jas
11-18-2005, 03:50 PM
Hello, this is my first post on this forum and I hope you can help me out. :)
I'm new to InDesign. In the past few years my publishing needs have been pretty minimal, allowing me to get away with using MS Word for the most part. Before that though, I was relatively adept with Framemaker. In either case though, I was writing documentation for internal use for my employer at the time.
Anyway, I'm using Adobe Create Suite 1 on Mac OS X (10.3.9). My wife got CS1 at the beginning of this year largely for Photoshop and GoLive. But, I now need to create a fairly elaborate document in the form of a technical book (front matter, TOC, chapters, index), and I figured I'd check out InDesign. I've gone through most of the lessons in Adobe InDesign CS Classroom in a Book, 2004. I think I understand master pages, auto page numbering, generation of the TOC and index, using a book file etc. I'm reminded a lot of Framemaker (though I've not used a modern version of it lately).
But, there are a few things I'm not getting. In the CIB book, as well as in the online help, I'm not finding help with:
Running headers/footers: While it looks like I can put page numbers and section markers on the master pages, how about the numbers and names of paragraph styles? I'd like to put the contents (last instance) of, say, a paragraph style "Chapter Name" on the even page, and that of "head1" on the odd page.
Paragraph numbering: Like many technical books and papers, is it possible for a paragraph style to be auto-numbered? Say I have chapter (section?) 4, and I want "head1" instances to be numbered like 4.1, 4.2, and "head2" to appear as 4.1.1, 4.1.2 etc. I don't see a way to do this in any of the paragraph syle options.
Placing figures in the text flow: In all of the examples in the CIB, figures are ultimately placed in graphics frames, usually on another layer. Text frames can be resized to accomodate them, or text can flow around them etc. In Framemaker, I was able to place a graphics frame in the text flow itself. Thus, if I added more text before the insertion point, the graphic would flow forward. When I was done, some tweaking (page breaks, move the figure insertion point) was needed to make things just right. But, it seems with InDesign, I would have to move the graphics frame elsewhere, potentially resize text frames etc. I don't write from start to finish, but sometimes rather sporadically around a chapter. Actually, I think in Framemaker this was done by being able to have graphic attached below a paragraph style ("Figure" in my case). This graphic would live in the equivalent of the InDesign pasteboard.
Variables: While I did not make big use of this in Framemaker, it was always handy to define version and release date variables and refer to them on the book cover and the master pages to be printed on every page. It was handy to make this change in one place. I realize I can just type in these values in InDesign, but still...
Lists: How do a make a numbered list in InDesign, such as this one? Or even a bulleted list? I can see how to insert the special bullet character, but how do I make it instrinsic to the paragraph style? I read about nested styles, and they sound really handy. But, I don't see how a bullet character can be automatically inserted. Must I insert it myself each time? In the CIB book itself, there are lots of numbered lists. I don't now if the book was created with InDesign though. :)
InDesign looks very powerful. As you can tell, I've very little experience with it, and I hope I'm just missing some obvious things. I see that Adobe does still sell Framemaker (though not for the Mac). Perhaps InDesign is not meant to provide all of the functionality I'm missing, and remains the domain of Framemaker.
Thanks for any insight you can provide!
Jeff
I'm new to InDesign. In the past few years my publishing needs have been pretty minimal, allowing me to get away with using MS Word for the most part. Before that though, I was relatively adept with Framemaker. In either case though, I was writing documentation for internal use for my employer at the time.
Anyway, I'm using Adobe Create Suite 1 on Mac OS X (10.3.9). My wife got CS1 at the beginning of this year largely for Photoshop and GoLive. But, I now need to create a fairly elaborate document in the form of a technical book (front matter, TOC, chapters, index), and I figured I'd check out InDesign. I've gone through most of the lessons in Adobe InDesign CS Classroom in a Book, 2004. I think I understand master pages, auto page numbering, generation of the TOC and index, using a book file etc. I'm reminded a lot of Framemaker (though I've not used a modern version of it lately).
But, there are a few things I'm not getting. In the CIB book, as well as in the online help, I'm not finding help with:
Running headers/footers: While it looks like I can put page numbers and section markers on the master pages, how about the numbers and names of paragraph styles? I'd like to put the contents (last instance) of, say, a paragraph style "Chapter Name" on the even page, and that of "head1" on the odd page.
Paragraph numbering: Like many technical books and papers, is it possible for a paragraph style to be auto-numbered? Say I have chapter (section?) 4, and I want "head1" instances to be numbered like 4.1, 4.2, and "head2" to appear as 4.1.1, 4.1.2 etc. I don't see a way to do this in any of the paragraph syle options.
Placing figures in the text flow: In all of the examples in the CIB, figures are ultimately placed in graphics frames, usually on another layer. Text frames can be resized to accomodate them, or text can flow around them etc. In Framemaker, I was able to place a graphics frame in the text flow itself. Thus, if I added more text before the insertion point, the graphic would flow forward. When I was done, some tweaking (page breaks, move the figure insertion point) was needed to make things just right. But, it seems with InDesign, I would have to move the graphics frame elsewhere, potentially resize text frames etc. I don't write from start to finish, but sometimes rather sporadically around a chapter. Actually, I think in Framemaker this was done by being able to have graphic attached below a paragraph style ("Figure" in my case). This graphic would live in the equivalent of the InDesign pasteboard.
Variables: While I did not make big use of this in Framemaker, it was always handy to define version and release date variables and refer to them on the book cover and the master pages to be printed on every page. It was handy to make this change in one place. I realize I can just type in these values in InDesign, but still...
Lists: How do a make a numbered list in InDesign, such as this one? Or even a bulleted list? I can see how to insert the special bullet character, but how do I make it instrinsic to the paragraph style? I read about nested styles, and they sound really handy. But, I don't see how a bullet character can be automatically inserted. Must I insert it myself each time? In the CIB book itself, there are lots of numbered lists. I don't now if the book was created with InDesign though. :)
InDesign looks very powerful. As you can tell, I've very little experience with it, and I hope I'm just missing some obvious things. I see that Adobe does still sell Framemaker (though not for the Mac). Perhaps InDesign is not meant to provide all of the functionality I'm missing, and remains the domain of Framemaker.
Thanks for any insight you can provide!
Jeff