Welcome!

Welcome to my listing of user resources for the Adobe InDesign family of products. This posting was created as an effort to catalog InDesign resources available on the internet. Each of the sites and products mentioned are from reliable sources and each offer a wealth of information on the topic. Whether you are an InDesign novice, or a seasoned pro, there is something that can be found on these sites for you! The listings have been divided up based on the topics they cover (some fall into more than one category) including: Troubleshooting, Tips & Tricks, Publications, User Groups, and Plug-Ins. If there are any others that you have found that this listing cannot live without, please email me at andrew.lapiska@gmail.com

Troubleshooting

Adobe Support
http://www.adobe.com/support/products/indesign.html

The official InDesign support site maintained by Adobe. The site has easy access to the most common questions/problems with all of the answers being provided by the Adobe in-house team of developers and programmers. These answers are probably the most reliable of any on the Internet as they know the software the best. The site also offers a place where you can post questions or request new features in future versions of the software. If you are a corporate client, Adobe offers options for service plans and priority tech support.

Publications

Adobe Magazine
http://www.adobemagazine.com/

Adobe Magazine is the reincarnation of Proxy magazine, which was disbanded several months ago. Covering all aspects of design and the Adobe Suite of products, the magazine is centered towards the creative professional. Its downloadable .pdf pages are full of color, creativity, and interactivity that show off what the Creative Suite can do. The magazine is full of success stories, tips, tricks, and troubleshooting information provided by clients and customers. The document is full of information and best of all it is delivered to you as a free quarterly publication.

From the site: "We've reinvented Proxy magazine to create the all-new Adobe Magazine for Creative Professionals. Subscribe to this free, online quarterly, and discover fresh insight and tutorials from the wide world of visual communications. You'll see work that's breaking new ground, get an insider's perspective on how it was created, and find new ideas and tools to enhance your own projects."

Inside Adobe InDesign
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Adobe-Indesign/dp/B00007AY6N

Although currently not on the web, this printed publication is full of useful information for any creative professional. The journal is bulging with a wealth of information about the latest InDesign news, tips, tricks, and each issue also highlights a specific example of the execution of a "best practice" for a specific job or client. Being one of the few print publications centered on InDesign, it is able to hold its own.

From the site: "Inside Adobe InDesign provides specific, real-world design examples in an easy to read, step-by-step format. This all-inclusive journal shows the best methods for each job and reviews the latest new tools and techniques."

InDesign Magazine
www.indesignmag.com

This site offers subscriptions to a bi-monthly .pdf publication of an InDesign periodical that offers you tips, tricks and various other inside info on the InDesign application. Aside from the paid service, you can sign up to receive the daily email InDesign tip, helping you to brush up on your InDesign skills daily.

From the site: "InDesign Magazine is the first bimonthly PDF periodical devoted entirely to Adobe InDesign and to the growing community of InDesign professionals. With editorial direction by page-layout guru and author David Blatner and creativepro.com editor in chief Terri Stone, InDesign Magazine brings you the in-depth features, reviews, and tutorials you need to master Adobe InDesign."

User Groups

InDesign User Group
www.indesignusergroup.com

This site is an enormous user community created by the folks at Adobe. The site features user forums, a section for the latest InDesign news direct from the source, a section highlighting upcoming InDesign seminars and tutorials, support services, and a learning section that provides informational resources. The community allows you to become a member at no cost and join chapters based in a specific region. Members also gain special access to numerous offers and other services. The site’s reliability comes in the fact that it is published and maintained by Adobe. The people who create the software undoubtedly want you to get your money’s worth and ensure your upgrade with the latest release.

Plug-Ins

InCopy
http://www.adobe.com/products/incopy/

This plug-in produced by Adobe offers a tool for collaboration between the writers and the designers of a document or publication. Rather than having to cut and paste revisions from word documents, it offers the writers direct access to the templates created by designers who are able to restrict and allow changes to various degrees, working much in the same way that Contribute works for web, InCopy works for print.

From the site: Adobe® InCopy® CS2 software is a professional writing and editing program that tightly integrates with Adobe InDesign® CS2 software to deliver a complete solution for collaborative editorial workflow. InCopy CS2 introduces a new assignments workflow, which enables editors to work on parts of pages, spreads, or entire documents in parallel with designers. With 100% accurate copyfitting and highly productive editorial tools, InCopy CS2 brings a new level of efficiency to your editorial processes.

