Ten Free Must-Have Plug-Ins1. MultiDo| 00:04 | You know that InDesign has multiple
Undos, right? So as you are working you
| | 00:08 | could undo and then undo again and
then redo and undo some more, go back and
| | 00:13 | forth like that. That's pretty cool.
But a lot of people wonder why InDesign
| | 00:16 | doesn't have a History panel like
Photoshop does. That would be pretty cool to
| | 00:20 | see a list of all the things that you
could undo and redo, so you can go there
| | 00:24 | really, really quickly.
| | 00:26 | Well, there is a plug-in that let you
do it. It's called MultiDo. MultiDo is a
| | 00:31 | free plug-in from 65bit Software. It
does one thing and one thing very well.
| | 00:36 | It gives you a list of all the Undo states.
| | 00:39 | For example, if I take this image and
move it over and that over and this over,
| | 00:43 | I'm just moving stuff all over the
place here. Maybe I'll come in here and
| | 00:46 | delete that and delete this and then
I say, well, you know, I don't like that.
| | 00:50 | I want to undo it. It's easy to undo
with a Command+Z or Ctrl+Z but to get back
| | 00:55 | to where I was originally, I would have
to go choose that over and over again.
| | 00:58 | That would be very frustrating.
| | 01:00 | So instead I'll go to the Edit menu and
instead of choosing Undo, I'll go down
| | 01:04 | to this new menu item which is put here
by the MultiDo plug-in. You can see it
| | 01:09 | lists all the different things that I
have done. I cleared, I cleared, I moved,
| | 01:13 | I moved and so on. It's in reverse order.
So the first thing I did was move an
| | 01:19 | item. So if I choose that last item on
the list, it will take me all the way
| | 01:23 | back to where I was originally.
| | 01:24 | Of course, it also redoes in multiples
as well. So I can go to the Edit menu,
| | 01:29 | choose Redo Multiple and then say, I
liked everything I did up to the point that
| | 01:33 | I started clearing things, deleting
things. So I'll go right back to that
| | 01:37 | place. Now everything is
there but it's moved around.
| | 01:41 | So MultiDo is pretty cool. It gives
you most of the features you will need,
| | 01:44 | being able to undo and redo in big
steps like that. I like that. But if you
| | 01:49 | want even more, like maybe you actually
want a History panel that floats around
| | 01:52 | your screen.
| | 01:53 | Well, you can get that by upgrading to
a plug-in called EasyHistory and that's
| | 01:57 | like $10 or something, not so much,
also from 65bit. Or if you want the deluxe
| | 02:02 | version, you could get a plug-in called
History from a company called DTP tools
| | 02:08 | and that's at DTPtools.com, and
History gives you a lot of features. Beyond
| | 02:13 | just the floating History panel, you
can save snapshots, you can save versions
| | 02:18 | off to other files, you can actually save
snapshots that stay with your saved documents.
| | 02:24 | Now that's a little bit more
expensive but still not that much at all.
| | 02:27 | It's $30-40 or something. So you could get
that and then you would have all the
| | 02:33 | multiple undo power you
could ever possibly want.
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| 2. PatternMaker| 00:05 | My stepmother was a graphic designer.
When I was a kid, she would give me her
| | 00:09 | old Letraset and format books. Did you
ever see those? They are like pages and
| | 00:13 | pages of really cool patterns, but the
problem is, you couldn't tweak them. You
| | 00:16 | couldn't go in there and change the
patterns, because, of course, they were on
| | 00:19 | paper or on plastic. So that wasn't so good.
| | 00:22 | But years later when I started
computer programming, I started writing my own
| | 00:26 | patterns. That was fun because my
patterns were infinitely customizable. So
| | 00:31 | flash-forward about 20 years and I'm
talking with this plug-in developer, a guy
| | 00:35 | from TeacupSoftware.com, and
TeacupSoftware guy, Lawrence, makes my patterns
| | 00:41 | into an InDesign plug-in. So now you
can get all these infinitely customizable
| | 00:45 | patterns in InDesign. Let
me show you how it works.
| | 00:50 | After you download and install the
PatternMaker plug-in, you can restart
| | 00:54 | InDesign and then go to the Window
menu and choose PatternMaker. The
| | 00:58 | PatternMaker panel is a floating panel
just like any other panel in InDesign,
| | 01:02 | so you could dock it off to the side if
you want to. I'm going to leave it out
| | 01:05 | here on my screen.
| | 01:05 | Now here is the deal. When you download
the PatternMaker plug-in, it says it's
| | 01:10 | a demo. But it's not really a demo.
