How to Make a Herringbone Pattern in InDesign

This is a variation on the chevron pattern that is so popular this season. This pattern basically involves creating rows of trapezoids, lined up nice and tidy, with the correct spacing in between them. This project is simplified by the use of TeaCup PatternMaker.

Start by making some squares. The stroke weight, dash length, and gap length all need to be the same. The line distance is double those.

Next, add some skew and rotation to the frame. I used -90 degrees rotation, and -45 degrees for the skew.

Copy, paste in pace, and flip horizontally. 

Scoot it into place and color it as desired. I like pink, because that is the color of InDesign.

Whatever color you want to use, you'll just need to add it to the swatches panel in order for it to appear in the color choice drop down in the PatternMaker panel.

Create a Flat-Bottomed Stroke, Part 2

In Part 2, I show a variation of the flat-bottomed stroke effect, useful if these strokes appear on a colored background.

This article can be found at InDesign Secrets:

http://indesignsecrets.com/create-a-flat-bottomed-stroke-part-2.php

Create a Flat-bottomed Stroke

Check out my latest article at InDesign Secrets, where I reveal another trick: How to create a stroke that has rounded endpoints on its top half only.

http://indesignsecrets.com/create-a-flat-bottomed-stroke.php

The Top Eight Reasons You Should Attend the Print and ePublishing Conference

If you're active in the InDesign community, than you've probably heard of the Print and ePublishing Conference (PePcon). It's coming up soon and you don't want to miss it!

Being a self-employed designer, I can attest to how expensive conferences are to attend. There's airfare, hotel, meals, entertainment... all in addition to the conference registration. Attending conferences is not something I do lightly, as I have to foot the bill for 100% of the cost of attending. There are so many great conferences to attend, but I'd like to share with you my perspective as to why PePcon is so awesome. Please know that I'm not a professional trainer, and I'm not a conference presenter. They didn't pay me to write this. I've simply found this conference to be so valuable for my professional development that I am compelled to share why.

Reason 1: Easy Small Talk (for Once)

I'm in the publishing business. I spend all day at home, on my computer. My officemates are my dogs. I truly enjoy my job and my peaceful, quiet office environment. But I sometimes find small talk outside of work difficult. Why? Because my favorite topics are technical manuals, tables of contents, metadata, and conditional text. If I share these concepts with non-publishing people, I'm usually presented with a blank stare. But to you, my fellow publishers, these are great topics of conversation. Amongst you, My People, I can have effortless small talk. Not only is that amazing, it's not something I encounter very often in my day-to-day life.

Reason 2: Lots of Awkward People

Don't misunderstand. I mean this in the most affectionate way, as I count myself among the awkward crowd. I spend nearly every day alone behind a computer screen, and my social skills aren't the greatest to begin with. But plenty of other people at the conference have the same social skillset as me! It turns out that when you put a bunch of awkward people together, it becomes less awkward for all of them. Who knew?

As PePcon has progressed over the last few years, David and Anne-Marie keep coming up with new and better ways to help get us introverted, somewhat-socially-awkward people talking to one another. Some of their tools are:

• Business card bingo: a game in which you have to interact with and introduce yourself to approximately 25 different people (one at a time, of course). The bingo winner gets an awesome prize. We may be shy, but we still love prizes!
• Meet the Speaker table (so you can ask a question privately, in a quiet space, rather than in front of a crowd of people)
• Table signs: these signs are a helpful suggestion of where to sit during mealtime and breaks. There are tables for Government, Consultant, Business Publishing, Design Firm, software Developer, Education, etc. Those simple table signs help to guide us to the group of people with whom we have the most in common. I was amazed at the increase in interaction from one year to the next, just by the simple addition of signs onto the tables.

Reason 3: The world's experts at your fingertips

It's not uncommon to come to a conference like this, looking for a solution to a problem. Our industry is small enough that we are a pretty tight community. So if you explain your InDesign problem to one of the experts at the conference, they'll likely know the exact person who has already developed a tool to solve your problem. And chances are excellent that the developer you need is just a few tables away, waiting to talk to you.

