CONTENTS
========
1. A SPECIAL BOOK OFFER
3. A PROJECT IN EDINBURGH
4. FILE NAMES
5. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
6. UTILITIES/UPDATES
7. HINTS
8. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
9. LAST WORD
1. A SPECIAL BOOK OFFER
=======================
We have changed the look of the Worsley Press website <http://www.worsleypress.com>. In particular we have removed the pop-up menu which some users found annoying. There is still some work to do to tidy up the sites.
We have also added a new email responder to get the latest issue of Format. This is:
getformat at worsleypress.com
Sending an email to this address, with no required subject or message, will bring the latest issue of Format within a few minutes. This is a useful way of telling others about Format -- just give them that email address for the latest issue. We will also put the date of the latest issue on the main page of our web sites, so it will be easy to see if you have missed an issue. We get multiple bounces each issue which seem to correct themselves by a month later. This is a problem facing many newsletter publishers as many ISPs introduce new spam filters with settings which regard all bulk mail as spam.
3. A PROJECT IN EDINBURGH
=========================
William at Midlothian Voluntary Action had a project which seemed ideally suited to PageMaker 7, using that program's new DataMerge plugin. The 500-page community support services directory got done, but not without some major problems which revealed potential limitations to PM's DataMerge.
A first problem was quickly solved. Running DataMerge brought in all the text fields from an Access database exported to .CSV (comma delimited) format but only some of the logos. Some JPGs had been saved as "progressive" and PageMaker can not place these. If they were saved as "baseline" or "standard", they appeared. There were several hundred logos, so Photoshop was suggested. "You can record an Action in that to save as a 'Baseline' jpg, then use the File>Automata>Batch process to open every file in the logos folder in turn and apply the action, saving to the same folder under the same name."
The inability of the CSV format to deal with multi-line entries in the Access database was an ongoing problem, finally solved by creating extra fields, but which, along the route entailed some manual editing of CSV files to create test files which should have worked -- but still did not.
Now any attempt to use DataMerge on more than four pages produced a file with index errors.
I'm sure William must have felt like dumping the whole job, as, though the task had relatively relaxed deadlines, the final print date was getting ominously close.
Along the way were detours which eventually were shown not to have been necessary -- like ensuring all graphics were the same format and size (by increasing the 'canvas' size for the smaller graphics -- but they did help rule out some suggested causes. A collection of files (totalling well over 1MB) was put on the MVA website and downloaded by several people around the world who volunteered their help.
Adobe themselves in the UK were approached but could offer only some fairly inane suggestions such as a cause being commas within some fields in the data file. These commas were correctly within quotation marks around such fields. Unfortunately, staff on help lines do not have the experience to deal with such problems and seem reluctant to pass such problems up the line. That helpdesk staff do have the ability to find solutions eventually is instanced by some of Adobe's top "evangelists" having done their time on the desk.
Even at the successful outcome, William is still looking for an answer to the multi-line fields in Access. He writes: "What I've done is created a second box, and limited the text to 2 lines, but I've had to change my Access database quite a bit for that to work. The effect is better, but still not the ideal end product." Taking a fairly typical Access database file, exporting to CSV and then bringing the CSV file into any spreadsheet program immediately shows the problem -- fields that become records because a carriage return in an Access field is carried through the export process. Does anyone have any other ideas?
Several times Will made comments such as: "I'm sorry if I sound like a pest and asking for too much, I am really thankful for all your time and help. Many many thanks."
At last all material seemed to be processed by the DataMerge plugin -- until there was any attempt to print. Then came the error message: "Cannot process publication's links. Internal error: Bad record index. 8901 : 20515" The same error came when attempting to "save all linked files". Despair was showing: "it's no good to me if I can't print this..."
Will then reported: "I sent the merged file to the printers for a test run, unfortunately when they opened the files, the images were missing and they had some broken link, they then asked me to "Save As > All linked files"... this is where it threw the error pop up box of 8901 : 20515.
At Adobe's helpdesk suggestion he ran Save for Service Provider", and seemed not to any errors... so he packaged and saved... but then when he opened the packaged file, there was that 8901 : 20515 error again!
Another problem was solved when we realised that in the template file, the image tag, which acts like a frame, was inside a frame, and, in PageMaker you can't put frames inside frames. Take the tag outside the frame, and we get a little further. But unfortunately, not very far.
Doing the 500+ pages in groups of 10 pages at a time did produce mostly usable files, dozens of them though. Our suggestion was then to create PDFs from the small usable files and merge these in Acrobat.
We even considered a script to place the images and use new headers in the CSV file so the merge just places the file names.
The key seemed to be that the process had to get as far as a complete untitled file with the links still OK. There was at least no need to go to the print stage to find one had a problem. Checking Links Manager would either bring up the links, or the error message. It did not matter which small group of pages was chosen -- up to any four records (8 pages) was OK, more than 4 was a problem.
