XML and InDesign case studies

I've been asked to work on some real interesting projects lately, all involving working bringing XML data into InDesign, or getting XML out of InDesign. Most of these projects involve automating the production of complex catalogs from product databases.

This sort of thing is kind of hard to get your head around, so I've put together a series of four "case studies" (1 page PDF each) that attempt to explain in a few paragraphs what each project involved, what challenges were faced, and how they were solved.

Case study 1: A company that sells molecules to research scientists asked me to develop a way for them to efficiently produce a massive 975 page catalog from their product database. Read the solution here.

Case study 2: An electronic components distributor asked me to automate production of complex "new product" brochures that are produced several times a year in eight languages each. Find the solution here.

Case study 3: A company that sells cake decorating supplies hired me to create an automated catalog production workflow that doesn't sacrifice designer's creative freedom. Discover the solution here.

Case study 4: A publisher of legal texts asked me to develop a way to extract product name, descripton and price information from hundreds of formatted InDesign files in XML format so they could import the information into their database. Read about it here.

CreativeBloc 2010

If you're located anywhere near Eastern Iowa, check out CreativeBloc 2010, sponsored by AAF of Eastern Iowa. I'll be presenting four seminar sessions on CS4, InDesign, Photoshop and Flash at this event in Waterloo, Iowa on March 19. Please join me if you can!

Convert Illustrator artwork to grayscale

I'm often asked how to turn full color Illustrator artwork into a grayscale equivalent. This is simple if you know where to look:

1. Open your color .ai or .eps file in Adobe Illustrator CS3/CS4

2. Select the artwork that you want to convert to grayscale

3. Choose Edit > Edit Colors > Convert to Grayscale

That's all there is to it. If the colors in your original artwork don't map to pleasing grays, you can try one or more of the following to adjust the tonal values of the grays:

* Convert your file from CMYK to RGB or vice versa by choosing File > Document Color Mode before you convert it to grayscale. Even though the colors may not look much different in RGB or CMYK on the screen, they will convert to different grayscale tones.

* Choose Edit > Edit Colors > Adjust Color Balance before or after you convert the artwork to grayscale

* Choose Edit > Edit Colors > Saturate after you convert the artwork to grayscale.

How to control the "View PDF After Exporting" setting in InDesign

Deb wrote and asked:

"Do you know where I change the setting to automatically open a PDF when it is created? I tried changing it in my preferences and printing settings, but the PDFs still automatically open."

If you use File > Export to create PDFs from InDesign or InCopy, you may find it helpful to have the resulting PDF automatically displayed in Acrobat after it's created. Or, like Deb, perhaps this behavior annoys you and you'd prefer to turn it off. This pesky setting often leads to confusion and frustration, because it behaves unlike any other setting in InDesign.

The View PDF After Exporting option in the Export Adobe PDF dialog box is the key to making this work the way you want it to. If this option is checked, then PDFs created from InDesign will automatically be displayed on the screen after they're created. If this option isn't checked, the PDFs won't be displayed.

The tricky thing about this setting is that it is NOT memorized with any PDF Presets that you create. To enable or disable this setting, you need to open an InDesign file, and then choose File > Export and select Adobe PDF for the format (or choose File > Adobe PDF Presets and select a preset). Then, in the Export Adobe PDF dialog box, select or deselect "View PDF After Exporting", and click the Export button.

You must create at least one PDF with the setting selected the way you want, and then it will "stick" that way until you change it again.

Preview Web sites across browsers with Adobe Browserlab

If you design Web sites, particularly with CSS, you know the frustration of trying to make a page look the way you want in different browsers. This is a constant battle for Web designers.

Adobe is showing a cool new technology at Adobe Labs called Adobe BrowserLab. Currently in "free preview" status, BrowserLab lets you quickly preview what a Web page looks like in several different browsers. When you enter a url into the address field in BrowserLab, this address is sent to a "server farm" of real computers running clean installations of the browsers and operating system you choose. A screen shot of the result is sent back to you for viewing and comparison. You can easily save these screen shots as jpeg files for client presentation.

Adobe isn't the one doing this. Competitors include BrowserShots, BrowserCam, Browsrcamp, Total Validator, AnyBrowser and NetMechanic. However, what really sets Adobe Browserlab apart from the competition is integration with Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. If you download the BrowserLab Extensions for Dreamweaver, you can easily view various states of dynamically built pages in different browsers.

For example, if I want to see what a particular drop-down menu looks like on my Web site, I can open the page in Dreamweaver, click on the Live View button, pull down a menu, and hit F6 to "freeze" the JavaScript. Then, I choose command-shift-F12 to preview the page in BrowserLab, and within a few seconds, I get the result shown below.