Lab Software Tips: Adobe InDesign
This page provides tips for using Adobe
InDesign in the SCS
Computer Labs. Because of our dynamic lab environment, not all software
packages work exactly the same as they do on an personal computer. With
this in mind, we provide documentation regarding configuration settings,
printing instructions, file saving, and other popular topics. These pages
are not intended as manuals or tutorials - those are installed on lab computers
along with the software.
Adobe InDesign is specialty software, requested by
one or more faculty members for the purpose of being taught and used in class.
Support from Student Computing Services consultants is limited to opening,
saving, printing, and the information on this page. Questions should be directed
to your instructor. Additional support is provided through use of the electronic
manuals accessible through the application's Help menus and on Adobe's
InDesign support webpage.
You are welcome to ask the lab consultant
on duty for assistance, but please recognize that s/he has not been trained
on this application and may not be able to adequately answer your question
or solve your problem.
Recent upgrades
allow the lab printers to handle most print jobs and encoding methods without
a problem. This means that fewer print settings need to be checked or changed
before sending jobs from Adobe Applications.
Some problems may still occur with binary-encoded
EPS graphics, however. If you are using binary-encoded EPS graphics and you
are having a printing problem, we recommend you switch your graphic format
to JPEGs, GIFs, TIFFs, or ASCII or JPEG-encoded EPS graphics.
To translate graphics from EPS, open them
in Photoshop, use the Save As option from the File menu to save them in a recommended
format, and then re-import them into the InDesign document. Because the files
will have different file type extensions, this process will create a new file
and will not affect the original EPS graphic.
If you prefer to use binary-encoded
graphics, you can still print by saving a copy of your Illustrator file
as an Adobe PDF file and printing it with Adobe Reader. In InDesign, select
Export from the File menu and export a copy of the file in the Adobe PDF format.
Open the PDF file in Adobe Acrobat and select Print. In the print window, click
the "Advanced..." button and check
the box labeled "Print as Image." Click OK and print the file. Be
advised that although this method should work, it may take significantly longer
for the pages to spool to the printer.
For more information about printing or
obtaining refunds,
please read our Printing Tips. If you have a problem or with
printing, ask for help from the consultant on duty. Do not send your
print job more than once, as doing so may only intensify the problem and
create a longer delay for you and other users of the lab.
InDesign occasionally does not properly print special characters, such as
curved apostrophes. If you notice this problem in your document, choose the
Graphics options from the Print options box and check the Download PPD Fonts
box.