Reason 4: Awesome Swag

This conference has the obligatory conference goodie bag, but it's filled with much more than a notepad and a few flyers. They give away coffee mugs, plugins, books, posters, thumb drives, and more. And by stopping by the sponsor booths and speaking to the various software developers, you'll get even more coupon codes and freebies. Since many of the book authors are at the conference, it's easy to get them to autograph your books! Many of the individual sessions also offer prizes at the end, for correctly answering questions pertaining to the lesson.

For the last couple of years, a complimentary set of MOO business cards had been included in the conference registration. They also have impressive door prizes at the end of the conference, including a couple of big ticket items such as FontFolio 10 pack, or the entire boxed edition of the Master Collection. With the way things are headed, I wouldn't be surprised if they gave away a Creative Cloud subscription or two this year.

Reason 5: Great Food

They put on quite a spread for us every year. It strikes a great balance between healthful and decadent. The meals have great variety, and let you east as balanced (or as unbalanced) as you like. They also offer all kinds of snacks and goodies in between the amazing meals. Cookies at 10:30? Creme Brûlée at 3:00? Why yes, please! They also make accommodations for folks with special dietary requirements, such as gluten free, or kosher. And if you go to the Ignite Session (which is sort of like an open mic night), there is usually an amazing cupcake selection. Besides being really tasty, I find the food is a great buffer for when we're sitting at a table full of strangers, practicing our small talk.

Reason 6: Conquer Your Fear of Public Speaking

Growing up, I was one of those students who hated doing speeches in school. So much so, that I sometimes would opt to take a F on an assignment, rather than do a required speech. What can get me talk in front of people? Only my favorite topic: InDesign (and its Creative Suite siblings). What better way to get over your fear of public speaking than to commit to speak in front of hundreds of your colleagues and the superstars of the publishing world? If you've figured out a totally amazing trick that the rest of the InDesign world should hear, then come to Ignite and share it with us. We don't bite. We want to hear about your amazing trick.

I've found that nothing boosts confidence quite like having publishing superhero stop by the table and say "Great speech! How did do you that awesome thing in InDesign?" For those brave souls who choose to do an Ignite session, you'll get a very special gift. Last year, they gave out PePcon umbrellas. And I am among the dozen people in the world that has one!

Reason 7: Make New Friends

At my first PePcon, I knew no one there. I went alone, and I was scared to death. To my surprise, I came home having made new friends. For an introverted person, this is a very big deal. It is important to have personal connections with other InDesign users around the world who can offer feedback and assistance with my InDesign problems. Alternatively, if I'm having a rough day, we can commiserate together on twitter, and that is just as wonderful.

Reason 8: Meet the InDesign Team

You may have heard that there is an entire session dedicated to hearing from engineers that create InDesign. But here's something that's not in the conference schedule: those engineers are also walking around mingling in between sessions, just like the rest of us. At last year's conference, I got the opportunity to personally share my InDesign wish list with an InDesign Engineer. And he took notes! Sure, Adobe is a giant global company, but getting to chat with a software engineer face to face made me feel like a very valuable member of the InDesign community.

So please, join me at PePcon. It's going to be tons of fun. And maybe we'll go have BBQ together.

Check out my New YouTube Channel!

So after four years of writing blog posts, I have finally decided to start my own YouTube channel. In some ways, writing blog posts has been my entry point into the world InDesign training. With a blog post, I can work on it for weeks, create the perfect screenshot, fix typos, and present something really polished. But I've found videos a bit harder, because historically (unbeknowst to me until recently), I use a lot of filler words, I speak too quickly, and I skip steps. And so, creating videos has been much harder for me.

But for the last two years, I've been running the Raleigh InDesign User Group. And those wonderful IDUG members kept showing up, again and again, and listened to me speak too quickly, while doing tutorials on too small of a screen. Maybe they just came for the raffle prizes, but regardless, their continued attendance gave me plenty of practice teaching others. And I owe my YouTube channel to them. So check it out. I'd love to hear what you think. Many of my first videos are topics that I first demonstrated at our IDUG meetings.

Here is one of my favorites. If you like it, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel. It's not flashy, but it's chock full of good content. I think you'll like it.

