Illustrator tip: Resizing your artboard in CS4

This tip is only for CS4 users. (IMHO it's worth getting if you don't have it yet )
Say you've made an illustration on an A4 sized artboard, but your illustration is a lot smaller and you want to get rid of the excess white paper. That can easily be solved.
In the example below the black stroke is the A4 paper.
1. Draw a rectangle on top of the illustration. This will be your new page size. Make sure the rectangle is selected.2. Select the Artboard Tool (shift o) to select the A4 artboard.3. Double click on the rectangle. The rectangle now becomes the new page size.4. Select the rectangle with the direct selection tool and delete it. You now have an artboard (page) the same size as the rectangle.
And because it is fun friday check out this site Logolounge. Actually this is serious stuff for designers.

Live paint

Live paint is an function in Illustrator which in my opinion doesn't get enough attention and it is a powerful tool. Pathfinders cut the shapes into separate shapes whereas live paint leaves the objects editable it's non destructive. Here's a simple example of a simple info graphic illustration made with live paint showing the average beer consumption.

1. I drew a typical dutch beer glass.2. With the pen tool i drew a line marking the top of the beer (beer line).3. Select the glass and 'beer line', select the live Paint tool in the toolbox and click to make a live paint group. You can also go to Object> Live Paint> Make.


4. The separate parts of the illustration will now have a thick red border when hovering above them to show you the live paint sections. When selected the anchor points with the crosshairs shows you that it is a 'Live Paint Group'

5. Select a yellow swatch, select the Live paint tool and click in the lower part of the glass.6. Select the 'beer line' with the group selection tool and drag it up or down to change the amount of beer in the glass.Give the 'beer line' a stroke of none to hide it.
The first glass has been copied and the 'beer line' simply dragged down.

How much the average consumption is I have no idea. If I have to go by our last BBQ all the glasses would be filled to the rim and the scale larger ; - ) Cheers.

Nederlands voor DTP'ers

Ik geef direct toe dat mijn Nederlands ook niet is wat het zou moeten zijn. De tussen-n dacht ik eindelijk onder de knie te hebben totdat men weer een paar uitzonderingen uit de hoge hoed toverde. Daarom maak ik begrijp van allerlei websites en naslagwerken.


De taalunie heeft haar eigen website. Hier vind je informatie over aanhalingstekens, haakjes en comma's.
Klik op deze link.


Eén van mijn favoriete sites is de website van Onze Taal. Deze site gaat vooral over het taalgebruik binnen onze maatschappij. Dus ook over sms-en, voetbaltaal, etc.
Klik op deze link.



Een boek dat ik vaak uit de kast haal is 'Redactiewijzer' van P.J. van der Horst. Erg handig voor grafici en ontwerpers. Hierin vind je antwoorden op vragen als; hoe zet ik een opsomming, telefoonnummer en postcode?
Klik op deze link.
•

Colour Picker

Via John Nacks blog I was shown a very useful panel for Photoshop CS4. If you install this panel then a Colour Picker panel will be added to Photoshop. This makes it easier and quicker to select colours.
To download the panel click on this link to Anastasiy Safari. You need to extract the zip file. Place the whole folder in Applications> Adobe Photoshop CS4> Plug-Ins>Panels Folder. Restart Photoshop. Open the panel via Window> Extensions
Because it is a CS4 panel it can be displayed in several ways.
For example a simple button.
Now that we are talking about the colour picker. Of course you all know that not all colours seen on screen are printable. To show the un-printable colours directly in the colour Picker go to the View menu> gamut Warning. The colour picker will grey out the un- printable colours.

If you go to Image> Mode> 32 bit the colour picker will look completely different.

InDesign and Illustrator contain a Colour picker dialogue box. Double click on the fill colour in the toolbox to open the colour picker dialogue box.

Dialogue box? Panel? The difference lies in that the dialogue box needs to be confirmed with the OK button and disappears until opened again. The colour picker panel in PS floats above your window.

Alphabetical list in InDesign

This tip ia about alphabetizing a list in InDesign. InDesign does not have a sort function, so if you need a list in alphabetical order it can be a problem, especially if it is really long. Here's a quick trick to make a list that can be updated at any time.

1. Make a list in InDesign
2. Define a paragraph style and apply it to the list.3. Go to the menu Layout > table of Contents
By default a title will be entered in the title field. Remove this and leave it blank.
4. In the Other styles (right field) select the style and click add.
5. In Entry style choose a paragraph style. This style will be applied to the list. For page number select No Page Number.
6. Click on the 'More Options' button and check the button 'Sort Entries in Alphabetical Order.
7. Click on OK and place the list.
Always keep your original list. If you need to add enteries do this in the original list. Select the table of Contents and go to Layout> Update Table of Contents and the TOC will automatically be updated.

Illustrator tip Mirror images

Ever heard of the Rorschach inkblot test? Good news you can draw them yourself in Illustrator. Who knows you may find out more about your inner self.

It works as follows
1. Draw an object and select it.


2. Go to Effect> Distort and Transform> Transform.
3. Enter the following values and check the Reflect Y. Make sure the reference point is below and centre and set copies to 1. Click OK. A copy of your image will be placed.

4. Select the object.5. Go to Window> Graphic Styles and click on the new graphic style icon to add the style. Now you can apply this Graphic Styles to any object.

6. You can also apply the style to a layer. Make a new layer. target this layer by clicking on the button. Then click on the graphic style. The style will now be applied to everything you draw.

InDesign CS4 bug or is it a Mac thing

I had done some work at home on my fairly new imac OSX latest version etc. It was an InDesign CS4 document that I packaged and put on a USB stick. At work I needed to work on the document. It's the same type of Mac, InDesign CS4 english version, but when I opened the document an error message appeared complaining about Condtional text plugin updates and something else. Clicked OK, But InDesign could not open the document and told me to upgrade the plugins or the get lastest version of InDesign CS4. As far as I know we aren't yet higher then CS4 and I always update when prompted. Now it was panic time.
When I asked a collegue what was going and I double clicked to open the document to show him the error, he noticed that InDy CS3 was trying to open the document and not automatically (as you would expect) CS4 (both were open on the computer), therefore the conflict with the plug-ins and new features and telling me to upgrade.
Mac or InDy thing I don't know, but I'm glad I now know what to look out for.