What To Do When InDesign Text Variables Don't Display Correctly

Text Variables are a way that InDesign can display different strings of text without you having to retype every different instance. I use them for things like inserting a modification date, or chapter numbers. The examples we'll be discussing in this article are page numbers and file names.

In case you're not familiar with Text Variables, here are a couple of links to good resources to learn more about them.

Adobe Help File : Text Variables
InDesign Secrets: Using variables in InDesign slugs

Recently, I found a couple of different instances where text variables do not output as expected. I used the different workarounds for both instances, and I wanted to share it here for the inevitable time when some other poor InDesign user encounters the same problem.

Text Variable Error Type 1: File Name Extension

On my master page, I have placed a File Name text variable. Notice how "Include File Extension" is unchecked. It all looks good so far. See how the extension is not displayed? (If it was diplayed, there would be a .indd at the end.

But see what happens when I then place the first InDesign document into a second InDesign document. The extension appears! I tried releasing the object from the master page of the first InDesign document, but that didn't change anything. The extension still displays in the second InDesign document. (On a side note, because my text frame was fit the the exact size of the original text, it now looks very crowded trying to also fit an extension into the same size text frame.)

In this case, the workaround was to simply NOT USE the File Name variable. Instead, I had to manually type the file name in each and every single chapter, and I also have to remember to change this text whenever I do a Save As and for a new chapter.

Text Variable Error Type 2: Page Numbers Gone Wild

My second unexplainable text variable problem had to do with Page Numbers. You see, page numbers aren't listed in the Text Variable dialog box, but I think they should be. By the very nature of what they do, Page Numbers are variables.

Page numbers are so commonplace. Who doesn't use page numbers? Perhaps that's why they are accessed in a different spot in InDesign, outside of the Text Variable dialog box.

But Text Variables (the ones listed below) seem a little more mysterious, and are harder to find, so fewer people use them. Granted, Text Variables have more options, like including text before and text after, and plenty of different ways to customize a Modification Date.

But page numbers have a lot in common with Text Variables. One type of page number even made it into the Text Variables dialog box: "Last Page Number." But we won't tell his other page number buddies about that. They'd just get jealous.

The type of page number I experienced problems with was "Current Page Number,"which is located under: Type > Insert Special Character > Markers (see screenshot above).

On a recent project, I had one document where the page numbers went completely crazy...but only in the PDF. All was fine in the InDesign document. But when I exported the document to PDF, the page numbers did not display properly in the footer. They looked something like this: (click to enlarge)

Now, keep in mind that I didn't put in any section markers. I have no idea what caused the problem. I exported the file as an INX and then reopened the file and put it back into the correct spot in the book, but the problem persisted. I tried Acrobat 4.0 compatibility, as well as opening the file in Acrobat 9 and X. I even tried to go into the PDF and edit the page numbers there, but when I edited several of the page numbers, all the page numbers I edited (with the Text Edit tool in Acrobat) reverted back to whatever was the latest page number that I typed. So in this example, I edited the Left-hand facing pages, ending with the last left-hand facing page, changing that to 94. Then ALL the previous page numbers that I just edited also became page 94. WHAT??? I am stumped.

I also tried exporting just a single chapter from the book, and replacing the incorrect pages in Acrobat, but again...it didn't work. In that case, instead of displaying the correct page number, the first Left-facing page displayed the word "Variable." Aha! I knew page numbers were Variables!

However, in this case of Page Numbers Gone Wild, I found that simply detaching the page number text frames from the master page fixed the problem. Then they all outputted as expected.

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Edit: 3-11-15: Today I once again encountered the problem where the word "Variable" instead of the page number appears in random places in the PDF. The solution to the problem was to open every file in the book and then export the PDF with all the files open.

Edit 1-8-16: I again encountered the strange "Variable" issue and found that instead of detaching the items from the master page, I could simply reapply the master page and the page number then displayed properly.

If this was helpful, please also check out a related post: Why Does InDesign Think There are 69 days in the Month?

How to Locate Greek Letters and Mathematical Symbols without Going Crazy

On a recent project, I've had to use a variety of greek letters and mathematical symbols. While I know that many of these symbols exist in Pro fonts, locating them in InDesign's glyph panel has proved to be rather difficult. Here is a screen shot of the glyphs panel, displaying the entire font of Myriad Pro. It's a bit dizzying, is it not?

Notice how on the top left of the glyphs panel is a little drop down menu.