65 Bit Software
http://www.65bit.com/products/products.shtm

This company offers a number of plug-ins for use with InDesign. Descriptions for each of the products are available through the above link. Quite possibly the most interesting is EasyCatalogCS. This plug-in allows users to easily convert, import, and format data from spreadsheets and other documents. This tool will be useful for those dealing with constantly-updating databanks of prices, profits, or other categorical data.

From the Site: "EasyCatalogCS has been designed to aid the production of catalogs, brochures, price lists, and most other types of data or design-driven publications. You've got a file, or database, and need to publish its content using Adobe InDesign CS software. How do you do it? What happens if the details in the file or database change at the last minute? What if you're using complex page designs for each record in the file or database? EasyCatalog has the answer.

KnowBody
http://www.knowbody.dk/

This site offers a large library of plug-ins built for InDesign, both for purchase and free download. The tools available from this outlet are top-notch. Each product allows for improved work flow and a reduction on repetitive tasks. The most useful features are the type tools which allow advanced control of kerning and tracking. Cool Kerning allows the user to define kerning values based on a font and adjacent letters, eliminating the need to manually set kerning for reoccurring letter pairs. Other tools are available on the site.

From the site: Cool Kerning lets you do automatic updates of kerning values. You will be able to build kerning tables to control kerning between special character pairs. The tables are collected into packages that have a version number. The packages can be automatically distributed inside the InDesign documents so that . updates are also automatically parsed in your organization. This gives you much greater quality assurance than you are accustomed to in other layout programs. With the Cool Kerning plug-in, you can use fewer designers and still take less time to get to the correct graphical results. It's all handled automatically! Building pages that use headlines often requires manual amendment of the tracking values. Cool Tracking allows you to make tracking tables and automate the process. The use of a graph to specify the values has been seen before. But what really stands out in Cool Tracking is the easy way in which you can store multiple tables inside packages that can be distributed in your organization. This technology allows you to lower your production costs dramatically. And you get quality assurance on a new level that no other layout program can match. It's all handled automatically!

Tips & Tricks

InDesign Secrets
http://www.indesignsecrets.com/

This site offers a look at various “secrets” about numerous features of InDesign, It’s content is managed by two self proclaimed “gurus” of the design world. The site offers a good layout separated by category (color, text, ect.) and offers posts by both the creators and users. It also offers links to tutorials and plug-ins, each being reviewed or recommended by the authors. For the hard-core designer there is also a podcast of InDesign-related jargon. I have found this site to be useful numerous times.

From the site: “Adobe InDesign is taking the publishing world by storm. But if you try to find reliable information about InDesign on the Web you’ll find yourself scouring Adobe’s site or muddling through dozens of other sites for a tip or two. Now that you’ve found InDesign Secrets, it’s time to stop all that muddling. Developed by page-layout guru David Blatner and “DesignGeek” Anne-Marie Concepcion, InDesign Secrets is your one-stop shop for all things InDesign.”

InDesign Tutorials
http://desktoppub.about.com/od/indesigntutorials/Adobe_InDesign_Tutorials.htm

This section of about.com offers a wide array of tutorials for various features of InDesign. They range from the basics to a more advanced offering. No matter what your skill level may be, there is sure to be something new and helpful listed among the entries. However, many of these links may take the user to third-party sites that are less than appealing but the information is still there.

Adobe Evangelists
http://www.adobeevangelists.com/indesign/06_indesign.html

While not very appealing to the eye, this site still offers a good deal of useful information. The site is separated by links that prompt the download of a.pdf file that has been compiled by an Adobe Expert. The topics range from color to guides and graphics settings. Each of these documents will easily provide the user with a wealth of information. Before reading the document on something as simple as guides, I had no idea the powerful featuers that they held!

The topics include:
Understanding Frame Grids
Dragging and dropping into InDesign
Multiple delimiters for nested styles
Getting the most out of guides
Word spacing keyboard shortcut
Compound paths for text holes
Alphabetizing menu commands
Replacing gradient colors with a swatch
Better .eps previews
Using open type pro fonts in InDesign
Path type tips and tricks
Controling line breaks with the hyphenation penalty slider
Using your own placeholder text
Cell settings for working with graphics