Other solutions tried were a shorter path to the graphics, such as putting the image folder in the root directory. A search and replace on the CSV file made the data file suit the new location. But this made no difference either.
It now seems the job is out of the door. Along the way Will created a great example of how one might use the DataMerge feature. And future users will now know some of the limitations.
4. FILE NAMES
=============
We've mentioned before that, as operating systems seem to move closer, the technique of using extensions becomes more important for document management rather than for the use of some operating systems.
One such problem showed recently on the InDesign Talk mailing list. Files were named by job numbers, though the same would apply for publications which might use the date of issue, a common enough practice.
The main file was "12345" and the cover was "12345.cover", which seems clear enough, but unfortunately if they are InDesign files, and file "12345" is open, you can't open "12345.cover" as it will bring up a message that it "Cannot open the document ... You may not have permission or the document may be open already."
It seems ID2 creates a file, "~12345$.idlk", which is intended to prevent two users from editing the same document. Unfortunately, it does not take varying filename extensions into account because the same lock file is generated for either "12345" or "12345.cover".
Steve Harley reported a workaround: add another period to the filename -- "12345.cover." or "12345.cover.foo" gets a lock file named "~12345.cover$.idlk", and wlll open at the same time as "12345".
Incidentally, InDesign happily opens files without extensions even in Windows if they are opened within the program or dragged onto a program icon -- and will correctly recognise linked graphic files without extensions -- which makes cross-platform working a lot easier.
5. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
========================
Angela Urquhart writes from Canada with a PageMaker question: "I thank you for your Format newsletter, it is very informative and useful. I would like to be able to print my linked documents (placed images, placed text files) in alphabetical order. The Links manager lists the linked documents in alphabetical order but it does not offer the option to print the list from that dialog box. It does offer the option to print linked documents via the 'save for service provider' option, but they are then arranged by 'page first used on' which means no longer in alphabetical order. Is there a utility or feature I am missing which would allow me to print my links list alphabetically?"
We replied: We can see a possible answer, though probably not the simplest. This would be by a script. The full list of linked documents can be obtained by the GetLinks command, and it would be possible to log these to a comma-delimited file that in turn could be opened in a spreadsheet and sorted there. Any ideas for a simpler solution.
It can then be sorted in some word processors or opened in most spreadsheet programs.
The script is:
GetLinks >> numlinks, mylinks
logbegin "mylinks.txt"
loop x = 1,numlinks
set mylinks >> myfile,mytype,mypage,mylinks
log ""(myfile)+", "+""(mytype)+", "+""(mypage)
endloop
logend
return
-----
Frank Morris in New York wrote : "We presently are forced to construct templates for trifold brochures we design, because QuarkXpress and to my knowledge no other desktop publishing software offers fold marks. In other words, an 8.5 by ll layout is increased to 9.5 by 12, which gives us a surrounding 1 inch area, into which we draw dashed lines to indicate where we want our folds to occur. Since we used this technique, we also insert our own custom drawn crop marks and registrations (and turn off the registration and crop mark features included in Quark 4.11 and 5). Is there an alternative in Quark? Is there a plug-in we should know about? Does InDesign have this capability?"
We replied: As you say, we don't think there is any layout software which does this -- probably because opinions differ on exactly how a trifold brochure, for example, should be folded. The simplest answer is to create templates as you are doing.
It should also be possible to create an Applescript to do this in QXP -- changing page size, adding crop and fold marks and centering existing copy on the new page. InDesign could be controlled in a similar way.
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In reply to our question on Dover clipart in Format 63, John Sharpe wrote: "Some of the Dover CD-ROM clipart books/CDs are available online at amazon.com, and Amazon offers the ability to browse a couple of pages of the books which come with the CDs. In the front matter of one of these books, viewable on-line, it is stated that the images are in various formats at 600dpi. This may be of interest to Amy Wilcox, though there is no indication how big the saved images are (i.e., could they just be half the size of the 300dpi images which you discussed in your last issue).
-----
Carl wrote: "I have been experiencing a problematic type issue. I am using ATM and find that certain Helvetica Neue font styles do not appear in InDesign's type selection even though they are active. Any ideas? Thanks for your Newsletter is a real bonus!"
We replied: We seem to recall some discussion on the InDesign Talk email list about ATM and some fonts in conjunction with InDesign. It may have been in reference to a particular version of the Mac OS. One suggestion was that it can be worth trying a problem font in InDesign's own font folder.
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Rob Richardson asked: "I am looking for a guidebook similar to 'Publication Production using PageMaker,' but applicable to InDesign 2. Do you publish such a guide, or if not, do you have plans to do so in the future?"
