Specifications

8
UtIlItIeS
ImageOptim: Easy Image Compression
ImageOptim (free) compresses image file sizes. e soware
removes unnecessary information—like extraneous color
profiles and comments—from PNG, JPG, and GIF animation
files using the optimum compression method for each file.
Just drag and drop an image onto the app window or its icon.
Get it at
www.imageoptim.com.
free art & templateS
700+ Free Icons
IconMonstr has more than 700 free icons for UI designs for
mobile, Web, apps, and wherever else you might need simple,
instantly recognizable graphics of everything from cut, copy,
and paste images to flammable, poisonous, and shock hazard
warnings. Get them at www.iconmonstr.com.
Free Cardboard Images
You can’t fake cardboard. Instead, try downloading one
of these 20 free high-resolution images of real corrugated
cardboard. ey range from smooth to bent, ripped,
punctured, and stripped. Get them at www.tinyurl.com/6e6y93.
aDobe pHotoSHop GooDIeS
Swatches of Crayons, Markers, Colored
Pencils, and Paints
At CreativePro.com, Pariah Burke gathered up a nice
collection of websites that provide digital color swatches
(.aco files for Photoshop) of many of the real-world coloring
counterparts you may use or remember: Crayola crayons,
Crayola colored pencils, Primacolor pencils, Prismacolor
art markers, Copic markers, Faber-Castell colored pencils,
Winsor-Newton paints, pastels and inks, Sherwin-Williams
paints, and more. Get them at www.tinyurl.com/8pt4o2p.
aDobe InDeSIGn GooDIeS
Create OpenType Fonts in InDesign
IndyFont is a free script for creating an OpenType font out
of a vector image directly from InDesign. Granted, it’s only
capable of creating a one-character font containing, say, a
logo, but it gives you more control over the image than you
would have with an inline graphic. e font is easily created
In tHe october
Software cloSet
by running the script, pasting or creating a vector graphic
into the document it creates, filling in a little information,
and choosing where the font should be saved. Jongware is
working on a commercial version, which will allow multiple
glyphs in each font created.
LikeFindsLike
Rorohiko’s LikeFindsLike is a free plug-in for InDesign
that selects all the frames on a page or spread that are
similar to the frame you’ve selected. You can limit it by any
combination of frame type (text or image), width, height,
angle, shear, fill color, or stroke color. You can also define
a degree of tolerance. For example, you could find all text
frames with a similar width as the selected one that have the
same fill and stroke color. Get it at www.rorohiko.com.
aDobe IllUStrator GooDIeS
EasySwitch for Illustrator Artboards
Switching orientation on Illustrator’s artboards is a
seemingly simple process that unfortunately takes four steps
to complete. Scripter Loic Aigon has created a free extension
to perform those steps for you. e EasySwitch extension
for Illustrator consists of one button that reads “Switch
Orientation.” Select the artboard, click the button, and you’re
done. Get it at www.loicaigon.com/blog/?p=1150.
QUarkXpreSS XtenSIonS
Kill PasteBoard XT
Markzware’s PasteBoard XT ($29) is tremendously useful
when you need to increase the pasteboard area above and
below your QuarkXPress pages. However, the very first
version of it wrote code into each document requiring the
XTension to be present when reopening the document.
Some of those documents are still floating around, so it’s
handy to have Markzware’s free Kill PasteBoard XT for
QuarkXPress 6, 7, 8, and 9. With this XTension installed, any
document you open that requires PasteBoard will have that
requirement removed when you resave the document.
free fontS
A Gothique Time
Monsterama (13 styles)
Zakenstein (12 styles)
DTMiXYvs (22 glyphs): ABCD
EFGHIJKLM
NOPQRSTUV
Design Tools Monthly
™
• Issue #237 • Acme Printing • www.AcmePrintingUSA.com
H D I G T F S ? OW O ET HE REE OFTWARE
To download any of the items below, visit this page:
www.AcmePrintingUSA.com/software-closet
Don't forget to check our back issues for more valuable utilities,
plug-ins, and fonts in the Software Closet.