Starting this May (2009), Creativetechs is offering a free, 10-week, worldwide, InDesign course. To make this happen, we need at least 1,000 people signed up to participate, so help us spread the word!

Want to enroll? Sign-up here: InDesign CS4 Course Enrollment.

Jason Hoppe, our Adobe Certified Instructor, has designed a comprehensive course that covers InDesign CS4 in detail. If you’ve been meaning to improve your InDesign skills, now is the perfect opportunity:

Week 1, May 14 – Interface & New Document
Week 2, May 21 – Working with Type
Week 3, May 28 – Shapes, Smart Guides, Pathfinder
Week 4, June 4 – Color
Week 5, June 11 – Images and Links
Week 6, June 18 – Layers, Making PDFs, Printing
Week 7, June 25 – Style Sheets
Week 8, July 2 – Master Pages
Week 9, July 9 – Tables
Week 10, July 16 – Finishing Details.

And yes, you can pass this offer along to friends, or even post it on your blog. Help spread the word. As I mentioned, we need a minimum of 1,000 people enrolled to make this free class viable.

Read on for an extended Q&A, and to ask your own questions in the comments. Jason is currently working on the class materials. If you have a topic you’d like to see him cover, mention it in the comments below.

 

 

Every graphic designer eventually finds themselves facing this client request. You’ve designed a newsletter layout in Adobe InDesign. The client loves it, but they want a template in Microsoft Word they can edit themselves.

 

Creativetechs happens to be located in Seattle, just across the lake from the Redmond campus of Microsoft. Needless to say, we get this question a LOT from various graphic designers in our area. There isn’t a perfect solution, but here is a technique that does a surprisingly good job.

 

You thought the old InDesign vs. QuarkXPress rivalry was dead? In the past three months both Adobe and Quark have published free downloadable guides showing how their competitor’s customers can best work with their software.

Adobe: Quark to InDesign CS4 Conversion Guide (PDF)

Quark: QuarkXPress 8 Integration Guide for Adobe Creative Suite (PDF).

These are both well designed and useful guides. Interestingly they are both geared to QuarkXpress users. Adobe’s ebook helps you plan a migration and smooth your transition from QuarkXPress to InDesign CS4. While Quark’s ebook helps you stay with QuarkXpress, while integrating with the rest of Adobe’s Creative Suite applications.

Source: I ran across these books at different times on two of the best online resources for QuarkXPress and InDesign knowledge: PlanetQuark maintained by Jay Nelson of Design Tools Monthly. And InDesignSecrets founded by David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion.

It’s a sign you really know your way around Photoshop when you’ve mastered the keyboard shortcuts for moving around the Layers palette. Here are a couple reminders: Select Layers: Bracket keys [ or ] while holding Option (PC: ALT). Move Layers: Bracket keys [ or ] while holding Command (PC: CTRL). Adobe has a full […]