PDF Commenting in Acrobat 9: Part 1: Using the Text Edit Tools

Using InDesign Snippets in a Printing Workflow

If you're a designer about to submit a brand new layout file to your prepress department during the proofing round, I have one word for you... STOP.

This article can be found at InDesign Secrets: http://indesignsecrets.com/using-indesign-snippets-in-a-printing-workflow.php

Why You Should Consider Becoming an Adobe Certified Expert

I have heard someone say once (roughly paraphrased here) that getting an ACE certification won't do you much good unless you're planning on becoming a trainer. Because you have to be an Adobe Certified Expert before you can become an Adobe Certified Instructor.

While I do enjoy training (and occasionally do training sessions), I'm not an Adobe Certified Instructor. I don't need ACE certificates in order to keep my job, or even to do my job. However, I think that choosing to pursue and become an ACE has been the most important job decision of my career. I'd like to explain why.

Why Did I Want To Get Certified?
I didn't go to school for design. I actually kind of stumbled into this field. After graduating college with a degree in Home Ec. (for real!), I got a job managing a taco shop. I was horrible at it and often cried myself to sleep at night. Within about six months, an acquaintance of the family rescued me by offering me a job "working on the computer." That had to be better than making tacos. Anything was better than making tacos!

So, devoid of any formal design training, I entered the world of graphic and document design. I began reading every book I could find about these new graphic design programs, and I scoured the Adobe forums daily to learn whatever I could about the software I was getting paid to use.

After a few years in the industry and a job change, I was feeling like I needed to prove myself to my-then employer. Now, remember, I didn't go to school for design, but I felt fairly competent and was able to maintain a high level of production. So in an effort to prove my my skills, I decided to try and become Adobe Certified. After all, if Adobe was willing to certify that I knew what I was talking about, then maybe I could get a raise. And I really, really needed a raise.

So after two attempts, I passed the InDesign CS ACE exam. I took the test on my lunch break. When I got back to work, my elated boss greeted me with a balloon bouquet and a congratulatory card. And she managed to wrangle me a fifteen cent per hour raise. That equated to an increase in pay of $6/week (or the price one sandwich). Whoopie.

So, my new ACE certification didn't exactly give me the results I was hoping for. But now I had a nifty ACE logo to put on my resume. No one else I knew had one of those. And because of the studying I had done, I was aware of some capabilities of InDesign that I wouldn't have known otherwise. I felt rather empowered, even if I was still as low-paid as ever.

Fast forward about five years. I was working at a remarkably unrewarding job, and really wanted to prove to my boss that I had skills they could (and should) use. So I decided to get a second ACE certification. This time it was for Illustrator. I passed the test on the first try! Sadly, my employer didn't care about my ACE certificate (probably because they didn't use Illustrator). But again, I learned all kinds of new tricks in Illustrator and became more confident of my abilities.

They Say, "Pick Two"
You may have seen the popular project management triangle diagram: “You can have it good, fast, or cheap. Pick two.”

But what if there was a way to have all three? Our modern world is full of examples of people who have found a way to have all three. For example: Henry Ford with the automobile assembly line and Eli Whitney who built firearms using interchangeable parts. Their revolutionary way of thinking changed the way their products were made. In doing so, they made their products available more quickly, at a higher quality, and a lower price than was possible previously. They offered all three: fast, good, and cheap.

What I Really Got Out of Becoming Adobe Certified

Within about a year of getting my second ACE certification, I had the opportunity to take over a failing workflow and start my own business. It was because of my years of studying my favorite Adobe programs that I had the knowledge to fix the broken workflow and become self employed.

Initially, my reasoning for become an ACE was so that I could hopefully get job recognition and a pay raise. I didn't get much of either. What I ended up getting instead was a boatload of skills and a deep working knowledge of the programs' capabilities. With that knowledge came the ability to see opportunity in what others had deemed a impossible business model, and the skills to have a successful publishing workflow where others had previously failed.

Having a depth of understanding of the various programs used in a publishing workflow has allowed me to turn an old workflow on its head, and make my product (technical manuals):

• produced faster,
• with better quality,
• at a lower price than they previously paid. 

