Specifications

7
Exact Line Lengths
in Illustrator
To draw a line of an ex-
act length and angle in Il-
lustrator, select the Line
tool and click on the art-
board. In the Options win-
dow that opens, enter the
length and angle you want
for the line. at’s it!
Expand Before Erasing
Before erasing objects in Il-
lustrator that use brush or
vector effects, select them
and choose
Object> Expand
Appearance.
Now the Eras-
er tool (
Shift-E) will erase
what you want without re-
applying the brush or ef-
fect attributes to the path.
You can do the same thing
for stroked objects by
choosing
Object> Expand.
Easily Select and Edit
Common Attributes
In Illustrator, you can eas-
ily select (and edit) all the
objects in your file that
have a specific effect ap-
plied. Just select the object
and highlight the effect
in the Appearance pan-
el, and then choose
Select>
Same> Appearance Attribute
,
and Illustrator will pick up
all other objects with the
same effect. You’ll also see
that the Appearance panel
now lets you edit attributes
that are common for all of
the selected objects.
Three Text Tips
for InDesign
ese three tips are not
only fast, but they’re fun to
do, too.
1. Leading: To increase
leading, select the text
then press
Option–Up Ar-
row; to decrease leading,
use
Option–Down Arrow.
2. Tracking: To increase
tracking, select the text
then press
Option–Right
Arrow
; press Option–Left
Arrow
to decrease it.
3. Baseline: To set the
Baseline options for a
text box, press
Command-B.
Bonus: To reset horizontal
or vertical scale to 100%,
press
Shift-Command-X.
Mike Rankin, InDesign Magazine
Quick Apply Tips for
InDesign
When using Quick Apply,
holding
Option/Alt removes
local overrides when ap-
plying a paragraph style.
When using Quick Apply,
hold
Shift-Enter/Return to
keep the dialog box open
so you can do more quick
applying.
Mike Rankin, InDesign Magazine
Alternate Layout Tips
for InDesign
When creating an Alter-
nate Layout in InDesign
CS6, you don’t have to du-
plicate all the pages into
the new layout. To dupli-
cate just one or more pag-
es, place a colon aer the
name of the original layout
in the “From Source Pag-
es” field, like this: “Sour-
ceLayout:2.” is will du-
plicate only page two from
the layout named Source-
Layout. To duplicate addi-
tional pages, just list them
with commas between
them: “SourceLayout:2,4,7.”
Type on a Curved Path
in InDesign
Here’s an easy way to add
type to a curved path in
InDesign. First, create
an ellipse with the shape
you want your type to fol-
low, then use the Type On
A Path tool to click on the
shape you created. Select
the bottom anchor point
of your shape with the Di-
rect Selection tool and de-
lete it; this will create a
curved path rather than
the shape you began with.
Center-align the text using
your Paragraph controls,
and then adjust kerning as
necessary.
Mike Rankin, InDesign Magazine
Renaming and Deleting
Pages in Alternate
Layouts in InDesign
When working with Alter-
nate Layouts in InDesign
CS6, you can rename the
alternate layouts by simply
clicking on their names in
the Pages panel! Also in
the Pages panel, you can
delete individual pages in
one Alternate Layout with-
out affecting the pages in
other Layouts—just shi-
click each page you want
to delete, and click the
trash can icon.
Align Your Drop Caps
in InDesign
Oen when you create a
drop cap in InDesign, the
le edge of the character
isn’t perfectly aligned with
the le edge of the text
frame. Instead of inserting
a white space character in
front of the drop cap and
then manually adding neg-
ative kerning to it, simply
choose the Align Left Edge
option in the Drop Caps
and Nested Styles
section of
the Paragraph Styles Op-
tions dialog box (found
by choosing Style Options
from the Paragraph Styles
panel’s fly-out menu).
Color Tips for Creating
Tablet Publications
When you’re designing a
document to be read on
a tablet such as Apple’s
iPad, the optimum colors
are not the same as when
you’re designing for print.
For example:
Use a cream color instead
of white for large areas of
background. (White can
be irritating.)
Use RGB black instead of
the “100% K” black used in
printing, especially on text.
(Text is anti-aliased on
screen, and having more
“color” to work with allows
the anti-aliasing system
to create smoother edg-
es.) To create an RGB black
color, just use 0% Red, 0%
Green, and 0% Blue—you
can type in the zeros, or
just drag the slider all the
way down.
Avoid using saturated
greens and purples, be-
cause they appear dim on-
screen. Bright blues and
reds are OK.
Use Larger Type
in Digital Publications
When designing pages
for a digital publication,
you’ll want to use a font
size and leading that’s
about 25 percent great-
er than you would use in a
printed publication.
…Continues on page 9
Design Tools Monthly
™
• October 2012 • Acme Printing • www.AcmePrintingUSA.com
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