I've been busy!

I spent many hours the last few months writing and recording 2 brand-new courses for Lynda.com, and completely updated and re-recorded an existing course. All 3 courses have now been released. Check them out!

In InDesign Scripting Made Easy I’ve created a course for InDesign users to learn how to obtain, install, use, create, and modify scripts to help automate repetitive design and production tasks. Every InDesign user should watch this course!

In InDesign: Fixed-Layout EPUB Interactive Techniques & Publish Online I show how to add a wide variety of interactive effects to InDesign documents that will be output as either fixed-layou EPUB or Publish Online projects. I show how to create slideshows, animation, quizzes, audio and video, buttons that trigger actions, and much more.

My popular Up and Running with Dropbox course has been viewed by thousands since I released it in April of 2014. Since the initial recording, a lot has changed in Dropbox-land, so I updated and re-recorded the entire course. Think you know how to use Dropbox? Watch the course, and I can almost guarantee that you’ll learn something!

How to save each Illustrator artboard to a separate AI file

A customer asked me about this recently, and for some reason I had forgotten how to do this. So I thought I’d write it down here in hopes that it might help someone else.

The problem: You have an Illustrator file that contains multiple Artboards, and you want a quick way to save each Artboard as a separate .AI file.

The solution: Simple. Just choose File > Save As, and in the Illustrator Options dialog box, select Save each artboard to a separate file.

 

If your Illustrator file is named “MyIllustratorFile”, when you save the artboards, they will be named MyIllustratorFile-01.ai, MyIllustratorFile-02.ai, etc.

I think I had trouble finding this because it only shows up when you do a Save As, or the first time you Save a new file. I guess I was expecting some sort of an export artboards command or something instead. Anyway…its simple, and pretty obvious when you look in the right place!

This ability goes back at least as far as Illustrator CS6, maybe even further. Also, when you choose File > Export to output to png, swf, jpg, psd, tif, or svg, you have the opportunity to output each artboard to a separate file.

DPS 2015 splash screen template

Every Adobe Digital Publishing Solution app for iOS must contain 6 splash screens in the following sizes: 1536 x 2048, 2048 x 1536, 640 x 960, 640 x 1136, 1242 x 2208, and 2208 x 1242  pixels. These splash screens must be saved in the PNG format. The splash screen appears on the screen momentarily while the app loads.

 

 

I’ve created an InDesign template to make creating these various sizes of the splash screens quick and easy. You can download the template here.

 

The template contains 6 pages in each of the pixel dimensions listed above. Create your desired artwork on the pages, then choose File > Export and export the pages in PNG format. Fill in the Export PNG dialog box as shown below, and PNGs with the exact dimensions required will be output.

 

 

If you are looking for a similar template for DPS 2014, see this post.

New tablet publishing article

The latest issue of InDesign Magazine is out, and I wrote the feature article this month! In the article “Tablet Apps InDepth” I compare 6 solutions for publishing content into native apps for tablets (and phones). I compare and contrast Adobe DPS, App Studio, Aquafadas, in5, Mag+, and Twixl Publisher, and then draw some conclusions about which solutions are best for which types of content, budget, and workflow.

Not a subscriber? You should be. Subscribe, or purchase single issues, at indesignsecrets.com/issues

Wow - I love Marcel Script!

Talented Twin Cities-based designer Carolyn Porter has designed a fantastic typeface, with a riveting back story. The typeface is called Marcel Script Pro, and is available from P22 Type Foundry. 

I love this script! It has extremely comprehensive OpenType support which can be accessed in InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. The font consists of more than 1300 glyphs that capture the texture of ink on paper. 

Along with the usual OpenType support such as discretionary ligatures, contextual alternates, swashes, and stylistic sets, Marcel Script Pro contains some unusual OpenType features:

A “www” ligature is included, to make that pesky and ugly world-wide-web acronym more attractive:

You can add swashes before and/or after almost any glyph by typing @ and # one or more times to adjust the length of the swash:

With Stylistic Set 11 applied, some cool things happen:

Typing ink* creates an ink spot. The font cycles through different spots each time you press the asterisk key:

Typing “orn!” creates an ornamental swash. Each type you press the !, a different swash from a list of about 20 appears:

The font has such a great back story: Here’s a short summary from the P22 Web site:

The font Marcel is named in honor of Marcel Heuzé, a Frenchman who was conscripted into labor during World War II. During the months Marcel was in Germany, he wrote letters to his beloved wife and daughters back home in rural France. Marcel’s letters contain rare first-person testimony of day-to-day survival within a labor camp, along with the most beautiful expressions of love imaginable. The letters — stained and scarred with censor marks — were the original source documents used by designer Carolyn Porter to create a script font that retains the expressive character of Marcel Heuzé’s original handwriting. 

In fact, the story is so compelling that it prompted Carolyn to write a book titled “Marcel’s Letters”. Read more about Carolyn's fascinating book project here.

I can’t imagine the labor of love this font must have been, and the countless hours that Carolyn put into researching and crafting the font. Good work Carolyn!