Because of this, my product is now accessible to a larger number of people. I could not have seized this opportunity had I not the knowledge acquired through becoming an Adobe Certified Expert. 

One Thing Leads to Another... 

Last year, I was going to teach an Acrobat training session to the Raleigh InDesign User Group, and a good friend of mine sent out an email inviting her many, many coworkers to the event. In that email, she declared me an Acrobat ACE. Oh no! I didn't actually have Acrobat ACE certification. But I didn't want to disappoint (in case anyone actually cared). So I spent the week cramming. And after two attempts, I got my Acrobat certification.

Apparently, when you have ACE certificates in three of the big four programs (InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, and Photoshop) they also give you one of these:

When I started on this quest nine years ago, I wanted a little more lunch money. And I wanted my boss to take me seriously. Now, I have my own publishing business and am blessed with great clients and great colleagues around the world in the design industry. What an adventure!

What are You Waiting For?

When I earned my first Adobe Expert Certification, I prepared for the test by reading the InDesign help file cover to cover. The help file was my main resource because it was free, and I was poor. I was on a dial-up internet account, and what few online resources were available were very slow to access. I didn't have any video training courses, and I never took a class in InDesign. I tell you this not to brag, but to empower you. There are so many more resources available today than there were nine years ago! Now we have video training, blogs, eBooks, conferences, and practice tests. And the most skilled people in the industry communicate all day long on twitter, Facebook, and Google Groups. You can have information overload if you so desire. All the information you need to pass an ACE exam is out there, just waiting for you to learn it.

What if you could revolutionize a product and fill a void in your industry?

And in doing so, provide yourself with a good living, doing work that you love.

Would you go down that road?

Join me, my friends. Become an Adobe Certified Expert. You'll never know what opportunities the future may hold for you with your newfound skills. But you'll have to excuse me now. I have a Photoshop test to study for.

Edit: 11-5-13

I'm happy to announce that I recently passed my Photoshop ACE exam! Have you registered for your first ACE exam? What are you waiting for?

Edit: 12-8-14

So, I earned certifications in all of the BIG four programs (InDesign, Illustrator  Photoshop, and Acrobat), and I thought that qualified me to be an Adobe Certified Design Master. But apparently, you have to have the certifications in the same version of each of the programs. So while I was still stuck at the Design Specialist certification for CS6. So I rectified the problem and took my Illustrator CC recertification this weekend.

A little more than ten years after I started this ACE adventure, I have finally reached Design Master status. And with each and every ACE exam I take, I learn something new about the programs I love so much. Now, to maintain my certification, Adobe requires its ACEs to rectify every two years. The recertification exams are $60 each, so every two years, rectifying will cost me $240. That's $10/month. Considering my undergraduate tuition was $15,000 per year (and I graduated with no basically no job skills), I'd say that $120 year is pretty affordable for continuing education! Again, I ask: what are you waiting for? Become Adobe certified!

Autohor Edit: 1-31-15:

Adobe has recently decided to discontinue its recertification exams. Now, all Adobe Certified Experts must retake the full, proctored exam every two years. They have also raised the price of the exam to $180. So now my exams will cost me $720 every two years ($30/month), plus I'll have to take a day off of work in order to drive to drive to the testing center and take the exams. So sadly, it looks like I will not be pursuing the ACE program any further. It's been a great ride for the last 10 years!

Put Your Book Documents on a Time-Out for Bad Behavior

Are the InDesign files in your book slow to edit? Here's a workaround for InDesign's insistence on constantly verifying the cross references acrossdocuments in a book.

This article can be found at InDesign Secrets.

Use Place and Link to Impose Documents in a Printing Workflow

Learn how to keep your live artwork and imposed artwork in the same document and still retain the ability to make edits once and have them update in the imposition. This article can be found at InDesign Secrets.

Use Place and Link to Impose Documents in a Printing Workflow

The Elusive Stroke Style Units of Measurement

Why does my Stroke Styles dialog box always display strokes in inches? Find out the source of this annoyance, and how to fix it. This article can be found in its entirety at InDesign Secrets.

http://indesignsecrets.com/the-elusive-stroke-style-units-of-measurement.php