Generally I let the nerd herd (aka our talented team of web developers) be the ones to get excited about math related functionality. However, I gotta say, I do get excited about the way InDesign allows you to do math in the control panel. Probably because anything that does the math for me is exciting! How does it work? Imagine you have a frame with an image in it on the page and you know that it would probably fit better if it were 2.125″ bigger. In the Width field up in the Control panel, type +2.125 next to the existing size. When you’re done, press Tab or Return (PC: Enter) and InDesign will do the math for you to adjust the size of your frame. This also works in the X and Y axis fields — allowing you to move items by a specified amount without doing the math yourself. You can also use different functions, such as subtraction (–), multiplication (*), and division (/).
Posts Tagged ‘tips’
Quick Tip: Math for designerds
Friday, July 16th, 2010Quick Tip: Will you be my plus one?
Friday, June 11th, 2010
I learned a little InDesign trick recently that has really decreased my level of frustration when working with documents with multiple sections. Maybe it is just me, but every time I want to print or create a PDF of a portion of a multi-section InDesign document I run into trouble. I have the hardest time entering the section names/page numbers that correspond to the pages I would like to print into the Range box in the Print Dialogue box.
One way to help figure this out is to click on each of the pages you want to print in InDesign and check the page number box in the bottom left side of the screen. This will show you exactly how to enter each page number (eg Sec2:4). Then you will just need to type these pages into the Range box in EXACTLY the same format.
However, my new favorite way to avoid all of this nonsense is to use the magic plus sign! Simply put a “+” in front of the page number and it will tell InDesign to use absolute page numbering. So “+1″ always refers to the first page in your document, regardless of what section it is in. I love that!
Practice Makes Perfect
Monday, April 12th, 2010
Vectortuts Pen Tool Exercise
Need to sharpen your penmanship? The pen tool is by far one of the most important tools in illustrator’s repertoire. It allows you to create lines and shapes by using anchors (think connect the dots). The pen tool can be a bit daunting at first and take a bit of time to master, but it’s definitely a necessity for a ton of projects. I came across a comprehensive guide to the pen tool on Vector Tuts+, which broke down the features, shortcuts, and methods for working with the pen. I’d suggest trying out the Pen Tool Exercise at the bottom of the article if you need practice, or maybe even a little refresher course. Best thing I took away from this read: being able to change the anchor point and handle display. I’m loving the larger sized handles. To change the size of your handles in Illustrator go to Illustrator > Preferences > Selection & Anchor Display. In this dialog box, you can then choose the handle and anchor size to your liking, click Okay, and enjoy!
Anchor & Handle Prefrences
Just Google It.
Monday, December 28th, 2009
We’ve all heard it a thousand times: “just Google it”. But what exactly is the best way to do that? Here are some very helpful tips to get you searching efficiently and Google-ing like never before.
- Explicit Phrase:
Lets say you are looking for content about internet marketing. Instead of just typing internet marketing into the Google search box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase. To do this, simply enclose the search phrase within double quotes.Example: “internet marketing”
- Exclude Words:
Lets say you want to search for content about internet marketing, but you want to exclude any results that contain the term advertising. To do this, simply use the “-” sign in front of the word you want to exclude.Example Search: internet marketing -advertising
- Site Specific Search:
Often, you want to search a specific website for content that matches a certain phrase. Even if the site doesn’t support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term. Simply use the “site:somesite.com” modifier.Example: “internet marketing” site:www.smallbusinesshub.com
- Similar Words and Synonyms:
Let’s say you are want to include a word in your search, but want to include results that contain similar words or synonyms. To do this, use the “~” in front of the word.Example: “internet marketing” ~professional
- Specific Document Types:
If you’re looking to find results that are of a specific type, you can use the modifier “filetype:”. For example, you might want to find only PowerPoint presentations related to internet marketing.Example: “internet marketing” filetype:ppt
- This OR That:
By default, when you do a search, Google will include all the terms specified in the search. If you are looking for any one of one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator. (Note: The OR has to be capitalized).Example: internet marketing OR advertising
- Phone Listing:
Let’s say someone calls you on your mobile number and you don’t know how it is. If all you have is a phone number, you can look it up on Google using the phonebook feature.Example: phonebook:617-555-1212 (note: the provided number does not work – you’ll have to use a real number to get any results).
- Area Code Lookup:
If all you need to do is to look-up the area code for a phone number, just enter the 3-digit area code and Google will tell you where it’s from.Example: 617
- Numeric Ranges:
This is a rarely used, but highly useful tip. Let’s say you want to find results that contain any of a range of numbers. You can do this by using the X..Y modifier (in case this is hard to read, what’s between the X and Y are two periods. This type of search is useful for years (as shown below), prices or anywhere where you want to provide a series of numbers.Example: president 1940..1950
- Stock (Ticker Symbol):
Just enter a valid ticker symbol as your search term and Google will give you the current financials and a quick thumb-nail chart for the stock.Example: GOOG
- Calculator:
The next time you need to do a quick calculation, instead of bringing up the Calculator applet, you can just type your expression in to Google.Example: 48512 * 1.02
- Word Definitions:
If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the “define:” command.Example: define:plethora
*Thanks to Hubspot