I's never given much thought to the drop down menu. I'd always left it at either "Entire Font" or "Alternates for Selection." But today I needed a special mathematical symbol and I really didn't want to spend a bunch time digging through the entire font trying to locate it. So I finally took a look at the rest of the dropdown menu. Lo and behold, in the second section of the dropdown menu, there was an option called "Math Symbols." How had I not seen this before?! And look a little farther down, there's another one called "Greek." Here are screenshots of all of the different character categories, from top to bottom, in the order listed in the "Show" drop down menu.

Basic Latin and Latin 1

Extended Latin A

Extended Latin B

Punctuation

Superscripts and Subscripts

Numbers

Currency

Symbols

Math Symbols

Greek

Cyrillic

What's so neat about displaying the different character-type categories is that you can also display them in different fonts, and the character-type category remains selected. For example, if you are typesetting a physics book for fifth graders, and wanted to use Greek letters in Marker Felt font, you can easily see that a variety of Greek letters are, in fact, available in Marker Felt. Who knew?

Greek letters in Marker Felt font

Create a Geometric Flower Pattern with Multi-Colored Centers

Recently, while strolling through Target, I got distracted while walking through the stationary aisle. I paused there long enough to snap some photos of patterns I wanted to recreate. This pattern was on the front of a journal. I liked this pattern because it has several components:

• The cream colored flower, which is composed of four circles
• The centers of the flowers  (magenta, yellow, green, orange, and cyan), which are composed of a total of 25 objects (5 of each of the 5 bright colors)

We'll be creating this pattern in InDesign, using the TeaCup PatternMaker plugin.

Multi-colored flower pattern design, as recreated in InDesign

Let's first make the white portion of the flowers.
Start with a square frame about 5 inches square. Fill it with a dark reddish brown. Then fill it with a Dots pattern, using the settings below.

Copy the frame and then paste in place. Remove the fill color. Then nudge it over and up a bit. This creates the top petal.

Paste in place and nudge it again (for the bottom petal).

Paste in place and nudge yet again (for the right petal). This completes the flower petals. To keep these background circles out of the way while you build the rest of the flowers, group these four frames and put them on their own layer. Then lock that layer.

Next, we'll make the small center of the flowers. Since there are five different colors of dots for the center of the flowers, we'll need to use different settings for the Dots pattern. You should still have one of the cream colored circles pattern on your clipboard, so paste it in place. Then, make the frame really big; about four to six times larger. Then apply these PatternMaker settings.

Copy the green circles frame and paste in place. Nudge it over until it the second set of dots is centered in the petals. Change the colors of the pattern to cyan. Then, repeat this for orange, yellow, and magenta. Your pattern should look like this:

Then, select these five smaller Dots patterns and group them. Paste in place. Then nudge them over and down to fill the next set of flowers. Repeat for the remaining rows of cream colored flowers.

If you like, you can create clean edges (and hide all the extraneous dots) by grouping all the Dots patterns (including the ones you earlier put on their own layer), and paste them into a new smaller frame. 

Book Review: Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

Title: Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

Authors: Deke McClelland

Published by: O'Reilly Media / Deke Press

Published: November 2010

Print ISBN: 978-0-596-80801-3

ISBN-10: 0-596-80801-1

# of Pages: 512

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

This book is beautifully designed, and uses timeless typography techniques. The chapters include:

1. Starting a Document
2. Lines, Shapes, and Color
3. Using the Pen Tool
4. Creating and Formatting Text
5. Transform and Reshape
6. Pathfinder Operations
7. Blends, Masks, and Gradients
8. Working with Transparency
9. Bruches and Symbols
10. The Amazing World of Dynamic Effects
11. Live Trace, Paint, and Color
12. Printing and Exporting

I enjoyed the subtle design details, such as how the figures are positioned on the page organically, and not always relegated strictly to the sidebar. Some of the large artistic figures even bleed off the page, which is unusual for a technical book. This type of graphic treatment makes the book feel more fun and magazine-like, and less like a technical software book.

Each chapter has a different color scheme. The color in the headings, figure numbers, and page numbers are consistent within each chapter, so even when flipping through the book, it's easy to tell when you've reached the next chapter. Each chapter deals with a different topic, and provides a corresponding project to work through the lessons. Lesson files give the reader a starting place, so he can work through the book step-by-step and follow along with Deke. The chapter on the Pen Tool alone is worth the price of the book. If you're a designer who has struggled with understanding or mastering the pen tool, this book would be worthwhile investment.

