Rufus Deuchler

My schedule at Adobe MAX 2011 is looking good!

Just a quick note to let you all know that I will be presenting at MAX 2011 in Los Angeles, and these are my sessions and labs:

Adobecadabra! with Rufus Deuchler
Jump-start your designs! In this lively session, Rufus Deuchler, Adobe's worldwide evangelist for design, will deliver killer tips and cool techniques for your favorite Adobe design tools: Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, and InDesign CS5.5. Productivity, accuracy, and creativity are what this session is all about.
Monday, October 3, 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Wednesday, October 5, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Publishing to Digital Devices with InDesign CS5.5
Learn the different ways you can create engaging publications or documents for tablet and mobile devices with Adobe InDesign CS 5.5. Rufus Deuchler, senior worldwide Adobe evangelist, will demonstrate how you can publish your InDesign content that integrates interactivity, video, and sound to tablet devices, either as an EPUB eBook or as a .folio file via Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. This session will show you the alternatives available if you are interested in creating electronic publications with InDesign and the benefits and limitations of each.
Tuesday, October 4, 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Using Folio Producer Tools in InDesign CS5.5 [Hands-on Lab]
Test-drive the new Folio Producer tools in Adobe InDesign CS5.5. In this hands-on lab, you'll learn how to author engaging interactive content for publication to tablet devices. Using the new Overlay Creator panel, add audio, video, and other interactivity including 360-degree rotation of objects and HTML content to your InDesign layouts. Create and manage a .folio file using the Folio Builder panel and preview it using Content Viewer for Desktop. You'll leave this session with a deep knowledge of the new Folio Producer tools and how InDesign CS5.5 integrates with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.
Monday, October 3, 2:45 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.
Tuesday, October 4, 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

I have just looked at the registration numbers and all of these are filling up fast! Also, I just found out that the deadline for early bird Adobe MAX passes has been extended to 8/31! Grab your tickets now.

Updated for CS5.5: So you think Adobe InDesign...

Here is an updated document to my "So you think Adobe InDesign has become all about interactive Schnickschnack? Think again" post from February 2011. This update includes the new features introduced by InDesign CS5.5. They make a really cool addition to an already incredible toolset.

Basically, InDesign CS4 introduced about 52 new features, and InDesign CS5 (and CS5.5) about 78. This list will help understand what you are missing in case you haven't upgraded yet. And if you are still with InDesign CS3, well then, there's over a 100 new features that could benefit your workflow.

View and download the image of the list [.png, 1Mb]

View and download the PDF of the list [.pdf, 102Kb]

Enjoy!

So you think Adobe InDesign has become all about interactive Schnickschnack? Think again.

Many times have I heard users asking me “so what are the new features in InDesign?” or telling me “there is nothing in the new versions that would benefit my workflow". Really!? I needed to see... To compile this list, I simply went to Adobe.com and copied the “what’s new” section for each of the above mentioned versions of Adobe InDesign, and then laid it out in such a way to actually be able to see the amount of new stuff in each release. I then reordered the new features by areas of interest (which do not necessarily reflect those chosen by Adobe), and here are the surprising results.

Basically, InDesign CS4 introduced about 52 new features, and InDesign CS5 about 68. This list will help understand what you are missing in case you haven't upgraded yet. And if you are still with InDesign CS3, well then, there's over a 100 new features that could benefit your workflow.

View and download the image of the list [.png, 1.3Mb]

View and download the PDF of the list [.pdf, 111Kb]

Enjoy!

How to Create an eBook with Adobe InDesign CS5

It seems that the words eBook and ePub are on everyone's lips these days, and that there is a genuine interest for publishing books and magazines electronically. So one night I was laying in my bed with my eyes wide open (happens a lot...) and thought to myself that I should really learn the ins and outs of that new, so much talked about, format. Is there a better way to learn about creating ePub from InDesign than writing an eBook about how to do it myself? Well my friends, here it is: How to Create an eBook with Adobe InDesign CS5 - A step by step guide to creating ePub with InDesign. In this eBook you will learn about all the things I have come across while creating the eBook using InDesign.

I have made the eBook available on the Amazon Digital Text Platform, making a conscious decision not to apply any kind of Digital Rights Management (DRM) to it. The publishing to the Amazon platform was something I decided very early on in the writing process, because that would have meant that I was able to close the circle: writing > layout > ePub export > publishing. Basically I became the publisher of myself. And all that using Adobe InDesign.

Grab your copy of How to Create an eBook with Adobe® InDesign® CS5 [Kindle Edition]

Amazon has all kinds of readers, for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, Mac, and even Blackberry, not only for their own Kindle device. You can download them here: Free Kindle Reading Apps.

I thank Pariah Burke for having a look at the text when my eyes couldn't any more, and Marijan Tompa for creating the Illustration on the cover.

Let me know what you think about the eBook!

