March 1999	TECHNICAL ISSUES & SOLUTIONS

This Issue...

Introducing Adobe InDesign,
a new leading edge professional page layout program

Adobe Systems announced Adobe InDesign software for Mac OS 8.5, Windows 98, and Windows NT 4.0 at the Spring 1999 Seybold Conference. With this announcement, Adobe Systems is redefining professional publishing software, delivering a program that provides a level of Adobe integration, creative freedom, productivity, and precision that no other page layout program can touch. This innovative program solves a looming problem for the publishing industry: current page layout programs have limitations built into them because of the state of technology at the time they were first designed. While these aging tools have served the publishing industry well, they’re no longer capable of quickly adapting to evolving technologies. Adobe InDesign delivers a brand-new, state-of-the-art publishing platform that can smoothly carry professional designers into a new era.

To develop this program, Adobe carefully researched what professional designers want from page layout software and created a program that fulfills requests for more integrated tools and greater creative freedom, productivity, and precision. Using InDesign, professional designers in agencies, magazines, advertising groups, catalogs, and other creative ventures gain a powerful, flexible publishing environment. Plus, Adobe InDesign delivers the precision software and streamlined workflow that production artists and prepress professionals require. Here is a brief overview of the top InDesign features presented at Seybold:

Work in a superbly integrated Adobe design environment. 
Anyone who uses Adobe Photoshop® or Adobe Illustrator® software will feel instantly at home using Adobe InDesign because of its consistent Adobe user interface. These programs include similar commands, tools, keyboard shortcuts, and palettes, so users can hit the ground running with InDesign and work more effectively in a highly integrated, extended design environment. In addition, InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop share core technologies to ensure consistent handling of key design elements, such as color and type. InDesign also opens QuarkXPress® 3.3–4.04 files and PageMaker ® 6.5 files, so it’s easy to move existing work into this new design world.

Experience true creative freedom. 
Adobe InDesign opens a new level of creative possibility with innovative tools. Its elegant approach to text and graphics frames makes it simple to create extraordinary layered visuals quickly. Designers can nest a frame within a frame within a frame, while retaining complete control over the size, position, rotation, and other attributes of each of those frames. InDesign also delivers a flexible gradient tool, bézier path tools, clipping path support, and other extraordinary creativity enhancements.

Maximize your speed and productivity. 
Adobe InDesign software includes dozens of features that help users work faster without sacrificing high-quality results. The program’s multiple undo and redo support makes it easy to experiment freely. Page sizes reach up to 18 feet by 18 feet, and spreads can contain up to 10 pages. Document-wide layers help organize elements, while multiple simultaneous views of publications allow a real-time view of how changes made in one place affect another. When creating master pages, one master page can be based on a related master page—then any future changes ripple instantly through all related parts. The Keyboard Shortcut Editor lets users customize shortcuts or select a set of compatible keyboard shortcuts for QuarkXPress included with the program. Automatic layout adjustment, character and paragraph styles, and preflighting/packaging controls round out these diverse tools.

Achieve exacting control and precision. 
Adobe InDesign introduces an innovative multi-line text com-poser that sets a new standard for typographical controls.

Flexible grids and ruler guides give a range of ways to structure documents—even providing customizable view thresholds so they appear only when needed. Extensive kerning controls are available for fine-tuning letter spacing. The Navigator palette zooms from a 5% to a 4,000% view instantly. ICC-based color management controls keep colors consistent from concept to final printing. And it’s efficient to prepare publications in multiple languages using 21 built-in dictionaries. Whether users want to position an object with pinpoint accuracy or produce the highest quality typography possible on the desktop, Adobe InDesign provides the control to design pages with precision.

Shared Adobe technologies
Adobe Systems is committed to creating a consistent, versatile platform for designing and outputting flawless designs. That’s why Adobe InDesign takes integration deeper than its interface, sharing core Adobe technologies with Adobe Acrobat ® 4.0, Photoshop 5.0, and Illustrator 8.0 to improve consistency and streamline work among these programs. These Adobe programs provide this integration by:

• Managing the on-screen display of all elements using Adobe Graphics Manager (AGM).
• Handling font rasterization, font encoding, and access to font data using CoolType.
• Incorporating consistent, extensible color management through Rainbow Bridge and Adobe CMS (color management system).
• Placing, exporting, and extracting information from PDF files with the PDF Library. In addition, Adobe InDesign is highly extensible, so third-party developers can adapt and extend virtually any aspect of the program. Plus, it offers robust scripting support for automating labor-intensive production tasks (InDesign supports AppleScript on the Mac OS and Microsoft Visual Basic on the Windows platform). Over the next few quarters, we’ll keep you informed about interesting ways that third parties are extending or automating InDesign. Be sure to visit the Adobe Web site as well at: http://www.pluginsource.com.