It's a fully functional plug-in with three
| | 01:14 | basic patterns. It will keep working
with those three patterns as long as you want.
| | 01:19 | You can also download two other
things called a PatternPack and a
| | 01:22 | BarcodeMaker. Those add more
functionality to the PatternMaker as you are going
| | 01:26 | to see in a minute. But those are
actual commercial add-ons. Teacup Software
| | 01:31 | hopes you will like them and gets you
hooked on them so you will actually go
| | 01:34 | buy them. But you could use those for
up to 20 days if you want to. But I'm
| | 01:38 | going to focus on the three free patterns
that come with the basic PatternMaker plug-in.
| | 01:42 | To add a background pattern on this
page, I'm going to select this Background
| | 01:46 | Frame, then choose a pattern from the
list of patterns here. You can see that I
| | 01:50 | have got a lot of patterns listed.
These are the commercial ones that are
| | 01:53 | installed here. Again the free ones
that come with it are Crosses, Lines and
| | 01:58 | Scallops. Those three are the free ones
that come with the basic one that they
| | 02:02 | call a demo but it's not a demo.
| | 02:04 | So I'm going to start with Crosses
right now. To fill this frame with those
| | 02:08 | patterns, I'm going to Click Apply
Pattern. There they are. I get lots of axes
| | 02:12 | throughout the entire frame. I also
get a bunch of ways to change these
| | 02:17 | crosses. If I don't like the
look of them, I can change them.
| | 02:20 | For example, I could change the angle
of each one of these patterns. Right now
| | 02:23 | it's set to 0, but if I change it to,
let's say, 15 degrees and then Click any
| | 02:28 | place else or I'll just hit Tab, you
will see that each one of those exes
| | 02:31 | changed very slightly. So you have
total control over how those patterns appear
| | 02:36 | on the page.
| | 02:37 | I can also come up here to the Cross
Size field and make these bigger. How
| | 02:41 | about 4 picas? And I'll hit Tab. You
can see with one change I have radically
| | 02:46 | changed the tone of this pattern. Let's
make the gap between each of those exes
| | 02:50 | larger. How about 2 picas 1? There you
go and now I have got kind of a parquet
| | 02:54 | floor feel, of course, I could always
go in here and change the color to any of
| | 02:58 | my color swatches and change
the Stroke Weight I if wanted to.
| | 03:01 | So you can see that Crosses starts off
looking like crosses but very quickly
| | 03:08 | can look like all kinds of cool patterns.
Let's change to one of the other free
| | 03:11 | patterns. How about Scallops?
Scallops is sort of a Japanese flavored fish
| | 03:17 | motif. I don't know what that is,
but kind of a fishy kind of thing.
| | 03:20 | Let's change this to a different color
maybe Cyan and we can make this larger.
| | 03:24 | How about 2 picas? Change the angle to
something like 30 degrees. You can see
| | 03:30 | that very quickly you get a really
different feel. You can also say, do you
| | 03:33 | want 1, 2 or 3 scallops inside this
pattern. I'll also change the Stroke Weight
| | 03:39 | percentage so that the inside strokes
are actually larger than the outside stroke.
| | 03:43 | The third pattern that comes free with
PatternMaker is Lines. Lines gives you
| | 03:49 | lines. You can do all kinds of cool
things with lines, either dashed or solid
| | 03:53 | lines. I'm going to leave this set to
dashed, but I'll change the color to
| | 03:56 | something little more
interesting, like this dark red.
| | 03:59 | Now we could change the distance
between the lines if we want to, we can change
| | 04:06 | the number of iteration, so rotating
them around. For example, I could, say,
| | 04:10 | change it to 3 iterations. Then I
could even change the dash length.
| | 04:14 | I'll make this longer.
| | 04:15 | So those are the three free patterns
that come with the PatternMaker plug-in.
| | 04:20 | Like I said, there are a lot of other
cool shapes that you can do, dots and
| | 04:24 | concentric circles and spirals and all
kinds of interesting things. I'll leave
| | 04:28 | that for you to check out. Again, you
can download that and use it for 20 days
| | 04:32 | for free. So don't stress it. In the
meantime, you can keep using those
| | 04:36 | three free ones forever.
| | 04:38 | I do want to mention those barcodes
though, because the barcodes are really
| | 04:41 | amazing. The ability to come in here
and add a barcode quickly without having
| | 04:46 | to paste them in later or have the
printer do it, is a big help. All you do is
| | 04:50 | draw out a frame, choose a barcode
that you want, let's say, UPC-E, and then
| | 04:55 | click Apply Pattern and you get a
barcode. Change to a different barcode style
| | 05:00 | and you will get a different kind of
barcode. Change the code number and that
| | 05:04 | changes on the page. It's all very interactive.
| | 05:09 | Even if you just stick with those three
free patterns, if you like patterns as
| | 05:12 | much as I do, I think you are going to
really enjoy sprucing up your designs
| | 05:16 | and unleashing your creativity
with that PatternMaker plug-in.