The book also covers some general typography concepts, such serif versus san-serif type, and the different parts that make up letterforms, such as: bracket, shoulder, cross-stroke, bow, terminal, and counter.

I think this book would be a great resource for anyone wanting to learn the various techniques with Illustrator. If someone took the time to work through the entire book, they would have a great foundation for becoming a master in Illustrator. The lessons and video provide an exposure to Illustrator's capabilities. The book is a software book, not a design handbook. The graphics examples are playful and sometimes over-the-top. But because the graphics are so exaggerated, it's easy to see the different techniques in action.

Using Document Grid and Visible Guides to Create Imposition Templates

At our recent Raleigh IDUG meeting, we went through the process of making printed business cards. As I was creating the 8-up template, dragging out guide after guide, one of our members asked why I didn't use the document grid feature for that purpose. To be honest, I've never used document grid for anything. So I really had no educated opinion on the matter.

Here is the document that prompted her question.

When I got home, I wondered how I could have bypassed such a simple feature as the Document Grid. For some reason, I has always ignored the Document Grid, probably because I don't generally do grid-based layouts; at least, that's what I thought...

After a little experimenting, I learned that the document grid can actually handle many of my guide-dragging tasks. For example, if I need to create an 8.5 x 11 template with four frames on it (2 wide by 2 high), I can use the document grid for this purpose. (Be sure to: View > Grids and Guides > Show Document Grid.)

Something to keep in mind about the document grid is that the grids starts at the zero point of the document. So let's see what happens if we use document grid for business cards (12 up on 8.5 x 11).

 If we make a letter size page and set up the document grid for 3.5" x 2", it will start off looking wrong. Though technically, there are 12-up on a page, they go right to the edge, and there is no room for crop marks. See how the grid is not centered on the page?

Document Grid as it looks before adjusting the zero point

But once we adjust the zero point of the document to .25 inches on both the horizontal and vertical rulers, it will place the grid in the correct spot.

But, as great as this works for creating n-up templates without bleed, how does it work for documents with bleed? The short answer is that it doesn't. For my n-up templates that require bleed, I like to create placeholder frames and manually drag out ruler guides. Why all the guides, you ask? Well, years ago when I worked in print shops, we would have to "rule up" each of our designs after we printed a proof. Bascially, we would draw in these guides by hand (with a ruler and pencil, not a computer) for every single proof.  I found it to be a waste of time (though not unimportant), and rather inaccurate. For this reason, I like to add guides to all the crop marks. Then, by exporting a PDF with layers and visible guides and grids, we no longer have to rule up the proof by hand.

Because we used included Acrobat Layers (only available in with Acrobat 6 compatibility or higher) and we included Visible Guides and Grids, you'll see the PDF now has layers, once of which is called "Guides and Grids." We didn't have to make a separate layer in our InDesign document just for the guides. By checking the "Visible Guides and Grids" checkbox in the PDF export dialog box, when InDesign created the PDF, it automatically placed all those visible guides and grids on their own PDF layer.

This is how I would print the document as my proof. See how nice it is not to have to rule up the document by hand? And if by chance one of the business cards has gotten shifted inside the frame, you'll be able to easily see it if the visible guides are included in the printed proof.

8up PDF with Guides layers visible

And when I am ready to run the job (for real, not for proofing purposes), I then turn off the Guides and Grids layer.

8up PDF with Guides layers hidden

Book Review: InDesign Production Cookbook

Title: InDesign Production Cookbook: Easy-to-Follow Recipes for Desktop Publishers and Graphic Designers

Authors: Alistair Dabbs, Anne-Marie Concepcion, Ken McMahon, Keith Martin

Published by: O'Reilly

Published: 2005

Print ISBN: 978-0-596-10048-3

ISBN-10: 0-596-10048-5

# of Pages: 224

Reviewed by: Kelly Vaughn / Document Geek

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

I love this book because it is task-based, rather than project based. This is important because oftentimes, InDesign users will know the type of task they want to accomplish, but not necessarily know the correct terminology used by the program. So with this book, readers can simply go to the correct chapter, and quickly find the pictures that correspond to the task they want to accomplish. This type of organization makes it an excellent reference book.

The different types of InDesign tasks are categorized according to the following chapters:

• Text
• Pictures
• Drawing
• Color
• Transparency
• Pages and documents
• Interactivity
• Output
• InDesign for QuarkXPress users

The book is full color, and the many hundreds of screenshots are clearly labeled and explained. The book has a detailed index.