Adobe Graphics Manager
Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator use the Adobe Graphics Manager (AGM) to display objects or text on-screen. AGM uses the same algorithms for screen display that PostScript ® printers use to rasterize, or draw elements for output, so what you see on-screen will match your output more closely. Here are two screen shots of an EPS file, one appearing at 800% in Adobe InDesign and the other appearing in QuarkXPress 4.0x. The InDesign document displays the EPS smoothly—a working example of AGM display—while the same EPS appears bitmapped in the QuarkXPress document.

CoolType
Used by Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, CoolType works with AGM to manage font-related functionality. The primary service CoolType provides is font rasterizing for both PostScript and TrueType fonts. Adobe applications that use CoolType can smoothly render fonts on-screen (even at high magnification) without using Adobe Type Manager ® . In addition, CoolType handles font stylizing, such as choosing bold or italic versions of fonts. To style a font, it must have a bold, italic, or other stylized version available.

Note: You’ll continue using ATM Deluxe to manage and activate/deactivate commonly used font sets.

Rainbow Bridge and Adobe CMS
Rainbow Bridge provides ICC-based color management services to Illustrator, InDesign, and, to a limited extent, Photoshop. By providing an interface between Adobe applications and external color management systems, Rainbow Bridge allows Adobe applications to provide open, extensible support for color management.

PDF Library
For Portable Document Format (PDF)-related support, InDesign uses a PDF library that encapsulates Adobe Acrobat functionality in an extensible module. With this library, you’ll be able to export InDesign documents directly to PDF 1.3 files without creating a PostScript file or requiring the use of Acrobat Distiller ® . This is a complete, device-independent export path—minimizing issues associated with printer drivers, print settings, PPD selection, and Distiller Job Options settings.

Printing with Adobe InDesign software

Here’s a "sneak peak" at printing with InDesign. Because most of you work with Macintosh files on Macintosh computers, the screen shots focus on the Macintosh version of InDesign. However, the functionality de-scribed pertains to both the Macintosh and Windows platforms. This section covers:

Note: Remember that this is pre-release software. The final shipping version may not match this information exactly.

PostScript language support
InDesign supports PostScript Level 2 and PostScript 3 ™ output devices. While you may be able to print InDesign files on a PostScript Level 1 device, Adobe doesn’t recommend it, nor does Adobe Technical Support support these devices or their related issues. In addition, the latest versions of the AdobePS printer drivers for Windows can’t use a Level 1 PPD file to set up a PostScript printer. If you use a PostScript Level 1 printing device for final output, you may experience inconsistent printing or random PostScript errors. We advise you to contact your printer manufacturer about pricing and other options for upgrading your RIP.

PostScript printer drivers
InDesign includes and exclusively uses the AdobePS 8.6 printer driver (MacOS), the AdobePS 4.3 printer driver (Windows 98), and the AdobePS 5.1 printer driver (Windows NT) to print on PostScript printing devices. If you use the Apple Laserwriter 8.6 printer driver (or any other non-AdobePS driver or an earlier version of the AdobePS drivers mentioned above), you will not have access to the InDesign printing panels to select your print settings.

General panel
The General panel is a generic printer-driver panel. InDesign honors the follow settings, values, and options selected in this panel:

Note: The default Ranges value is All. However, InDesign will override this when you specify something different in the Advanced Page Control panel.

Advanced Page Control panel
The Advanced Page Control panel is specific to InDesign. The page range options you specify in this panel override any values you may have entered in the General panel. The panel lists sections and gives you the option of viewing section page numbering in two ways: as sequential page numbers and as ranges within specified sections.

• All Pages: Prints all pages in the document. This is the default setting.
• Ranges: Specifies the range of pages to print in the current document. Type a hyphen before or after a number to print all of the pages in the document up to and including, or including and following that page.
• Options: Choose Both to print both pages of a two-page spread. Choose Even Pages Only or Odd Pages Only to print only even or odd pages within the specified page range. These options will be unavailable when printing reader’s spreads.
• View Section Numbering: Displays the beginning and ending page number of each section.
• By Section: Lets you select whole sections to print. Hold down the Shift key to select a range of contiguous sections from the list. Hold down the Ctrl key (Windows) or Command key (Mac OS) to select noncontiguous sections.
• Reader’s Spreads: Prints pages together as if they were bound, or printed on the same sheet. You can print only one spread per sheet. Spreads will be treated as single pages, and then printed normally.

Color panel
In the Color panel, you can specify composite or separated output, choose screening values, and view or over-ride frequency and screen angles. When Separations is selected, you can also specify which inks will be printed and whether to convert all spot inks to process.