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| 3. AutoFit| 00:10 | I want to show you an extraordinary
plug-in which is so amazing, I can't
| | 00:13 | believe that it's free. It does two
basic things. It lets you auto-expand text
| | 00:17 | frames and it lets you set up relationships
between different objects on your page.
| | 00:22 | I will show you what I mean. I'm going
to select this text frame and zoom in to
| | 00:25 | 200% so we can see it a little bit
better. Then I'm going to go to the Window
| | 00:29 | menu and choose from the Typefi submenu,
AutoFit. The AutoFit panel lets me do
| | 00:35 | various things but the main thing I'm
going to focus on is this popup menu at
| | 00:38 | the bottom. Right now it's set to Keep
Frame Size. I'm going to change it to
| | 00:42 | Resize From Top.
| | 00:44 | Resize From Top means, keep the top of
the text frame exactly where it is, but
| | 00:48 | let the bottom of the text frame
expand or contract as necessary. Check this
| | 00:52 | out. I'm going to Double-Click to
switch the Type tool and then select all of
| | 00:56 | this text and delete it. Did you see
what happened? See how the bottom of the
| | 01:01 | text frame just snapped right
up to the bottom? This is incredible.
| | 01:06 | Now what happens if I start typing in
here? As I type I don't get that overset
| | 01:10 | mark, instead the text frame just gets
bigger, I love that. Now I'm going to
| | 01:15 | undo a few times just to put that text
back in there and this time I'm going to
| | 01:19 | set this to Resize From Bottom. This
is really useful if I want to make sure
| | 01:24 | the bottom of the text frame stays where
it is and let the top of the text frame move.
| | 01:28 | Once again, I'll just grab some text
in here and delete it. Did you see that,
| | 01:32 | that top of the text frame snapped
down so that the bottom stayed exactly in
| | 01:37 | the same place. That's an incredible
feature! Now I'm going to scroll over to
| | 01:41 | the other side of the page here and
show you the other main thing that AutoFit does.
| | 01:45 | It lets you set the relationship
between one point on an object and
| | 01:49 | another point. This is easier
to show than it is to explain.
| | 01:52 | So I'm going to come over here and
choose this new tool that AutoFit added to
| | 01:56 | the bottom of the tool panel. It's a
double-headed arrow, and the way it works
| | 02:00 | is, you Click on one point of an object.
You don't even need to see the point,
| | 02:04 | I know there is a center
point in the middle here.
| | 02:06 | So I'm going to click on that and now
I'm going to come down and Click on the
| | 02:10 | center point of this next object down.
These are not threaded or grouped or
| | 02:14 | connected in any way, but as soon as I
do that, you will see that there is a
| | 02:17 | black dashed line indicating the
relationship between these points.
| | 02:21 | Now I'm going to do the same thing
from this center point to the center point
| | 02:24 | of the last frame. So what's going on
here? Well, if I use the Selection tool
| | 02:29 | to move the right side of this top
frame, they all move. They all expand.
| | 02:35 | Because I have set the relationship
between one point and the next. If I make
| | 02:39 | it narrower, then they all get
narrower. Isn't that amazing?
| | 02:42 | Let me make it little wider again. Then
I'll set the relationship for the left
| | 02:46 | side as well, this left side to that
left side and this left side to this left
| | 02:51 | side, just clicked from one to the next
and I'm good to go. Let's go ahead and
| | 02:55 | try it on this side. I'll make this one
narrower and they all become narrower.
| | 02:58 | Isn't that amazing?
| | 03:00 | Here is one other use for the AutoFit
tool. I'm going to put a line between
| | 03:04 | each of these, just a big thick line.
Let's make this thick so you can see it
| | 03:07 | better and I'll duplicate that with
the Alt+Shift or Option+Shift key to drag
| | 03:12 | it down here and now I want these
lines to also expand or contract while the
| | 03:18 | text frames do. So I'll go get my
AutoFit tool and Click from this point to the
| | 03:22 | side of that line and from this point
to the side of this line and you get the idea.
| | 03:28 | I don't have to do the other side.
| | 03:28 | You will see that if I select this text
frame and I move this point over, then
| | 03:32 | all the points move over, because
this center point is forcing this one to move.
| | 03:36 | This center point is moving this
one over. Of course, this one down here
| | 03:40 | is not connected to anything. It's just
a receiver of information. So if I move
| | 03:45 | this one over, it has no effect on
those. It's a receiver of where it should
| | 03:49 | be. So I'm going to undo that,
Command+Z or Ctrl+Z on Windows to undo.
| | 03:55 | I think, it's amazing that any plug-in
can add this kind of functionality to
| | 03:58 | InDesign, much there is a free one.