Our reply: We plan to, but in the meantime I'd suggest Olav Kvern's Real World InDesign 2.0 as the best of the general guides.
6. UTILITIES/UPDATES
====================
Olav Kvern has some new InDesign scripts for PC on Adobe Xchange including TwoUp, a simple booklet-builder, AlignToPage, which aligns objects to various locations on the page and TextCounter, which counts characters, words, lines, paragraphs, etc. They are at <http://www.adobestudioexchange.com>. All tiny files.
Interestingly, Olav said he'd post the Mac versions soon, but had to decide which user interface builder to use: "AppleScript Studio, RealBasic, or FaceSpan... RealBasic is probably the best choice, but the files are huge -- a 7Kb AppleScript becomes a 1Mb executable. Does a 1Mb script seem acceptable to you guys?"
Both Visual Basic and AppleScript version of a story-splitting script are available.
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A plug-in to deal with those dreaded .DAT attachments emanating from Outlook mail users: <http://www.fentun.com/>. It was created to work with Netscape Mail but thanks to Massimo Mezzini I also have instructions on how to make it work with Pegasus Mail. Anyone who wants a copy of those instructions, send me an email.
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QX Tools Pro is a new release from Extensis. See <http://www.extensis.com/qxtools/28g.html>. It adds a means of importing Excel and Powerpoint files to QuarkXPress (though this is done basically by creating an EPS of the incoming file), Collect and Send (which adds a useful means of collecting fonts along with the file, and also includes an FTP facility), and a display of QXP shortcuts. Lots of other useful features which were in the previous version. QX-Tools Pro Mac US$199.95. Upgrade US$59.95.
7. HINTS
========
In InDesign, as in PageMaker, you can reduce the size of many objects by doing a calculation in the palette width and height fields. For example to reduce a box by 40 percent, type *.4 next to the figures in the W and H fields. Unfortunately, this method does not work when text is part of the selection.
-----
It is a good idea to save a copy of program configuration files when everything is working well. Then you can put it back if things every get corrupted again. Murphy will ensure of course that once you have this file backed up, you'll never need to use it.
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You can rename Master Pages in QuarkXPress to something more meaningful than A-Master etc. You can click the name in the Document Layout palette, but the new name must have a hyphen, with a maximum of three characters before the hyphen. The characters before the hyphen will display on page icons.
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In Acrobat 5, print noncontiguous pages by Control or Command-clicking on Thumbnails. When you choose File> Print, those pages will print. You can select a portion of a page to print by using the graphics select tool and dragging an area of a page.
8. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
=========================
For Photoshop tips, see: <http://www.digitalmastery.com/tips/>. Ben Willmor runs the Photoshop Tip of the Week, but it is much less frequent than weekly.
A partial example from the latest issue: "I have a recurring problem with Photoshop's color picker. I often click and drag to the upper left of the color field to choose white. If I don't make it all the way to the corner, then I won't end up with pure white, instead I might get something like 2% gray. So, I've trained myself to drag *beyond* the corner, which always insures that I end up with 100% pure white instead of a sneaky shade of gray."
----
Eliot Harper wrote an article for Seybold last year comparing all the software RIPs available for inkjet printers (87 of them!). To see the whole article you have to subscribe to Seybold, but if not you can still see the product comparison chart at <http://www.seyboldreports.com/rips/chart.html>.
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Lots of knowledgeable Mac people on <http://www.iomug.org/>, the Internet Only Macintosh User's Group.
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Mike Reilley has a free e-newsletter about searching for information online, intended for journalists, published twice monthly. Details at: <www.journaliststoolbox.com>
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PageMaker shortcuts list as a PDF: <http://www.mentortraining.com/pdf/quickref/PM6.5.PDF>
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Interesting article... "Why Arial and not Helvetica: THE Making of a Type Font:
<http://www.ms-studio.com/articles.html>
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There is a Ventura Publisher discussion list. To subscribe, send a message of
subscribe ventura-l <name>
to listserv@plaza.inventiv-edu.nl
The list is based in the Netherlands but run in English. A new version of Ventura is due out this year.
9. LAST WORD
=============
From American philosopher Charles Barkley: "The one thing you have to know about reporters is that they're not your friends."
For more information, and context, see "Stop the Presses" by Stanley Fish <http://chronicle.com/jobs/2002/05/2002052401c.htm>
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The Klez virus is still having a massive impact on email, made worse by the fact that the person who appears to be the sender is not the real sender, and that the actual originator may well be unaware of the problem. The virus picks an attachment at random from the senders hard disk... and the largest we have seen so far is more than 5MB. Even if you are not caught by the virus itself, it can still have a major workflow impact.
Gordon Woolf
The Worsley Press
Hastings, Australia.
====================