Back to the Basics

Two veterans have been snagged for the first Los Angeles InDesign User Group meeting to take place online. Erica Gamet will be the featured presenter with Randy Dunbar hosting. We go for about 60 minutes, but no longer than 90. The meeting is free.

The meeting will begin with a fairly short "Back to the Basics" presentation where novices can get their feet wet and old timers can pick up a trick or two.

After that, the floor will be open to ask Erica anything you want about anything related to Adobe InDesign. This will also be a unique opportunity for others to weigh in with answers or suggestions as to how they might deal with the question on the table. Come with questions. Come prepared to share your knowledge and experience.

This first online meeting makes it easy for some who've never attended an LAIDUG meeting to do so.

If you.........

• Are new to InDesign
• Are uncomfortable in new settings or around strangers
• Have difficulty getting to physical meeting sites
• Don't like to drive or you want to conserve resources
• Can't attend evening meetings
• Are outside of Southern California

.........then this online meeting is for you!

Meeting Notes

By Alvin Takamori

In the midst of a global pandemic which has transformed society, the Los Angeles InDesign User Group is adapting in order to keep engaging and educating its membership. On May 21, 2020 Randy Dunbar, who has published and edited numerous magazines, and teaches at The Fashion Institute of Design, graciously hosted LAIDUG's first online meeting.

The featured guest was Erica Gamet. A nearly 30 year veteran of the graphics industry, she has been speaking, writing and training with a focus on InDesign and Illustrator. She has addressed LAIDUG several times in the past. This time her presentation took us back to the basics of InDesign.

Sharing her desktop, everyone could see what she was doing. She began by setting the defaults to what she normally needs. Of course, you would set your defaults to whatever you normally need. Set your fonts, bleeds, margins, etc. before you open a document.

Among other things, Erica discussed working with color. You could load swatches from another project. You can store color palettes in the Cloud at Colors.Adobe.com. You can also use Adobe Capture to grab colors from a photograph on your phone.

Styles and Master Pages can also be imported from another document. Under Window, select Styles. You can import Paragraph Styles, Object Styles, etc. Under the Pages panel, the Master Pages selection has an option to load Master Pages from another file.

Erica also gave us a taste of how to use GREP (a term derived from the command g/re/p which meant Globally search for a Regular Expression and Print matching lines). She showed an example of the advantage of using GREP versus text in Find/Change. If you turn double spaces into a single space, you miss converting Em spaces or more than 2 spaces into a single space. A single GREP command can catch all of these.

GREP can be used to automatically convert multiple returns into a single return. You can also automate the conversion of cents into superscript. It can take the various ways that people write phone numbers and convert them into a single format. This was just a taste of what’s possible.

Erica concluded with a brief question and answer period. To learn more from Erica, go to: learn@ericagamet.com

There weren’t any raffle tickets to sell but, using a random name generator of everyone who signed up for the meeting, we found a way to distribute all the usual prizes. In addition, we gave away an extra valuable prize, a 30 roll pack of Charmin! We're keeping how we found it a secret.

The online meeting was shorter than our usual meetings and we lose the interaction between members and the snacks. However, you didn’t have to fight traffic or search for parking, and you can easily attend the meeting no matter where you live.

Free Raffles

Yes, we will still have raffles. But this time they're free. All prizes except for the Charmin will be delivered electronically. If you win the Charmin, we'll need a physical address located in the continental United States.

Raffle Prizes and Winners

Special Prize: Charmin Ultra Soft Bath Tissue. List price $26.99. Value $750.00 Winner — Lisa Brueggemann
30 rolls, 214 sheets, 2-ply. Clog-safe and septic-safe. Roto-Rooter approved.

Adobe Creative Cloud. 12 month subscription. Value $599.88 Winner — Alan Gilbertson
Collection of 24 Adobe software applications for graphic design, video editing, web development and photography including InDesign, Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and Dreamweaver among others.

GoProof from Oppolis Software.3 month subscription for 2 users. Value $300.00 Winner — Elma Lopez
Proofing add-on for Adobe Creative Cloud. Version history tracks what has been changed and by whom.

Markzware.Any single product. 12 month subscription. Value $199.00 Winner — Michelle Patino (FlightCheck)
Choose one from the list below:
Q2ID (Quark to InDesign), Convert and open QuarkXPress files in InDesign.
PDF2DTP (PDF to InDesign), Convert PDF files to InDesign.
FC (FlightCheck), Check native and PDF files for printing quality.
IDMarkz, Open, preview, export and convert InDesign files.

Suitcase Fusion 10 from Extensis.12 month subscription. Value $119.95 Winner — Drea Caruso
Font management program that allows you to organize your fonts from one plane—including system fonts, purchased fonts, fonts synced from Adobe Typekit, Google fonts, etc.

Font Agent Pro from Insider Software. Value $99.95 Winner — Ben Buenaventura
Font management that allows you to organize, distribute and control your fonts.

InMotion Hosting.Web hosting and free domain. Value $90.00 Winner — Lisa Rennie
Web hosting company.

DTP Tools Cloud for InDesign.6 month subscription. Value $77.40 Winner — Martha Blumenthal
Suite of 14 different InDesign productivity tools.

Adobe Stock.15 image licenses. Value $44.00 Winner — Tina Marsh
Royalty-free, high-quality photos, videos, and illustrations.

InDesign Magazine. 6 month subscription. Value $30.00 Winner — David Contreras
Monthly PDF publication devoted to InDesign how-tos, in-depth features, and quick tips.

About the Host

Randy Dunbar has worked in publishing on both coasts. In N.Y., he gave his touch to Mademoiselle, Self, GQ and Health magazines. Later, in L.A., he was art director at Movieline, HOME, Exposure, The Advocate, Out, Genre, Muscle & Fitness, Code, and California Apparel News. He was both editor-in-chief and art director of The LA Fashion. He is currently publisher and editor-in-chief of SoCal magazine and teaches typography, pre-press, and publication design at the Fashion Institute of Design.

About the Presenter

Erica Gamet

Erica Gamet has been involved in the graphics industry for nearly 30 years. She is a speaker, writer, and trainer, focusing on Adobe InDesign and Illustrator, Apple Keynote and iBooks Author, and other print- and production-related topics. She is a regular contributor to InDesign Magazine and CreativePro.com, has been a speaker at the InDesign Conference, PePcon, ebookcraft in Canada, and Making Design in Norway; and she offers online tutorials on CreativeLive.com and through her own YouTube channel.