[00:04.01.76]
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| 4. TextExporter| 00:05 | If you have a single story in your
InDesign document and you need to export it
| | 00:09 | as a RTF or a text file, it's easy,
right? You just go to the File menu and
| | 00:13 | choose Export, no big deal. But what
if you have 50 different stories in your
| | 00:18 | document or 100 different stories on
different pages and they are not threaded
| | 00:22 | together? How are you going to get
those out to a single RTF or text file?
| | 00:26 | Well, that's where you need the Text
Exporter plug-in from LightningBrain.com.
| | 00:31 | I have installed the Text Exporter
plug-in as well as the APIDToolAssistant
| | 00:37 | plug-in that Text Exporter relies on,
and then I launch InDesign and I can use
| | 00:42 | it. Here is an InDesign document that
has a number of text frames throughout
| | 00:46 | the document, some threaded, some not,
but I want to export all of them out as
| | 00:50 | a single RTF file.
| | 00:52 | So I'll go up to the API menu and
choose Text Exporter. There are three options
| | 00:57 | here, Export, Export With Dialog and
Default Export Settings. The last one just
| | 01:02 | exports with the default settings, I
never use that because I almost never use
| | 01:06 | the default settings of anything.
| | 01:08 | Export With Dialog actually gives you a
dialog box that lets you control those
| | 01:11 | settings and after you set them
then you could export to use those same
| | 01:14 | settings over and over again. In this
case, I'm going to go to Export With
| | 01:18 | Dialog. Most of these options are
pretty self-explanatory: what pages do you
| | 01:22 | want in the final output, what
format do you want it to be in, Rich Text
| | 01:26 | Format, that's RTF or Tagged Text or Text Only.
| | 01:30 | You also have some interesting options
here like Ignore. Which text frames do
| | 01:34 | you want to ignore when you export the
file? Typically, I don't want stories
| | 01:39 | that are on Master Pages, like running
heads or page numbers or whatever or I
| | 01:43 | don't stories on the Pasteboard and I
don't want stories that are on hidden
| | 01:47 | layers, those are Invisible stories.
And also, I often don't want stories with
| | 01:52 | less than five characters.
| | 01:53 | If I have just a little tiny text frame
with a little piece of text in there, I
| | 01:57 | often don't need that. So you have an
option to turn it on or off. The options
| | 02:01 | at the top let you control what
happens when you have multiple text frames on
| | 02:05 | the same page. Do you want them to be
exported left or right and top to bottom
| | 02:09 | or how about top to bottom and left to
right? So you can control that and that
| | 02:13 | lets you control the ordering of the
text inside the final text document.
| | 02:17 | I will Click OK and let's see what
happens. It processes the file and then asks
| | 02:23 | me where do I want to save it? I'm
going to save it at on my Desktop so it will
| | 02:26 | be easy to find and I'll Click Save.
There is the RTF file, so all I have to do
| | 02:31 | is Double-Click on it and it opens up
and I can see that it got every bit of
| | 02:35 | text throughout the entire document,
but not the stuff that's on the Master
| | 02:38 | pages, like page numbers and running
heads and not that stuff that had really
| | 02:43 | very few character in a text frame.
| | 02:45 | Whether you want to get your text out
of your document to give to a translator
| | 02:50 | or just export it to archive all the
text, the Text Exporter plug-in is a great
| | 02:54 | way to go about it.
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| 5. LikeFindsLike| 00:04 | The LikeFindsLike Plug-In from developer
Lightning Brain also requires the APID
| | 00:09 | Tool Assistant to be inside the
Plug-ins folder, but once it is and you launch
| | 00:14 | InDesign, the magic happens. Here I
have an image selected on my page and
| | 00:19 | I want to select the other images on the page too.
| | 00:22 | So I'll go to the API menu, that's
where all the APID ToolAssistants live, and
| | 00:27 | I can go to the Like Finds Like submenu,
and choose Select All Similar. It found
| | 00:32 | the objects on this page that are like
this one. But what criteria did it use
| | 00:37 | to find them? Well, that's what the
Configure feature is for. I'll choose
| | 00:41 | Configure from the Pop-up menu, and we
can see that you can determine what you
| | 00:45 | want it to find, and what you want it to
ignore. Do you wanted to find similar
| | 00:48 | objects on the same page, or is it okay
to consider objects on the whole spread?
| | 00:53 | You wanted to find objects that have
the same frame type, or the same width or
| | 00:57 | height. The Same angle as the selected
object, the same shear or fill color or
| | 01:01 | stroke color, and this is the cool part,
you can determine a tolerance level.