Though this book was published in 2005 (for InDesign CS2), it is still completely valid information. With each new version of InDesign, features are added and improved upon, but never removed. The production techniques discussed in this book are still excellent practices that every good designer should follow. The page design is a little dated, but that's understandable, considering this book was published in 2005. This is a technical book, rather than a coffee table book.

I would highly recommend this book to any InDesign user who wants to have a better understanding of InDesign production. This would also be a great addition to the reference library of any print shop. Much of the book is available for previewing on the O'Reilly site, via Google Preview.

How to Make an InDesign Text Frame with a Background Image

This has been on my InDesign wish-list for quite a while. And at first glance, you might assume that it is possible to make a text frame with a patterned background or background image. Because:

• You can make patterns in InDesign.
• You can make text frames with a colored background.
• You can make a text frame with a gradient background.

But as much as I try, there is no way to apply a background image to an InDesign text frame. I got to thinking about the components that make up this idea:

1. The background image
2. The text frame

So how could I construct an object where these two items stick together and act as one unit? I want them to not only move together, but be easy to edit and resize dynamically. For example, if the text frame resizes, the background graphic frame will resize accordingly. To accomplish this, I tried a few different options.

The first attempt consisted of a background image anchored in a text frame.
Pros: In the anchored object settings for the background pattern, if you check "Prevent Manual Positioning" you can easily move the text and the background together you would expect to be able to.

Cons: Anchored objects always appear in front of the text frame in which they are anchored. This means that the background image sits on top of the text, obscuring it. Plus, once "Prevent Manual Positioning" is set, the background pattern frame (which is an anchored object) is next to impossible to select and edit.

My second attempt consisted of a text frame anchored into the path text of the background image.

Pros: This achieves the visual effect that I want.

Cons: The two objects don't really move together well as a single unit. The only way to get the two objects to "stick together" is by setting the anchored objects settings of the text frame to Above Line. Plus, since the text frame is anchored inside the path text of the graphic frame, InDesign makes it really difficult for you to move the text frame and patterned background by dragging. You can try all day long to move the two objects by clicking and dragging on the text frame, but all you can do is move the text frame up. Even though the text frame and the patterned background are stuck together, in order to move them, you must click and drag on the background graphic frame, not on the text frame.

My Solution:
After a couple of years of thinking, I finally figured out a workable solution: MagnetoGuides by Rorohiko. According to the Rorohiko website, "MagnetoGuides allows you to ‘magnetize’ one or more guides. Magnetized guides are special: they push or pull any ‘snapped’ items along when they are moved. If a page item is ‘snapped to’ a magnetic guide at only one side, then the page item simply moves along when the guide is moved.  If a page item is ‘snapped to’ more than one magnetic guide, then the page item will stretch or shrink as needed so it can stay ‘snapped’ to all magnetic guides.  This allows you to reposition and resize multiple page items concurrently without having to group them."

So here's how we can use this to create a background image for a text frame:

1. Create a background image.
2. Create a text frame.
3. Align both objects horizontally and vertically.
4. API > MagnetoGuides > Add Guides to Object (this adds eight guides: 4 horizontal and 4 vertical)

5. Now select the top two horizontal guides.

6. API > MagnetoGuides > Link Guides
7. Next, select the bottom two horizontal guides and link them.
8. Repeat the guide-linking process for the both vertical sets of guides.

9. Now, move any one of those guides and see what happens.

Pros: Because the text frame and the background image are each touching the special Magento Guides, both frames resize dynamically when the guides are moved. And because this solution does not involve anchored objects, You can have either object on top, however you want stack them. Another great thing about not using anchored objects is that you can easily select and move the frames.
Cons: None.

Now, the background pattern that I used for this example was created using TeaCup PatternMaker. Once I moved one of the MagnetoGuides, the background frame resized dynamically and squished the pattern.

Before Pattern Reset (See how the pattern is squished?)

But fortunately, PatternMaker has a nifty little button called "Reset Pattern." Basically, it puts the pattern back to the way it was before you changed the frame size.

After Pattern Reset

This article demonstrates just a tiny bit of the capability of the Magento Guides plugin. For more ideas on how to use this plugin, visit the MagnetoGuides page, scroll all the way to the bottom and watch the demo video. There's also a 27 page user guide that comes with the plugin.