Document design is the field concerned with creating texts, that is books, pamphlets, posters and others that integrate words and pictures in ways that help people to achieve their specific goals for using texts at home, school, or work.
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Conditional Text and InDesign CS4
InDesign has always supported the use of layers, but layers don’t always cut it when working with text. You can put a text frame on a layer and turn that layer on and off as needed, but it’s an all or nothing approach. What if you want to show and hide individual words or paragraphs and have the text automatically rewrap when you show or hide those words? With conditional text, it’s a breeze.
White, Terry. Layers Magazine (2009). Articles>Document Design>Single Sourcing>Adobe InDesign
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Fast Layout in Adobe InDesign CS4
Every now and then an app gets an update that really impacts your daily routine, and I’m happy to say that InDesign CS4 has some new-and-improved features that will do just that. InDesign is a page layout app, so anything that helps that process is a welcome addition, so let’s take a look at how CS4 will speed up your day-to-day work.
White, Terry. Layers Magazine (2009). Articles>Document Design>Workflow>Adobe InDesign
#35466
Automate Your Designs with Nested Styles in Adobe InDesign
We’re all used to working with style sheets (or least we should be). With each new version of InDesign, there seems to be a new way to style your content. We started with paragraph and character styles, then we got nested styles, followed by object styles, and finally table styles in InDesign CS3. As you can see, nested styles is not really new but it’s something that you should be taking advantage of, so let’s get to it.
White, Terry. Layers Magazine (2009). Design>Document Design>Style Sheets>Adobe InDesign
#35539
Adobe FrameMaker: Custom Master Pages
New FrameMaker documents have default Master Pages. Single-sided documents have one, called "Right," and double-sided documents have two, called "Left" and "Right." We use these pages to place the objects we want to repeat on all the Body Pages, things like our running heads, page numbers and repeating graphics. But what do you do when you need a different look for a Body Page, on a repeating basis? For example, no page number on the opening page of each chapter? You set up a custom master page. Here's how.
Binder, Barbara. Blogs.com (2009). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker
#35557
Laying out your poster on a grid establishes limitations for your poster. Choosing a font establishes limitations for your poster. Being conservative in your design choices establishes limitations. Working within limits requires discipline. Setting yourself limitations does not necessarily limit creativity; it can do just the opposite.
Better Posters (2009). Design>Presentations>Document Design>Posters
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Academics use posters to present research, but their posters are often ugly, with tiny text, confusing layouts, and dubious colour schemes. Better Posters is about making posters informative and beautiful.
Better Posters (2009). Design>Presentations>Document Design>Blogs
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If you look through a poster session at a scientific conference, I’ll bet over 98% of their titles are centered at the top of their posters. Why? There is no advantage in reading. Most word processors and other publishing programs start with text left aligned by default, which implies that people deliberately center the text all the time.
Better Posters (2009). Design>Presentations>Document Design>Typography
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No More Slidesters, Interlude: Making Presentations More Like Posters
Because many researchers use PowerPoint for their talks and lectures, they also tend to use it for every graphic problem, including posters. Predictably, the form of the resulting posters often look like nothing more than a series of ugly PowerPoint slides tacked together. A poster is more like a whiteboard than slides. But because many researchers give more presentations than posters, they’re not used to thinking in terms of a big space, viewed all at once, instead of a series of small spaces, viewed one at a time.
Better Posters (2009). Design>Presentations>Document Design>Posters
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No More Slidesters, Part 3: Draw in the Open
As discussed recently, many people use PowerPoint to design posters, an act that borders on criminal. PowerPoint was designed for multiple projected images with minimal text, not one large image with complex text and graphics. People use PowerPoint because it’s the only thing remotely resembling a graphics software that people are familiar with. Microsoft Office simply doesn’t have a good, high end graphics component. Publisher comes close. OpenOffice does have a graphics component, simply called Draw. If you are not willing to shell out the big bucks generally required of a professional graphics software package, Draw has several features in its favour.
Better Posters (2009). Design>Presentations>Document Design>Open Source
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No More Slidesters, Part 2: Three Publisher Tips
I have used Microsoft Publisher a lot for posters. I’m going to show three easy things that Publisher does well that are useful when making a conference poster.
Better Posters (2009). Design>Presentations>Document Design>Microsoft Publisher
#35676
In order to provide guidance to those involved in the preparation of documents for the Japanese market, a special Japanese layout taskforce has developed the “Requirements for Japanese Text Layout”. Here is an insight into the content.
Graham, Tony. TC World (2009). Articles>Document Design>Localization>Japan
#35717
How to Change 100 Screenshots to the Same Size with a Single Click 
All the screenshots in your Word document are different sizes. What’s the quickest way to get them all the same size? Is there a shortcut? Yes!
Walsh, Ivan. I Heart Tech Docs (2009). Articles>Document Design>Image Editing>Microsoft Word
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Easy Fixes for Microsoft Word Formatting in InDesign
Two free and easy-to-use scripts convert Word's local formatting to InDesign's character styles. Two more retain InDesign formatting when you export text formatted with automatically applied character styles.
Concepcion, Anne-Marie. Creative Pro (2009). Articles>Document Design>Microsoft Word>Adobe InDesign