| | 01:06 | So how close to these other objects
have to be to the original object that I
| | 01:10 | had selected before it selects them.
| | 01:12 | Let's go ahead and click OK, and try
it on a different object. Here is a text
| | 01:16 | frame. I'm going to say Like Finds Like,
Select All Similar, and it didn't find
| | 01:21 | anything. Why? Well, I'm going to come
out of Preview mode, and you will see
| | 01:26 | that each one of these text frames is
a different height. So I better go back
| | 01:30 | to the Configure dialog box.
| | 01:31 | Because I'm going to go to that
Configure dialog box a lot, it will be a lot
| | 01:34 | better for me to make a keyboard
shortcut to jump right to it. So I'm going to
| | 01:38 | go to the Edit menu, and choose
Keyboard Shortcuts. I'll choose New Set or
| | 01:42 | choose a set that I have already
created. In this case I'm going to choose
| | 01:45 | David's Set, and under the Product Area
pop-up menu, I'm going to choose Active
| | 01:49 | Page Item. There is that dialog box,
Configure. So I'll give it a shortcut,
| | 01:55 | something that I'm not using for something else.
| | 02:00 | Now each time I want to use Like
Finds Like, I'm going to hit that keyboard
| | 02:03 | shortcut, it opens the Configuration,
and I can say, I don't care about the
| | 02:07 | height, I only care about the width.
Click OK, and then I could make another
| | 02:11 | keyboard shortcut for Select All
Similar. You see, all three objects were
| | 02:15 | selected. So sure, this is a very
simple layout, and it's not going to be very
| | 02:20 | difficult for me to select those
individually, but you can imagine if you had a
| | 02:23 | very complex layout with dozens or
even hundreds of objects on it, Like Finds
| | 02:27 | Like could be extremely
useful for your workflow.
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| 6. Keyboard Shortcuts| 00:05 | I love keyboard shortcuts, because
the more you keep your hands on the
| | 00:08 | keyboard, the more efficient you are
going to be, and I'm all about efficiency.
| | 00:12 | So keep your hands on the keyboard,
learn the keyboard shortcuts. The problem
| | 00:16 | is that I can't always remember all
the keyboard shortcuts and sometimes
| | 00:20 | I remember a keyboard shortcut, but I
don't remember what it does. That's where
| | 00:24 | Keyboard Shortcuts plug-in comes to the rescue.
| | 00:26 | I have installed the Keyboard
Shortcuts plug-in, and restarted InDesign, and
| | 00:31 | now when I go to the Window menu, I can
choose Keyboard Shortcuts. The Keyboard
| | 00:35 | Shortcuts panel is sitting here with a
cursor flashing inside this blank field,
| | 00:40 | and I have two choices right now. When
that's blank, I can type in a keyboard
| | 00:45 | shortcut, and it will tell me
what feature is associated with that.
| | 00:48 | For example, I'll do Command+R or Ctrl
+R on Windows and it says, oh, that's
| | 00:53 | Hide Rulers or how about Command+U or
Ctrl+U, oh that's Smart Guides. See how
| | 00:59 | that works? It actually shows you
the keyboard shortcut down here, and it
| | 01:02 | selects the actual feature here.
| | 01:05 | The second thing I can do with a
keyboard shortcuts plug-in, is type in the
| | 01:08 | name of a feature, and it will show me
what the keyboard shortcut if there is
| | 01:12 | one. For example, I want one for
Ellipse. So I'll just type Ellipse, and I
| | 01:18 | don't have to type the whole thing,
just enough for it to guess what I'm
| | 01:21 | looking for. There we go, Convert
Shape Ellipse. I'll hit the Down Arrow to
| | 01:25 | jump down to that list, and I can move
down through here, and you can see that
| | 01:29 | the Ellipse tool has a keyboard shortcut.
See it is listed right here, Default,
| | 01:34 | but the Convert Shape to Ellipse
does not have a current shortcut.
| | 01:38 | So what do I want to do? Of course, I
want to apply my own keyboard shortcut.
| | 01:43 | Down in the lower left corner here it
says, Default. That means I'm currently
| | 01:47 | using the default keyboard shortcut set.
