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Episode 55: GREP Alpha Breaks in Lists

April 27th, 2015 | Michael Murphy

Learn how to use GREP to describe all items in a list that begin with the same letter, then insert a space between and/or add an alphabetical heading to each alpha group. Covers GREP Find/Change, wildcard/location/found text metacharacters, character sets, marking subexpressions, and backreferences (an undocumented feature).

Watch the episode here (23:22), or you can subscribe via iTunes.


Episode 54: A First Look at InDesign CS5

April 12th, 2010 | Michael Murphy

Launch day for Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 is here, and so is my first podcast episode dedicated to the newest version of InDesign.

In this episode, I take a look at a number of very cool new features in InDesign CS5. There’s a lot more (see the full list below), but I’ve focused on some of my favorites, including span/split-column paragraphs, multiple page sizes, simplified transformations, metadata captions, the new Layers panel, and animation features (hinted at in my last post).

This episode is kind of a a long one, but I’ve included chapter markers so you can quickly jump to the section of the episode (there are five demo segments) you want to see.

Watch the episode here (36:46 | 70.1MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.

Here’s a (just about) complete list of the new features in InDesign CS5. There are numerous other small details and enhancements, but here’s the biggest and the best: … (read more)


Episode 53: Acrobat-Friendly Form Design, Part 2

December 15th, 2009 | Michael Murphy

Checkboxes and radio buttons and comb fields…oh my! After the podcast’s longest hiatus ever, and a cliffhanger gap worthy of The Sopranos, The InDesigner returns with a new episode that (finally!) finishes off the topic of designing smart for Acrobat forms.

In this episode, I take a look at adding form elements to an InDesign layout to create Acrobat-friendly checkboxes, radio buttons and comb fields, all of which can be achieved with a little help from anchored objects, GREP find/change and tables.

You may also notice new feature added to the podcast starting with this episode: chapters. You can now jump right to a specific part of the lesson using the chapters built into the video file.

Watch the episode here (15:30 | 45.5MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.


Episode 52: Acrobat-Friendly Form Design, Part 1

April 22nd, 2009 | Michael Murphy

After a seven-month hiatus…the podcast returns!

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of work designing forms, which present their own unique design challenges, one of which is that more forms are being completed digitally as PDFs. As we’ll see in this episode, when you’re designing a form to be as Acrobat-friendly as possible, the same principles that make for a clean, function, well-organized form on the page also lend themselves to fast and easy form field recognition in Acrobat.

Watch the episode here (14:58 | 49.6MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.

Download the InDesign Interchange (.inx) file with the flexible form line style used in this episode


Episode 51: Introducing InDesign CS4

September 22nd, 2008 | Michael Murphy

Today, Adobe announces the Creative Suite 4 in all of its various iterations (Design Premium, Web Premium, Production Premium, and so on). This updated Creative Suite includes another evolutionary and significant new version of InDesign, and in this episode, I take a look at some (but by no means all) of my favorite new features including Smart Guides, Flash export, and GREP Styles.

Watch the episode here (14:14 | 51.7MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.


Episode 50: Tab-Topped Text Frames

June 29th, 2008 | Michael Murphy

Inspired by a question from a podcast subscriber about creating a text frame that looks like a folder tab, and with the help of a technique suggested by another subscriber, this episode builds on the potential of Paragraph Rules revealed in Episode 49. By combining Paragraph Rules with First Baseline Offset options, a fully-editable, single-object tab-topped text frame is easy. But it gets easier and more interesting when Object Styles and Effects are added to the mix.

Watch the episode here (14:29 | 38.1 MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.


Episode 49: Paragraph Rules Rule!

May 28th, 2008 | Michael Murphy

Most of us are familiar with the two types of Paragraph Rules, but despite their names, a Rule Above can easily appear below your text, and a Rule Below can just as easily appear above it. This ability to bend the rules, so to speak, can produce some very interesting and flexible type effects that don’t require drawing extra frames, grouping anything or relying on anchored objects. This episode covers the rules of paragraph rules (and a bit about underlining) to showcase how flexible and versatile they can be.

Watch the episode here (15:52 | 37.2 MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.

Download the sample files (68K .zip file) for this episode


Episode 48: OpenType Features

March 30th, 2008 | Michael Murphy

At last month’s InDesign Conference in Miami, an unexpected blackout cut my typography session short, so my demonstration of OpenType features never saw the light of day (no pun intended). In this episode, I bring that missing part of the presentation to all of you and take a look at several useful OpenType features including Ligatures, Discretionary Ligatures, Contextual Alternates, Small Caps, and Titling Alternates.

Watch the episode here (14:55 | 30 MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.


Episode 47: Paste Remembers Layers…Very Well

February 11th, 2008 | Michael Murphy

A subscriber’s question about moving and copying layers led me to peel away the layers of the Paste Remembers Layers setting and discover a few things about how it behaves that I wasn’t aware of. This episode shares that little discovery with all of you, while providing context for the overall behavior of Paste Remembers Layers, and ending with a tip for combining this feature with Snippets to accomplish something InDesign won’t let you do by default.

Watch the episode here (13:51 | 28.6MB), or you can subscribe via iTunes.


Episode 46: Baby, It’s Christmas Time! (VIDEO)

December 29th, 2007 | Michael Murphy

Baby, It’s Christmas Time! CD CoverOK…Christmas has already come and gone, I know, but it’s still technically the holiday season, and the title of this episode is the title of a Christmas CD project I recently designed. That’s the project I showcase in this episode, in which I demonstrate a holiday grab bag of InDesign goodies including: … (read more)