Also make sure to check out this free ePub about CSS and XHTML Tags for ePub, it can serve as a good reference guide as you tweak the CSS in ePub generated with InDesign.

This eBook also has a companion page on Facebook.

---

From the Introduction of the eBook.

The acronym ePUB, which stands for electronic publication, has been capitalized in almost every possible way: ePub, ePUB, EPub. epub, or even EPUB. Pick your favorite... Throughout this eBook I have chosen to use the ePub variant, which is much easier on my designer eyes. The official ePub logo of the International Digital Publishing Forum uses the ePUB version, although they themselves, use EPUB in their literature. Go figure.

CSS and XHTML Tags for ePub

ePub is the electronic version of a publication that has been optimized for on-screen viewing. Essentially it is a file format for publishing eBooks, which is rapidly becoming a standard (see International Digital Publishing Forum). There is a lot of interest around this format because text and images flow in a continuous flow, and can adapt to any size of screen, from your mobile phone, to you tablet, or personal computer.

The first lesson in ePub is that designer and publishers have very little control over the formatting of their eBooks. The rules are very strict, and are mainly based on CSS and XHTML, as far as formatting is concerned. Much of that formatting can be done with Adobe InDesign by scrupulously applying paragraph and character styles, which will be exported in a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) in the ePub. Out of the box, ePubs created with InDesign work, and can be published as are, but there are many things a designer or publisher can do to tweak the CSS and the XHTML.

I am like Saint Thomas, I don't believe until I see... So I created this ePub file to see exactly how the various CSS and XHTML tags perform in various eBook readers (software and devices), to be able to decide what tags to use in my eBooks. The results can be quite surprising. So, before you start manually coding your CSS and XHTML code, it may be interesting to check which tags are supported by your target eBook reader.

You can download my ePub for free from here: ePubTags.epub [315Kb].

CSInsider | Design - Layout Adjustments in Adobe InDesign

Again, this is not a new feature in Adobe Indesign CS4, but it can come in handy. In this episode of CSInsider Design, I explain how how to use the Layout Adjustment feature InDesign to quickly and easily change the orientation or format of any layout without the grief of having to start over.

Also, I briefly describe the "Adjust Layout" script which has frequently saved me many hours of work.

And, before I get banged over the head, yes, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I have mistakenly described Pica measurements as Points... What can you do? Blame the jet-lag... ;-)

Enjoy!

CSInsider | Design - Automation in Adobe InDesign with Data Merge

This is not exactly a new feature in Adobe Indesign CS4, but somehow, it is a question that comes up many times. Often, designers go down the path of investigating more complex ways of automating page layout (eg. XML), only to find out that Data Merge, which is included in InDesign, is just the right tool for the job.

In this twelfth episode of CSInsider|Design, I will show you how the Data Merge feature found in Adobe InDesign CS4 allows you to automate the process of creating personalized content by using data base information from inside an InDesign Document.

Enjoy!

Create a SWF animation with Adobe Illustrator

Those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook, know that I am frantically trying to learn the basics of Flash CS4 Professional; but did you know that you can actually create some pretty cool SWF animations with just Adobe Illustrator? In Illustrator there are two ways that you can animate designs and export those to SWF, in this tutorial we’ll be looking mainly at Blend Based Animation. I will also briefly talk about the available templates, and how those are actually useful.

There are no files to download. Everything I show here you can do with what you already have!

1. Create a new document from a template

For this exercise you’ll be using one of the many templates available in Illustrator. Choose File > New from template...

The specific template file is called “Banner Ads.ait” (ait standing for Adobe Illustrator Template), and contains all the necessary formats to start working on a Banner Ad.

CSInsider | Design - Creating Interactive SWF Documents in Adobe InDesign CS4

In this eleventh episode of CSInsider|Design, I will show you how easy it has become to add interactivity to your Adobe InDesign CS4 documents. I'am covering, hyperlinks, navigation buttons with rollover states, all the way to page transitions and the SWF export options.

Do I really talk that fast? Or do I detect some tempo tampering in this movie? ;-)

If you have created any interactive documents, please don't hesitate to share them with me. I'd be very interested to see what the InDesign users out there are doing with those cool new features. One very nice example is what my friends at Colorscan in the Netherlands have done, using these features of Adobe Indesign CS4. 

Enjoy!

Using Adobe InDesign to Create Digital Books

Watch my buddy Colin Fleming as he crashes my CSInsider|Design set. In this three part series Colin will show you how to use Adobe InDesign to create digital books for computers, Kindle and the Sony Reader. He then goes on showing you how InDesign can predict how your documents will look when exported to ePub. And, to wrap it all up he explains in detail hoot export to ePub so that you get the best results in your final document.

Get ready for the future of reading! This is awesome stuff. Thanks Colin.

Using Adobe InDesign to Create Digital Books: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3