InDesign FX

Lynda.com is releasing a new series of online videos called "InDesign FX," with new installments to be released every other week or so. The concept is that each release will be a self-contained InDesign Effects project designed to be completed in ten minutes or less. Taught by expert Mike Rankin, the series explores every aspect of InDesign's graphic effects capabilities through real-world examples, all without relying on Photoshop or Illustrator.

There have been 4 releases so far:

• Blurring Objects with Drop Shadows
• Creating Interlocking Objects
• Exploring the Effects Panel
• Creating Long Text Shadows with Type on a Path

Watch this introduction video (2m 42s) and then drop by the lab if you'd like to watch the other videos.

000 Welcome to InDesign FX

InDesign FX | by Michael Rankin

View this entire course and more in the lynda.com Online Training Library®.

Epub file creation

I recently created my first .epub file. This is a type of e-book file that can be read on Android devices, the Nook, Sony Reader, and portable Apple devices among others. The files are a little odd in the way they need to be formatted. Here are a few resources I found helpful when creating my first document.

http://calibre-ebook.com/
Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. This program allows you to convert between several different formats.

http://code.google.com/p/sigil/
Sigil is Google's free multi-platform WYSIWYG ebook editor.

Adobe TV ebook creation using InDesign
This is a link to a series of three videos on Adobe TV about ebook creation using InDesign. These are what I primarily used to get started, and they helped a lot, although you need a little bit of an InDesign background to get started. You also need to be using InDesign CS4 or CS5 to export the .epub file.

InDesign Gig

Faculty in the Romance Languages Department is looking for a student familiar with Adobe In Design CS5 to work on a Grant project. The project consists of building an interactive multimedia PDF document. The hourly rate is $15.

If interested, please contact Mélanie Péron mperon@sas.upenn.edu

Backward Compatibility

Hi guys. Now that Adobe's CS4 software is out, we're starting to see people show up with files created on the newer versions that don't open up properly in the CS3 version that we have here in the lab. Especially InDesign.

To the best of my knowledge, most of the labs on campus (including the Libraries, the School of Design, and the School of Arts and Sciences) are not upgrading to CS4 until at least this summer. In the meantime, if you create files in any of the CS4 software on your own computer, and you plan to work on it in a campus computer lab, you might want to save a copy in the older file format as well to avoid any problems.

Indesign CS3 has arrived!

InDesign CS3 is finally up and running on the machines in the Digital Media Lab! Our licenses arrived today, and we got it installed this afternoon. Sorry again for the delay, but we're glad it's finally available for everyone who needs it.

I Want My InDesign!

Apologies to InDesign users. We've been working since the beginning of the school year to have ID up and running for you, but there's an issue with licensing that's slowed things down. I don't understand the intricacies of the situation, but part of the problem is that we're in the middle of Adobe's transition to their new CS4 software suite, which has apparently made the version we've been using (CS3) harder to come by. Who knows--maybe that means we'll end up with InDesign CS4 instead. In the meantime, we'll keep you updated if we hear anything new.