If I want to change that, perhaps I
| | 01:51 | have already made one or perhaps I
want to create a new one, then I could
| | 01:54 | change that from the pop-up menu. Here
I could say New Set or I already have
| | 01:58 | one made here called David's Set.
| | 02:00 | So I'll choose David's Set, and I'll
come back over here and Click the Add
| | 02:05 | Keyboard Shortcut button. I want this
to be about Ctrl+Shift+E. It tells me
| | 02:11 | that it's unassigned, that is it's
not used for any other feature in the
| | 02:14 | program currently, and so that's
great. I can Click OK, and it will add
| | 02:19 | Ctrl+Shift+E to my Elliptical, Convert
Shape to Ellipse feature. Let's try it out.
| | 02:25 | I will select something on the page
and then hit my keyboard shortcut and it
| | 02:29 | turns it into an ellipse. One other
thing I want to tell you about the Keyboard
| | 02:33 | Shortcuts panel is this check box,
Ignore Unassigned Shortcuts. All that means
| | 02:38 | is, don't show me any features that
don't have a keyboard shortcut applied to
| | 02:43 | them already.
| | 02:44 | So for example, if I type in fea for
feather, I can see the Gradient Feather tool
| | 02:49 | does have a keyboard shortcut
applied to it, but the Feather item from the
| | 02:53 | menu does not. So that's what that
check box does. It simply filters out all
| | 02:58 | the features that don't have
shortcuts applied to them already.
| | 03:02 | If you want to be an InDesign power user,
you have got to learn the keyboard shortcuts,
| | 03:06 | and this free Keyboard Shortcuts plug-in
is one of the best ways to do that.
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| 7. Sudoku| 00:05 | Everybody likes Sudoku puzzles.
Well, actually not everybody. I don't like them.
| | 00:09 | I can't figure out how to do
them, but everybody else seems to like
| | 00:11 | Sudoku puzzles, and they want them in
their magazines and newspapers and books
| | 00:15 | and whatever, but where do they come from?
Where do you get these Sudoku puzzles?
| | 00:19 | Well, the good news is, now you can
make your own Sudoku puzzles right
| | 00:23 | inside of InDesign using a free plug-in
from a company called Lightning Brain.
| | 00:29 | When you download the Sudoku Generator
plug-in, you also have to download this
| | 00:32 | thing called the APID Tool Assistant,
and that is what a Sudoku Generator
| | 00:38 | relies on in order to function. A
lot of the plug-ins from Rorohiko or
| | 00:42 | LightningBrain.com rely on this APID
Tool Assistant. So it's worth downloading
| | 00:48 | that and just having a copy around.
| | 00:50 | Now to actually get the Sudoku puzzle,
here is what you do. Double-Click on
| | 00:54 | this file, Sudoku.indt. This is a
regular InDesign template file, or at least
| | 01:00 | it looks like it's a regular
template file, but it actually have some magic
| | 01:03 | inside of it which triggers the Sudoku
Generator plug-in to go. Without that
| | 01:08 | template you cannot make the Sudoku puzzle.
| | 01:10 | I will Double-Click on it, and it opens
in InDesign, and the first thing we see
| | 01:15 | is Sudoku Generator dialog box. Here
you can type in a Difficulty level from
| | 01:19 | 1-20, and you can also tell the plug-
in where do you want the solution to be.
| | 01:24 | Do you want it to be hiding behind this
Sudoku puzzle it's about to make, or do
| | 01:28 | you want it to completely visible? I'm
going to keep it Hidden for right now,
| | 01:31 | so you see how that trick is
accomplished, and I'm going to Click OK.
| | 01:36 | After it does its little magic, you
can see the final Sudoku puzzle. I'll hit
| | 01:40 | the W key to go into Preview mode, and
you can see that this really is a true
| | 01:44 | Sudoku puzzle, and you can format this
text in here, or change the thickness of
| | 01:48 | the lines, or export as a PDF, or
print it or whatever. It's just regular
| | 01:52 | InDesign objects.
| | 01:53 | Let me hit W again to come out of
Preview mode and I'll show you how the trick
| | 01:57 | is accomplished. I'm going to select
this object and you might be able to see
| | 02:00 | a faint dashed line indicating that this
is actually a group of two objects. So
| | 02:06 | I'll go to the Object menu and choose Ungroup.
| | 02:09 | Now I can move the top object away.
This is actually a text frame with a table
| | 02:14 | in it, and when I move it off to the
side, you will see the trick. There is
| | 02:19 | the finished puzzle, the solution, and
here is another table that was sitting
| | 02:23 | on top of it. And this table has some cells
that are opaque and some that are transparent.
| | 02:27 | Let me Undo that. Command+Z or Ctrl+Z
on Windows, and you can see that there is
| | 02:32 | the finished puzzle with the masking
table sitting on top of it. Now why is
| | 02:38 | Lightning Brain giving away this Sudoku
Generator for free? Well, they want you
| | 02:42 | to buy the commercial one. That one
has more features. This Sudoku Generator,
| | 02:46 | the free one, works just fine, but you
could only make one puzzle at a time.
| | 02:51 | If you wanted to make a whole bunch of
puzzles like a whole books worth of puzzles,
| | 02:54 | you need the commercial version.
| | 02:56 | If you want to do symmetrical puzzles,
some people like that kind of thing for
| | 02:59 | higher end Sudoku, well, you need the
commercial version. There are all kinds
| | 03:02 | of features like that in a commercial
version that you don't get in the free
| | 03:05 | version, but still, come on,
it's free and it's awesome.
