Open Up with OpenType Fonts

OpenType fonts act just like PostScript Type 1 or TrueType fonts in programs like Microsoft® Word or QuarkXPress, but Adobe® InDesign® can perform special tricks with them, such as replacing characters with swashes (fancy versions of a letter), or with ligatures for character pairs such as “ct” and “ffi.” InDesign ships with several OpenType fonts, including Adobe Garamond® Pro, Adobe CaslonTM Pro, Caflisch Pro, and Kozuka Mincho Pro (a Japanese typeface).

Kvern, Olav Martin and David Blatner. Adobe (2004). Design>Typography>Document Design>Adobe InDesign

Opening PDF Documents in Full Screen Mode

Adobe Acrobat allows users to configure the opening settings of PDF documents to display them in full screen mode. It's as effective as a PowerPoint display and very easy to accomplish. This tip explains how.

Shea, Dan. PlanetPDF (2007). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

The Optimal Thumbnail

Thumbnails are minature representations of an image or page. They provide a convenient way to electronically "thumb" through many images/pages before retrieving the one you need. In this experiment, we measured subjects' recognition speed to thumbnails of five sizes.

SHORE (1997). Design>Document Design>Information Design

An Overview of Desktop Publishing

The mission of Designorati:Desktop Publishing is to provide the knowledge, tips and tricks that can help you in your day to day work.

Bruno, Elisabetta. Designorati (2005). Design>Document Design

Packing Light  

Acrobat lets you 'pack' fonts into a PDF in three basic ways: by fully embedding, subsetting, or not embedding them. Each method differently affects a PDF file's size, editability, and typographic fidelity.

Patrick, Teri and Tamis Nordling. Adobe Magazine (1998). Design>Document Design>Typography>Adobe Acrobat

Page Design: Directing the Reader's Eye  

Sevilla discusses principles of effective page design and techniques that ensure consistent document layout.

Sevilla, Christine. Intercom (2002). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric

Page Layout  

All Web pages should be structured for ease of comprehension. This includes putting items on the page in an order that reflects their relative importance. Designers should place important items consistently, usually toward the top and center of the page. All items should be appropriately aligned on the pages. It is usually a good idea to ensure that the pages show a moderate amount of white space—too much can require considerable scrolling, while too little may provide a display that looks too 'busy.' It is also important to ensure that page layout does not falsely convey the top or bottom of the page, such that users stop scrolling prematurely.

Usability.gov (2006). Design>Web Design>Document Design

Page Layout and Sample Designs in Full Color Manuals for Japanese Users  

Compared to American users, Japanese users have a tendency to prefer visually intensive manuals. This is especially true for the fill-color manual of the color copier which I am responsible for, as can be seen from the many requests and comments regarding the presentation of examples, how color is used, and the layout, It is my intent to introduce the tastes of Japanese manual readers by explaining the improvements that have been made to the visual aspects of the fill-color manual for one of our color copiers.

Mizukami, Rieko. STC Proceedings (1997). Design>Documentation>Document Design>Japan

Page Layout Resources

A collection of dozens of links to online resources in page layout and desktop publishing.

IPA. Design>Document Design>Prepress

PageMaker Archaeology  

Opening somebody else's PageMaker publication? Here's an explorer's guide to the discoveries and dangers that may be lurking.

Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1996). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe PageMaker

PageMaker Past, Present, and Future

For millennia, humans have struggled to communicate, first with grunts and sign language, then with speech. But it was when humans learned to write that civilization became possible. First we painted on cave walls, then chiseled in stone, then wrote on more practical and portable things, like wood, papyrus, and finally paper. Hand printing ink on paper was the state of the art for hundreds of years until mechanical inventing was invented, first with engraving and then with movable type. But setting type with metal was still slow, dangerous, and difficult work. This was not dramatically changed until the twentieth century with machines like the Mergenthaler and Linotype. In 1984, the state of the art was phototypesetting on large, complex machines that were expensive and where what you was was nothing like what you would get. Then three companies -- Apple Computer, Adobe Systems, and the Aldus Corporation -- changed everything.

Adams, Peter C.S. Makingpages.org (2002). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe PageMaker

PageMaker Scripting for Non-Programmers

Scripting is simply a method of automating complex or time-consuming tasks in PageMaker.

Haugen, Diane. Document Design (2001). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe PageMaker

The Pantone Matching System: Always Show Your True Colours

It can be very frustrating to see the logo you worked hard to create look deep blue on the client's letterhead, blue-greenish on his business card, and light blue on his very expensive envelopes. A way to prevent this is by using a standardized color matching system, such as the Pantone Matching System.

Bruno, Elisabetta. Pantone (2005). Design>Document Design>Prepress>Color

Paper Fits (and What to Do About Them)  

Save money by designing to fit standard printing-paper sizes.

Sidles, Constance J. Adobe Magazine (1996). Design>Document Design>Prepress>Paper

Paper Tips: Printing on Uncoated Stock

Uncoated paper has a soft finish and tactile quality not possible with most coated papers. But uncoated stock also interacts differently with ink than it coated cousins. Follow these tips to ensure the best results.

Creative Pro (2004). Design>Document Design>Prepress>Paper

PDF Printing, Preflighting, and Prepress

PDF is becoming the de facto standard for not only viewing documents onscreen but also for printing them on paper. Acrobat 6 Professional includes better printing and prepress tools than ever before. PDF pundit Ted Padova shows you how they work.

Padova, Ted. Creative Pro (2004). Design>Document Design>Prepress>Adobe Acrobat

Pearls of Output-File Wisdom

Some pearls of file output wisdom collected over the years from friends who ride imagesetters everyday.

Johal, Jasper. Design, Typography and Graphics (2004). Design>Document Design>Prepress

Photoshop Tutorial: How to Preserve Spot Colours in Photoshop

How many times have you wondered why, no matter how much you save spot colours in other applications, you cannot preserve a spot color in Photoshop? There is a way of course, and this is what this article will cover. This tutorial has been made using Photoshop CS for Mac, but it should be OK also for previous versions of Photoshop up to version 6, and of course also for whoever has the Windows version of Photoshop. This is not the only method to use spot colors in Photoshop, but it is a simple one which you could find useful.

Bruno, Elisabetta. About.com (2005). Resources>Document Design>Prepress

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, But...

What happens when we try to translate that picture or mental image into words so readers who don't have the picture in front of them can understand the meaning? Oftentimes...chaos.

Document Design (2001). Design>Document Design>Graphic Design

Pixelbilder und Acrobat

Da druckt meine Quelldatei mit allen Pixelbildern wunderbar, wenn ich diese aber mittels Acrobat in das PDF-Format von Adobe wandle, kann ich in den Pixelbildern kaum noch Text lesen, sind alle feinen Linien weg und ist auch sonst die Qualität der Pixelbilder nur noch mäßig.

Transcom. (German) Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Placing PDFs in Quark

Some caveats when placing PDFs in Quark prior to distilling.

Sprague, Rich. PDFzone (2004). Design>Document Design>Software>QuarkXPress

Plan Now, Play Later  

Whip that document into shape - master the master page in InDesign and PageMaker.

Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (2000). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Planet PDF Tools List

A listing of over 700 tools for checking, separating, correcting colors, ordering and re-ordering pages.

PlanetPDF (2003). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat