Lessons

Lesson Info

InDesign for Flip Books and Blogging

over here, I would just make a new document and I wouldn't use facing pages, and I would just set it up. So those foot books, the the spine is horizontal, so they flip up this way. So that would mean that the total with would be 20. The height would be when it's open, would be 16. Great. And that's it. I would make it like any other. It would open like this. And then on my master page, I would drag the guide down to here. So this would be my spine running this direction, right? So that's no biggie, that simple thing, And then in those in those flip books, they usually, uh, start just the half. So maybe if I come back down here and I duplicate my page, maybe a couple of times, then I would come up to this page and I would just go to a custom size and the custom size even call it like flip half whatever you wanna call it. The with would be 20 and the height would be eight. So there would be the half here would be an example of a full spread, and then I would come and change this toe. Als...

o be the flip half, and look at that. I've got my half my page here and I'm ready to start. Doesn't need If you are pre CS five, you can't do the custom pages, but never fear. I know it's a really nice You would have a couple of choices, you could set us up. And then just when you're done, cut this order or copy these pages into another document or what I used to dio when I made all those flip books for all of my seniors, what I actually did was a little bit crazy. I would turn on facing pages and I have to think now it's backwards. So the with would be, um eight. Did I make note of this? Yes. And the height would be 20 k Stay with me. This is gonna be a little mind blowing on. Let's do number of pages for and when I click Did I do this right? Yes. Okay, now this is weird. Look what happened. I'm making the book sideways. Oh, that's horrible. Who wants to design like this? Not me. Guess what you can dio in your pages panel I can select all my pages, so that would be under the view menu rotates, spread and thankfully, it rotates over here too. I thought it was just the preview, but thank you. All right, so we've got the spreads rotated and the previews. And then you could do your designing and they would be rotated and way See the page separation and everything. And then when you export it, there'd be one little extra step, because when you export this, it's gonna export it sideways. So when I used to do this all the time, I wrote a little action in Photoshopped recorded in action that just rotated all the spreads back. And it took 0. seconds. And I would just export my pages, go to bridge, select all of those things and then go up to tools and photo shop groups, tools, photo shop, bat or image processor. Run the rotate action and it was done and I'd send it to print. Came. So that's that's how you deal with maybe that horizontal spying situation. And if you don't want to make a separate in a separate document for the half page, then this would be a pre CS five solution to the flip book. Everyone's going, Yeah, I don't want to get get into that, but if you have five, it's much easier. You can just make a custom page, but I aim to please and provide solutions for everybody. So there you have it. And I was certainly pre CS five when I built all those flip books for my seniors So super. The other thing I was going to show you is, um let's do quickly. I'll show you quickly how you can use in design for blogging. And I think that might be really great for some people. I'm just going to dio a new document here and not facing pages. And my blawg I have. My images are like 792 pixels. So I'm going to build this based on that. So I would I'm actually gonna say someone her 92 p x and the height 792 p x. And you'll notice that in design, converts it two inches. Don't worry about it. It's still in pixels. Don't don't panic. It's just converting it cause our preferences. It's need. Our preferences are set for inches, right So it's converting it eso on and you can save this. Of course, If we want to save this preset and I want to call it like blogged board, then I have it available as a preset, and I can quickly get to at any time. So I'm just gonna open up this page. This might be this might be fun and mind blowing for people, so I'm just gonna go through it pretty quick. I'm just gonna use my frame tool and let's say I'm gonna, um, to make some sort of layout. What is this? I don't know. Use my gap tool and bring this up to center. Look at those smart guides kicking in. Maybe I'll do this groups and drag us down and sort in that elite. This is a really time problem solving figuring it out. All right, so let's say I'm just gonna make this sort of blogged board layout situation and we'll space it all up so you guys can see how we would do that nicely. I can select all of these and even squish him up till they do that. And then we'll go to a line and we'll do distribute vertical spacing and maybe bring these in line with that and with it's hard to see on the monitor so far away. All right, so let's say we've got something like this going on. This is a little blawg layout. We're gonna dio um, we have the ability, Teoh save these things to something called Oh, this isn't good. Now I'm getting perfectionistic while I'm Oh, man. While I'm building this, we have the ability to create something called a library. Are you ready for this? Let me show you one more. I'm going to place my little blogged tag in here. Eso you can really make this legit? Here's my little blawg tags. So this is the same tag that I used when I was designing the action in photo shop, but I've just dropped it in here. OK, so if this is my block bored, I'm gonna have this tag on the bottom. And let's say I just want a whole sort of little collection of all my little blogged layouts. I'm gonna come up and choose file new, and this time I'm gonna choose library. This might be new to a lot of people, even if you've used in design and it's gonna ask me when I want I want to call this and I'm gonna come up to my root folder and I'm just gonna call it Log Blogged Board library and I'm gonna click, Save It's all right. And what that does is it brings up this empty box on my screen. How handy was that would have created is called the library. And it's just saved on your hard drive the same way you save a J peg or you save anything. But what I can do now is select this whole layout. I can drag it and drop it to my library, and it is saved as a group. Lay out our your mind blowing yet. Check this out. Let's do another one. Let's do another layout. So maybe you'll get the feel of it. Um, let me take this over here and drag this down. Will drag this damn over will use the gap tool to get that lined up. All right, so here's a different layout for a different block. Bored? I'm gonna select it. Drag it in there now, when I'm blogging, all I have to dio is eventually I build a collection of different little blogged layouts. Right. I might even make another custom page. So maybe I also I don't just want a square block board. Maybe I want one that's longer. I could do that over here. I could define a new custom page, um, which I would call this like, blogged tall and the with that I decided on this Totally. You know what would be your preference? But I liked this with that. I came up with 13 75 pixels and I click. OK, now I have a tall block board. So maybe I would create some other layouts for this. And when the whole thing is finished, my I could drag it all of these different layouts into my block board library. So let me open a library that I've already made. So the magic of television, uh, is I have it right here. This should be the right one. All right. So here's a whole library of different long board templates that I have built, and all I'd have to do then is to place any of these files in here. You can drag and drop, but then you have to. You know you have to, like, fiddle with it to place it. What I would recommend is actually that you right, click and choose place, and it'll just snap right there. And all I have to do then is fine. Some images that might be will come in here to our links. All right. I could find some images. I drag, I drop, they are loading in there. Look at that. And we have to move things around a little bit. Oops. And I've got a holding out for the blogged. Um, and then I could just I could just export this as a J pick and I would export it at 72 pixels per inch. That's how in design calculated everything and it's sized and ready for the bog. If I want Teoh, I can rename it Enbridge. I can run a sharpening action. Enbridge, if I want, wouldn't have to, but that's it. I made a block board so great. Right? And you can add anything to your library. Just so you know, for example, this Sorry. Keep having this so zoomed out. Um, but for example, this is just my, uh, tag. I can add this to my my library by itself already have it. Now it's in here twice, so your library can be used for anything like your own little layout groupings that you make. If you have design elements that you use all the time, like your logo you convey, drag your logo into your library, and it will just sort of store it there for you so that you don't have to navigate through stuff all the time to find it. So it's just kind of your own. Built in collection of different things. You might drag and drop all the time. And the library. You don't have to save it. You don't have to come and choose like file. Same library. It just is saved all the time. Yeah, so it's just always saved, and you can find it any time I can show it to you. I mean, it's just a It just looked like this. So here's bridge is just a dot I n d l file for in design library, and so you can open it any time in in design by opening it through bridge or, if you come up Teoh file open, then you just navigate to it. So you open your in design library the same way you open any in design document, and it will just open in the library panel. Did you have a quick question? Yeah. So what we could lose when we start initially, Weaken uses a slightly for our album drains. Also right. We can We can create new layouts. We can't keep on creating loads. And then, by the end of, like reform ones, we love things quickly. Exactly. You don't have to read dry your layouts every time. That's exactly what you use it for. The thing to keep in mind is that those layouts would be sized at whatever size you created them at. So if you designed them while you were building a 10 by 10 book, they would be a 10 by 10 layout. Obviously, you can manually scale it. There is a way to adjust your layout in design where you can come into layout and my edit snow layout, layout adjustment. I don't know why I can't see anything for some reason on here, but you can resize your documents as a whole. But in order for that to work, you have to have guides around every single frame, every single box, and that can be kind of a little bit of a pain. So if you need to resize anything in your library, I would, you know, do that. Um, maybe before you drag your images in cause then you could they would snap into place. But the one thing that we did when we built our in design templates, that's how they work. They're not unlike other templates that you might buy. And in design, ours are not an actual document. So sometimes if you buy in design templates, what you get is, like, page document, and then you have to sort of dragged the spreads around and everything. What we actually did was build a library, so I'll just kind of demo it real quick. In case anyone has questions, this would be the layout for a square book. So what I would do is build my book. And then if I come up Teoh file and I run square library re sizer, that's going to take our square template collection, load it into the library, Then it's going to resize the entire library to the dimensions of the square book that I just built, so I don't have to manually do any of that. Then I can name it so I can call it my favorite 10 by 10. Whatever on that's it. So here's what it looks like. These are all the different templates and crazy different things, and this is just for the squares. So if you're building a vertical book, if you would run the file vertical. It's a smart script. My husband built his produce mark so it would run. The no like in design would know that you're building a vertical book and it would run the vertical library and resize the vertical library for your vertical book. And then you can drag and drop in all of that. So that's a needle thing about libraries, so you can make your own. You can. You can, you know, get the templates. You can make multiple different libraries for different size books or different shapes of books, or you can make a library that's just for your blog's or whatever. So questions on any of that we can Now is a good time. I guess this is I planned for lunch toe happen here. So we're on schedule. Yeah, So we can take some quick questions like us. You are good. Are good. Okay, let's start. There was a lot of people asking questions about facing pages again. Beauty of the lake from ST Pete, Florida says when you designed using face and pages. But you want one of your images to be a spread, Will it fill both pages? Or do you need to crop it in half and then added Teach each page? Oh, that's a good question. No, you don't have to crop. It would be horrible. Don't be so much work. No, no, no. In design, ISS is smarter than that. What? You would simply Deodoro have any of those examples still handy? No, that would be too handy. Oh, maybe ideo ideo right here. Okay, So what you would dio is if this is your set up with facing pages, you build your layout as if it's a spread. So you just totally ignore the fact that it's a page in a page. And if you want an image across all of it, you just put the frame across all of it and let me now find of images back to our links holder here. Then you just find your image and you drop it in. And then, obviously, you know, like, like always, you would be careful about the, um, fold, of course, but that's it. You just drag your frame across it and you design the book the exact same way as you would otherwise. The only difference is when you goto export it. You could choose if you want in designed to cut these sides apart and export the left and the right as separate J pegs. Or if you would want in design to export the whole thing as one spread. So I mean, you see what I'm saying. Like innocent. Awesome. You have so much flexibility, so many options. And it's so fast and simple. I just love it. So good question. All right, cool. So we have a question from DEA who says regarding links What if the image file is moved from its location on the hard drive? What happens to the designs and it falls apart and just kidding. No, what would happen is, and I think we might see that here somehow I've managed to lose the link for that file or edited or something. So let me open this album again and I think we'll get the warning. Its warning me. So I'm opening a file that have missing links, and it tells me this document contains two links to sources that are missing. You confined or re link the missing links using the links panel so I would click OK, and let's investigate. Let's go to the links panel and I would just scroll through and Oh, and I know why they're missing because they're on the paste board and I didn't tell it to include the pack. I didn't tell it when I package to this to bring it and show it to you. I didn't tell it to include images on the pace board because sometimes I use the pace bored when I'm when I'm building a design, Sometimes I might like build a spread and then and then I go through. And then I'm like, you know, I'm running out of room cause maybe I'm making them there 40 page book. And as we talked about yesterday, I'm not someone who's gonna design them a 60 page book and then pressure them for an up sell because I don't like that. If I promise them a 40 page book, I'm gonna make my 40 pitchbook. Or sometimes if I'm really in love with the Spread and I just can't cut it to make it fit 40. I'll just give it to them because that blows their mind and it's not a big deal. So that's service right? Bonus gift. But sometimes when I'm doing the layout and I want to move something, I'm like Well, I might I might redesign the spread, but I don't want to lose this work. I might grab it and just scoot it off to the paste board so it's over here and then I'll redesign this in case I changed my mind later, I can throw away my design and I can grab this back eso Then when I export and when I package, I sometimes don't package these because at that point I don't care anymore. But so it's missing from the paste board. All I would have to do is select those files here in my links panel and then come up to the menu and just choose re link, and then it's going to come up and I go find that file. So I moved it on my hard drive. I just go to the new location and it will re link it. Good question. Great. Okay. Question from D M h. Chris. Who says, Can you import a page you already made in another album into a new album you're making? Oh, that's great. You can place. Yes, you can. Please files all kinds of different things. Let's see how this would work. I think we can come in here, and I think it's gonna let me choose a page. I might have just lied to you. No, of course I didn't. You can come right in here and just go to file place and choose whatever document it is. And then you can actually come in and choose the exact page that you want a place. Yeah, I'm telling you in design, like it's magic. You guys, we and I want to say that as photographers using and design for simple little PdF working pieces and nice little albums were using, like, 2% of what in designs capable, you know? I mean, it's just so amazing, but it has a lot of special uses that we don't necessarily need for this stuff. So that's great. But we can pick the exact page that we want to import, and then we can click. OK, and it's going to place it. So now it's loaded on my cursor and I can just Oops, I can just place it I am. We may have to resize it because we've got some differences going on, but here it is, and I can move it around. There it is awesome. Thank you. A question from Paul Garrow. Can you auto fill in designed templates? So you have a T 10 by 10 images and you have an 80 page 10 by album. Oh, that's a good question. Well, we talked about how you can load your cursor. There probably is a way to auto fill. You can do that with text. I know I've never tried it with images. Maybe I could explore that over lunch and get back Teoh get back to people. But I know that with text, for example, if you're placing like and we wouldn't do this necessarily. But for book designers who have loads of texts like manuscripts, you can place the text and in design will generate a new page for you for as much Texas you have. So if your text fills 100 pages, it will generate all of those pages and the text box and the text will flow within all the pages. So we'll see that very raising. We'll be that right after lunch. But all investigates that, because I'm sure there's away and we'll see what we can come up with after lunch. You want to take a couple more questions or whatever if there's some burning ones out there, but they're also there also burning important questions. I'll ask one more little asked what it What do you do if you want to design a cover with an image front and back? How do you account for the spine? Oh, sure, that's a super great question. And I did that recently, and I e don't think I have that file with me. In fact, I'm Yeah, I know I don't have it, but that's a great question, and it came up just recently. So what I actually did was just build either a separate document or a custom page size, and, you know, you can get the dimensions from the album vendor. Usually they're going to give you a photo shop template because a lot of the the industry is still doing this in photo shop. So we were talking earlier that we need Teoh spread the word about in design because I really think we need a little bit of, ah, revel a revolution in this industry to really shift people keeping photo shop when I was made for but shift everybody to in design for this kind of stuff so that hopefully our album vendors will be providing templates in front of shot for those who have not yet seen the light, but also maybe in in design for people. But you can currently, if your album vendor doesn't provide in design templates, you can open up the photo shop one and get the dimensions and then just build that for yourself. That's what I've done with my armour covers. I do with video. I just built the dimensions into it, a custom document in in design or, you know, if you really want to and it's such a hassle, you could just build the cover and photo shop or something. If if that's easier for you,