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| 8. ImageHorn| 00:05 | Wouldn't it be cool if you could just
resize one of these frames and the image
| | 00:09 | would resize in it automatically, or
would always stay centered inside that
| | 00:13 | frame, no matter how big or small you
made it? That would be cool, and there
| | 00:17 | are some keyboard shortcuts that if
you remember what they are, you can kind of
| | 00:21 | simulate that, or you could go to the
Object menu, down to Fitting, and then
| | 00:25 | choose one of these options underneath
the Fitting pop-up menu. But you know,
| | 00:28 | that's just too much work.
| | 00:30 | I want it to do it automatically, and
that's why I like the ImageHorn plug-in
| | 00:34 | from Lightning Brain. This is a free
plug-in that you can download and install.
| | 00:38 | I'm going to switch out here to the
Finder, or on Windows it would be Windows
| | 00:42 | Explorer, and I'll show you the Plug-
ins folder, and you can see that I have
| | 00:46 | ImageHorn inside this folder along with
the APID tool Assistant which ImageHorn relies on.
| | 00:52 | Anyway, once those are in there and
you launch InDesign, you can get to
| | 00:55 | ImageHorn under the API submenu. There
are various options under here, and why
| | 01:01 | don't we just take them one at a time?
Dynamic Fit means, scale the image to
| | 01:05 | fit the frame, no matter what you do
with that. Even if it means scaling it
| | 01:09 | disproportionately.
| | 01:10 | For example, if I make this really
narrow, you will see that it's squishes
| | 01:13 | it up. If I make it really wide, it
kind of spreads it out. So it will always
| | 01:17 | fit the size of the frame,
no matter how big I make it.
| | 01:21 | The next option is Dynamic Fit
Proportionally. That means the image is always
| | 01:26 | going to fit inside the frame. It will
not let any of it crop outside, even if
| | 01:31 | that means leaving a blank space below,
to the left or above or whatever. So
| | 01:35 | for example, now when I make this larger,
the image will fill that frame. Make
| | 01:40 | it smaller, and it will fill the frame.
It won't crop out at all, but see the
| | 01:44 | big space over to the right.
| | 01:45 | Let's try the next one. Fill
Proportionally. Fill means, scale it up as big as
| | 01:51 | it can go, so it fills the frame.
Don't let there be any blank space in the
| | 01:55 | frame. So in this case it's fitting
horizontally, but it's cropping out
| | 01:59 | vertically. If I make this bigger, now
it's going to fit vertically, but crop
| | 02:05 | out horizontally. So you have control
over that, but it will always fit inside
| | 02:09 | that frame.
| | 02:12 | And the final option is Dynamic Center,
which means always put it inside that
| | 02:17 | frame, and this will not scale the
image at all, it will leave it whatever
| | 02:20 | scale it was when you turned on
Dynamic Center, but it will always get
| | 02:24 | centered. So if I make this really
large, it ends up right in the center.
| | 02:27 | That's not very
attractive, but you get the idea.
| | 02:30 | I don't want it to be doing dynamic
fitting anymore. I can go back to the API
| | 02:33 | menu, and choose from the ImageHorn
submenu, No Dynamic Fitting. That just
| | 02:38 | turns it off. Whatever scaling was
applied to the image when I choose that,
| | 02:42 | stays, it sticks right there.
Now it won't scale anymore.
| | 02:46 | The ImageHorn plug-in is a great
tool for setting up templates that other
| | 02:50 | people are going to use, especially if
they are not going to be quite so savvy
| | 02:53 | about the keyboard shortcuts for
fitting. But remember, they also need this
| | 02:57 | plug-in in order for this
dynamic scaling to work.