• Composite: Prints all specified document elements and their inks as one page object.
• Separations: Prints all specified document elements and their inks as individually color-separated pages. This is a host-based solution.
• In-RIP: Prints separations in-RIP, rather than on-host, on PostScript output devices that support in-RIP separations. When selected, InDesign specifies the inks that are to be separated using defined optimized screens. These separation instructions are included in the resulting PostScript file for interpretation by the RIP.
  Note: To enable this option, you must first choose an appropriate printing device, and then select the Separations check box.
• Screening: In composite mode, your options will be Default and Custom. The Default option displays the PPD’s default line screen (lpi) value. If you change this value, Default automatically toggles to Custom. In separations mode, a complete list of the optimized screens that the PDF supports appears. As you click on the individual inks listed below it, the lpi and angle values change accordingly.
• Frequency: Specifies a custom lpi.
• Angle: Specifies a custom screen angle.
• All to Process: Converts all spot inks to process.
• Print All Inks: Prints all inks (both spot and process).
• Print No Inks: Specifies that no inks print.

Scale and Fit panel
In the Scale and Fit panel, you can specify tiling and scaling options, and view how printer’s marks fit on the selected paper size.

• Tiling: Choosing tiling options helps you print oversized documents. When you tile automatically, InDesign calculates the number of pages required, including a specified overlap, and then centers the print area on the collection of tiles. Tiling manually lets you control the origin point for the upper-left corner of the tile, so you determine where the page falls on the paper.
• Scale: To fit an oversized document on a smaller paper size (without tiling), scale the document width and height either symmetrically and asymmetrically. The asymmetric option is useful if you’re preparing final output for printing on a flexographic press.
• Constrain Proportions: Scales the document symmetrically.
• Scale to Fit: Automatically scales the document pages to fit the imageable area of the specified paper size. Below the preview are numerical offset values indicating whether the pages are too large for the currently selected paper size. If they are, the values appear in red.

Graphics panel
In the Graphics panel, you can specify how InDesign handles image resolution, fonts, and gradients. In addition, you can specify which graphic types should be omitted.

Send Image Data: The available options in this popup menu are:

• All (for sending complete high-resolution image data)
• Optimized Subsampling (for sending image data subsampled to 1.5 times the PPD’s default lpi)
• Low Resolution (for sending 72 dpi versions for basic proof prints)

OPI/DCS Image Replacement: Selecting this option instructs InDesign to resolve all OPI and DCS links (instead of allowing the OPI server to do it). If InDesign is unable to resolve the links, then the following alert appears.

Note: If you provide OPI proxy EPS files for your cus-tomers to place as FPO’s, we recommend instructing your staff and customers to always deselect the Read Embedded OPI Image Links in the EPS Import Options dialog box when placing the FPO’s. (To access this dialog box, click the Show Import Options check box in the Place dialog box before placing the proxy EPS file.) This step ensures that InDesign will not read the OPI links, or attempt to resolve the OPI image replacement (on the host computer). Instead, InDesign will simply manage the proxy "EPS container" link, and then pre-serve and write the original OPI comments. Your OPI server software can then properly resolve the image re-placement. This allows your customers to include OPI proxy EPS files, as well as EPS files containing nested TIFF or DCS files that InDesign must resolve on the host.

Proof Print: Prints all placed graphics and images as gray boxes.

Font Downloading: The available options are:

• Subset (Only the characters used are downloaded and the font is renamed with a custom name.)
• Complete (The entire font family is downloaded.)
• None (No fonts are downloaded.)

Gradient Options: The option you select tells InDesign how to handle any placed or created gradients for printing.

• Select the Force Continuous Tone Behavior option to print gradients to these devices without sampling the objects.
• Select the PostScript Level 1 Compatibility option to proof gradients to an older device by converting the gradient to an uncompressed raster image.

Omit: This option allows you to specify three graphic file types to omit from the final print stream. Instead, a gray box (representing the graphics bounding box) is included along with the OPI instructions for resolving all OPI and DCS links on an OPI server.

• Selecting EPS omits both vector and raster files, as well as DCS images.
• Selecting PDF omits all placed (not opened or im-ported) PDF files.
• Selecting Bitmap Images omits all placed raster files, such as TIFF, BMP, or PCX (not including raster EPS files).

Page Marks panel
The Page Marks panel lets you specify page (printer) marks for each document. You can turn all marks on or select individual marks from the five available types, as well as specify the amount of bleed.

• Type: This popup menu currently lists only one option— Default. We included this option for plug-in developers to create custom printer’s marks plug-ins.
• Bleed: The value specified here defines how far the bleed extends beyond the trim of the page. With InDesign, you can specify a bleed from 1/8 inch to 1 inch.

Note: Printer’s marks are set 3 points from the edge of the page trim, or 3 points from the edge of the trim plus the bleed area.

ReadMe Now is presented here as a portion of an original newsletter distributed solely for Adobe Authorized Service Providers (AASP). Content concerning only AASP's has been omitted for brevity. All other information is unaltered from original document content, only the layout has been changed. For more technical support, contact Adobe CustomerFirst Support at: http://www.adobe.com/supportservice/custsupport/main.html

Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, Adobe Premiere, Adobe Type Manager, ATM, Distiller, Exchange, Illustrator, PageMaker, PageMill, Photoshop, PostScript, and PressReady are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Apple, Macintosh, and Power Macintosh are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

© 1999 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.