say, you have a linked in illustration from Photoshop and you see that it’s marked with the warning sign it is more than likely that the image is not set as a four color process. What you want to do then is close the Preflight and select your links tab on the right menu panel. Navigate to the image that is RGB and either choose the pencil at the bottom of the pallet frame or click on the menu drop down for that pallet and choose Edit Original.
When Photoshop opens the selected image go to the top Image > Menu > Mode > CMYK. Then save and close the file. When you go back to InDesign it will prompt you that there was an update to a file click OK if it doesn’t prompt you thats okay it might have automatically updated.
Preflight to Check Font & Color
Now if you have a font that is giving you trouble, which usually happens when you download a font from dafont.com or abstractfont.com you want to save 2 versions of the InDesign file. One with the fonts editable and one with the fonts outlined. Command+a selects every item on the page the Command+shift+o(o not zero) will outline all the fonts. Make sure to Save As then add the word outline or OL something to change the file name that will distinguish between the outlined file and the editable file.
If there have is problem with a color swatch inside of InDesign that is marked as an RGB all you need to do is double click on the color in the color pallet and change the RGB drop down to CMYK. You only want to use spot color when you have a logo that is a specific color or when building a two color ad. Which is usually two colors and black.
Package When Job is Approved
When Preflighting again you shouldn’t have any warnings. Then you want to proceed with packaging it. Under the file menu you will find Package; this option will collect all your images that you linked in the file, all fonts you used and a copy of the final InDesign file into one folder. If for any reason you need to edit the InDesign file last minute be sure to edit the one in the final folder. At this point you can even delete any duplicates as to not get confused.
Final Hi-Res Print
When the client approves the final file you want to make sure that the InDesign file doesn’t have any of those font issues. If you get a message that says, “‘Font Name’ font can not be exported” then you need to outline either that one font or all the fonts using the method I mentioned before and Save As to save a separate copy of the file as Outlines or OL. Then go to File > Adobe PDF Presets > Highest Quality Print. When the Export box pops-up you want to select Marks and Bleeds on the left panel and check All Printer’s Marks and Use document bleed settings. Then click Export. It might take a few minutes, but in the final folder of collected work you will find the Hi-quality PDF. You should preview the Hi-res PDF and you will see the color bars and double crop marks and you should recognize the bleeds you set-up at the beginning.
Another thing you should do is ask the printer if there is a preset that they would like you to use. For instance, the printer I work with wants the file to be exported using Adobe PDF Preset > PDF/x-1a:2001. It all depends on the printer. So don’t be afraid to call the printer, they might have some tips for you too or even their own pre-set that you can load into InDesign by going to File > Document Presets > Define > Load. Then find the preset file you want to add.
Color Separations
Color separation is simply checking that your file is truly a four color process. At least for designers. You personally won’t need to do this if you followed all the four color process and fixes that I have mentioned before. But for fun open a pdf and go to File > Print. If it’s a multi-page file select print the first page only. Below that look for the button marked Advanced and click it. In the output panel there is an option called Color: it should be set for composite. Click the drop down panel to select Separations then click OK, then Print. If the pdf is a four color process you should get four print outs; each with different parts of the image. What your looking at is the individual color information for the whole image. It’s neat!
In InDesign you can preview this without printing the file by going to Window > Output > Separations. Change the View option to Separations then click black and turn off cyan and magenta. You will see all that is yellow, click cyan on and yellow off and you will see only cyan images. You get the idea. If it was three color process the the separation would only have RGB. If it is a two color spot then it will be assigned whatever color codes you’ve decided and black.
The was written by Janel Rehbein and is valid information to the best of her knowledge. If you would like to e-mail about some incorrect information in the post or to give input please e-mail her at janel[at]jgirldesign[dot]com.