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| 9. ImageLibraryLoader| 00:05 | Here is a question that frequently
comes up when I'm speaking at InDesign seminars.
| | 00:08 | I have got a folder full of images
and I want to load them all into
| | 00:12 | a library. Isn't there is some way
to do that in InDesign? Well, InDesign
| | 00:16 | itself can't do that easily, but there
is a very cool free plug-in called Image
| | 00:21 | Library Loader from Lightning Brain,
and if you load that along with the
| | 00:25 | accompanying APID Tool Assistant, which
it relies on, and then launch InDesign
| | 00:30 | you can do it.
| | 00:30 | Here is how it works. I'll switch back
to InDesign, which I have running right now,
| | 00:34 | and I'm going to create a whole
library full of images. I'll do that by
| | 00:39 | going to the API submenu, and scrolling
down to ImageLibraryLoader, and then it
| | 00:43 | gives me a lot of options. I'm going
to Add to my Image Library From the
| | 00:48 | Document Folder. I could
also use Reload, doesn't matter.
| | 00:52 | Because I don't have a library yet,
both of these do the same thing, but when I
| | 00:56 | add this from the document folder, it's
going to look inside the folder that the
| | 01:01 | current document is in. So Add To
Image Library From this Current Document
| | 01:05 | Folder, and it creates a library, it
grabs all the images that are in the same
| | 01:10 | folder as the document, and puts them
into the library for me. So that's pretty cool.
| | 01:14 | If I later add some new images to that
folder, I can just load in some more.
| | 01:18 | I'll just choose Add To Image Library
From the Document Folder again, or if the
| | 01:22 | images have changed, I can refresh them,
or I can add more from a whole separate
| | 01:27 | folder if I have a different folder
full. And now if I choose Reload at this
| | 01:30 | point, Reload means wipe out all the
images that are in there and start fresh.
| | 01:36 | So in this case, I don't want to wipe
those out. I'm going to use Add To, which
| | 01:40 | appends the new images to the end of
my library. So here is a Links folder
| | 01:45 | with a bunch of different images in it,
and I'll just Click Choose and it goes
| | 01:49 | and it imports each one
of those into the library.
| | 01:51 | So now I have a bunch of images that I
can use. I'll just pull this out here,
| | 01:55 | and I can pull this out here, and you
get the idea. It works just like regular
| | 01:59 | libraries. Each one of these images is
inside its own graphic frame. So when
| | 02:03 | you drag it out of the library, it
drops on to the page, perfectly ready to go.
| | 02:08 | One little warning though, this
doesn't scale your images before putting them
| | 02:12 | into the library. So for example, if I
pull this piece of candy image out, you
| | 02:16 | will see that it's huge. It's inside
of a frame, but it's huge. So I would
| | 02:21 | have to go and scale that
once it hits my InDesign page.
| | 02:24 | Nevertheless, this ImageLibraryLoader
is a very useful plug-in to have around.
| | 02:28 | Especially if you just given a whole
folder full of images and you are not sure
| | 02:31 | exactly which ones you
need to put in your document.
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| 10. Tetris| 00:05 | You know, not every plug-in has to
boost your productivity. Sometimes plug-ins
| | 00:09 | could be just for fun. Case in point,
Tetris. Yes, I know you did not expect to
| | 00:14 | find Tetris inside InDesign, but
inside InDesign it is with a Tetris plug-in
| | 00:19 | from DTP Tools.
| | 00:22 | When you first download the Tetris plug-in,
it will show up with this little
| | 00:26 | rubber ducky icon. Don't be fooled,
that's not the plug-in. It's an installer for
| | 00:30 | the plug-in. So just double-click on it
and it will put the plug-in in just the
| | 00:34 | right place. See there it is inside my
Plug-ins folder, in that folder called DTP Tools.
| | 00:39 | Now I'm going to drag that down into
my THIRD PARTY PLUGINS folder, just
| | 00:43 | because I like to keep things neat and
tidy. Now when I launch InDesign I'll be
| | 00:47 | able to play Tetris. All I have to
do is go to the Window menu and choose
| | 00:51 | Tetris. There it is, get ready. We are
going to play some Tetris right inside
| | 00:55 | of InDesign. I'll hit the spacebar
to start and then these things start dropping.
| | 01:01 | Now I have to tell you, I'm lousy at
Tetris. It's just one of those things,
| | 01:05 | but I do know a few rules of the game.
For example, if you hold the Up Arrow key,
| | 01:09 | it will rotate. If you press the Right
and Left Arrows, it will move back and forth,
| | 01:14 | and if you press the Down key it drops.
| | 01:17 | But the most important keyboard
shortcut in this is the Return or Enter key
| | 01:22 | that hides the game. It actually pauses it,
so you don't lose your work.
| | 01:25 | But it pauses it and hides the game so when
your boss is walking behind you, you can say,
| | 01:30 | "oh yes, I'm working on this
important document," and then later when
| | 01:35 | your boss is gone,
you just bring Tetris up again.
| | 01:40 | You know, science has shown that if
you take a break from your work, just kind
| | 01:43 | of relax your brain, do something fun,
you are actually more efficient when you
| | 01:47 | get back to work. So maybe Tetris
actually is a productivity boosting plug-in.
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