InDesign Tip: Making Unequal Column Guides

InDesign won’t let you create unequal columns within a single text frame (for that kind of layout, you’d have to thread separate frames together). However, you can easily set up unequal column guides to assist you.

Just navigate to the document or master page where you want the unequal guides to appear. Then choose View > Grids & Guides and deselect Lock Column Guides.



Then you can drag the column guides to the desired position. When you have them where you want them, you can re-lock them in that location to prevent them from moving accidentally.

Art-boards: So many art-boards in Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5

When creating your project design in Adobe Illustrator CS5, you can use the multiple artboards feature to break up your design. When importing (File>Import>Adobe Illustrator File) your project into Flash Catalyst, individual artboards convert into unique pages in Flash Catalyst!

Ground shadows for 3D

Easily turn on ground shadows for 3D objects using 3D>Ground Plane Shadow Catcher. In the 3D (Scene) panel, set the Quality drop-down menu to Ray Trace (Draft or Final) to start the render and actually see the shadow. In the 3D (Lights) panel, turn shadows on or off for individual lights using the Create Shadows checkbox, and then adjust the Softness. In the 3D (Mesh) panel, you can adjust the shadow Opacity. Choose Snap Object to Ground Plane from the 3D panel's flyout menu if necessary to see the shadow.

Share color swatches in Adobe Fireworks CS5

Fireworks can now share Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE) files with Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and Kuler. Use the Swatches panel in each application to save or open swatch libraries.

InDesign Tips: Handle Special Characters Easily With Custom Glyph Sets

You can create a library of often-used symbols or special characters—for instance, a collection of currency symbols—by creating a glyph set. Choose New Glyph Set from the panel menu, and name it.



Then select a glyph in the panel, and choose Add to Glyph Set. Being able to look at your custom-made sets (choose View Glyph Set from the panel menu) saves you from having to scroll through the entire font’s worth of glyphs.

Adobe InDesign CS5 - No more missing fonts!

When you include the fonts as part of the Package command (File>Package), InDesign now generates a Document Fonts folder. When you open an InDesign file that's located in a folder that also includes a Document Fonts folder, InDesign will automatically install the fonts the document needs! And when you close the document, the document fonts are automatically uninstalled for you. So is there ever a reason not to enable the Copy Fonts checkbox in the Create Package Folder dialog?

Adobe Illustrator CS5: Learn the numbers

While working with the Perspective Drawing tools, you can use 1â€"4 on your keyboard to change the active plane (the number four key deactivates all the grids). To see which plane is active, look at which side is highlighted in the Plane Switching widget. The number five key also has a function: Use it with the Perspective Selection tool (Shift-V) to drag objects perpendicular to the grid plane.

SWF size history in Adobe Flash Professional CS5

You can now keep track of the size of your SWF in the Properties panel using SWF History. Every time you publish a SWF you'll see a running log of your publish size, date, and time. Three data points are displayed in the Properties panel but if you click the Log button you can see up to 100. You'll also see an alert icon if your SWF increased in size by more than 50%.