What’s New in Adobe InDesign 2018

According to Adobe, the October 2017 release of InDesign 2018 "focuses on improving the user experience with more control over commonly used features and workflows." At this meeting David Creamer describes each of the upgrades and new features in the latest version of InDesign.

Among the new features are:

• Endnotes
• Paragraph borders
• Object width, height styles
• Add and share text assets using Creative Cloud Libraries
• Organize and filter fonts, including visually
• Gradient swatches in a color group
• Option to remove forced line breaks while creating table of contents
• Accessibility enhancements
• HTML export improvements

We encourage those who have used one or more of these new features to attend and share their experience.

Location and Parking

The Loews Hollywood Hotel only has valet parking which costs $50. You can parking at the Hollywood & Highland Mall, immediately south of the hotel for $15 maximum. With a mall validation, parking is just $2 for 2 hours. Additional hours are $4. So you could park for 3 hours with a mall validation for $6. Go here for more parking information.

Sponsor

This LAIDUG meeting is being held at Leows Hollywood Hotel courtesy of Extensis, which is holding a day-long meeting "Future Tech for Creative Teams" in the same location from 9 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. The Extensis meeting is free if you are a corporate creative. For more information, or to register, go here.

Meeting Notes

By Alan Bell

The November meeting of the Los Angeles InDesign User Group was held at Loews Hollywood Hotel which was both great and not so great. We were able to meet in the fancy space courtesy of Extensis which had held an industry meeting during the day. Since the room would sit idle in the evening, the company graciously allowed us to use it. (Thank you, Extensis!) It was a nice space complete with a professional AV set-up, a podium on a raised stage, banquet-style round tables, at a prominent hotel right in the heart of Hollywood.

The problem was that it was at a prominent hotel right in the heart of Hollywood. That meant—depending on where you were coming from—you might have had to start traveling three or four days in advance to get there on time. (Well, at least it seemed that way.) The hotel only offered valet parking at $50 a pop, but thankfully parking was available adjacent to the hotel for only $15. Sounds good compared to $50, but not compared to free as was parking at our September meeting.

The downsides aside, we had a successful meeting where everyone who attended received a free collapsible water bottle courtesy of Extensis, but most significant of all—information on what’s new in InDesign 2018. And that was the important thing, right?

Presenter David Creamer, who had travelled to Hollywood from North San Diego County, didn’t just read from a list of the program’s updates and new features. You can do that yourself here. Rather, he offered his take on the changes and updates, choosing to dismiss some and concentrate on the others he felt were worth it.

David was glad that endnotes has been added but didn’t feel they were as good as they could be. Using them, however, is easy. At the place you want an endnote, right click, choose endnote and a blank page (or a page including all previous endnotes if this isn't the first one) pops up. Enter the endnote text and you’re done. David doesn’t have InDesign 2018 videos, but a fellow named Martin Perhiniak does. Go here for more info on endnotes.

David also liked the fact that object styles now include options for size and position and described the new option in detail. Go here for more info.

The third thing he covered was paragraph borders. He included that with a brush up on the recently added paragraph shading option. He cautioned that paragraph borders can only include a single paragraph. Apply the effect to two consecutive paragraphs and each will have its own border rather than two paragraphs within a single border. Go here for more info.

Next David covered categorization of fonts. While searching for fonts, now you can narrow down the results by classification. Go here for more info.

CC libraries came next which now have a text only option. Previously text needed to be enclosed within a text box when it was added to a CC library. You can now also use text saved to a CC library in both InDesign and Illustrator documents. Go here for more info.

One enhancement that David mentioned but didn’t make a big deal of is the option to remove forced line breaks while generating a Table of Contents. This is the new feature that excites me the most. I don't have a Martin Perhiniak video showing it in action either. Am I the only one who likes this?

Martin Perhiniak didn't fine individual videos but didn’t make a comprehensive one showing all the 2018 InDesign updates and new features. But Daniel Walter Scott did. Go here.

Not specifically an InDesign 2018 update, but one of the things David mentioned that got everyone's attention was "multi-find/change" an extension from a company called Automaticationthat manages and executes batches of saved find/change queries.

All in all it was a good meeting, particularly as we move the meetings around Los Angeles County so that it’s in everyone’s backyard at least once during the year. William Gunn, however, didn’t wait for LAIDUG to come to his backyard. As the farthest attendee, having driven to Hollywood from Newport Beach, he won a Dell Inspiron 11 notebook computer.

Farthest Attendee

The bona fide LAIDUG member who travels the farthest specifically to attend the meeting will receive a brand new Dell Inspiron 11 3000 notebook computer, white case, with 64-bit Windows 10. You need to prove to us that you traveled farthest to attend this meeting. Having recently moved to the area from somewhere else won't cut it. Be prepared to show us indication of your current residence—perhaps a driver's license or a utility bill. Decision of the administrators of the Los Angeles InDesign User Group is final. Winner — William Gunn

Raffles

LAIDUG is supported by raffles of donated prizes. No one is required to participate in the raffles. Raffle tickets are: 1 for $3, 2 for $5, 5 for $10, 11 for $20, 24 for $40, 32 for $50 and 65 for $100. All major credit cards are accepted.

Raffle Prizes and Winners

eDocker CREATE! 6 month subscription. Value $774.00 Winners — Trish Hall

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

Stock Layouts. Full access to Stock Layout template library. 3 month subscription. Value $299.00 Winner — Scott Rovin

Markzware. Any single product. 12 month subscription. Value $199.00 Winner — Robin Schiff (PDF2DTP)
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.
ID2Q (InDesign to Quark), Convert and open InDesign documents in QuarkXPress.
MT (Markzware), Convert InDesign documents to IDML files readable by InDesign CS4 through CC 2017.
FC (FlightCheck), Check native and PDF files for printing quality.

Expo Creative Asset Manager for Mac from Insider Software. Value $149.00 Winner — Russell Shinpo
Digital asset manager that allows you to view, tag, search and manage images, icons, fonts, audio, video, app documents.

Suitcase Fusion 8 from Extensis. 12 month subscription. Value $119.95 Winner — Scott Rovin
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 8 from Insider Software. Value $99.95 Winner — Robin Schiff
Windows font management that allows you to organize, distribute and control your fonts.

InMotion Hosting. Web hosting and free domain. Value $90.00 Winner — Robin Schiff
Web hosting company.

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

MightyDeals. Any one deal up to $50.00 Winners — Robin Schiff

TypeDNA. Font management software. Value $49.00 Winners — Scott Rovin

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

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

Pluralsight. 1 month subscription. Value $29.00 (two raffles) Winners — Robin Schiff, Russell Shinpo

LA Web Professionals Group meeting tickets. Value $7.99 (two raffles) Winners — William Gunn, Annie Mueller
Adobe user group that meets monthly with an emphasis on web design, marketing and the latest internet trends.

About the Presenter

David Creamer

David Creamer of IDEAS is an Adobe Certified Instructor and Expert since 1994. IDEAS provides training on the Adobe Creative Cloud and the Adobe Technical Communication Suite. Creamer brings a rare combination of traditional and digital knowledge in publishing, graphics, and production to IDEAS’ customers. He has been an award-winning art and production director of multiple publications, including Modern Drummer and The Gourmet Retailer magazine—and has designed/produced hundreds of media projects for print, web, and video.