Adobe InDesign CS/CS2 Breakthroughs [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Swatches Palette Quirks

Where's White?

The default Swatches palette doesn't contain the color White. Bizarre! I have to select it in the Color palette and then add it to the Swatches palette.

True, there's no "White" listed in the Swatches palette, but if you double-click the default swatch called "Paper" to open its Swatch options, you'll see its color mix: C0 M0 Y0 K0 in other words, White. Use that when you want to color something white (Figure 5-1a).

It's called Paper because it matches the preview color of your document, which by default is white as well. If you're designing something that's going to be printed on colored (or unbleached) paper, such as a brown paper grocery sack, you can change the color mix for Paper and get a somewhat-accurate preview (enable color management and use View > Proof Colors if you really want a high-quality color match). Applied to objects, the brown paper color still "acts" like white, though it knocks out colors beneath it to show the color of the paper (Figure 5-1b).

The only time you really need to add the color White (in addition to Paper) is if you're going to be using white ink, such as in a silk-screened T-shirt design. In that case, you'd change the Paper color to match the color of the T-shirt fabric, and use the White color defined as a spot color to make things white (Figures 5-1c and 5-1d).

Edit Swatches Without Applying Them

It drives me crazy that when I just want to double-check a color mix of a Swatches palette color, or change its name, or do almost anything in the Swatches palette, I end up applying that color to something in my document. I didn't tell InDesign to apply the color, so why does it insist on doing so? And can I make it stop?

The problem is that to open a swatch's Options dialog box (to check its color mix, to rename it, to change it from process to spot, or whatever) you have to double-click on the swatch, and InDesign "reads" the first click of that double-click as: Apply the color to any selected objects. We've been telling the folks at Adobe that "double-click" should not be the same as "click once and then click again" but they're stubborn on this one.

Anyway, the first fix that comes to mind is the ever-useful Edit > Deselect All command (Command-Shift-A/Ctrl-Shift-A). If you use that first before futzing with the Swatches palette, InDesign has nothing to apply the color to. (Except the default fill or stroke colors those will update to the most recently-clicked color swatch, regardless. It may not matter to you, though.)

If you'd rather not lose your selection, and/or you don't want the current default fill/stroke color to change, hold down Command-Shift-Option/Ctrl-Shift-Alt while double-clicking the color swatch. That tells InDesign "ignore what I'm doing with this color, I don't want to apply it to anything right now." You can release the keys as soon as the Swatch Options dialog box is open.

WARNING

The "ignore" keyboard shortcut will only work if a color swatch any swatch other than None is selected in the Swatches palette when you want to use the shortcut. If you click in the blank area under the list of swatches to deselect them or choose the None swatch, and then use this shortcut on a swatch, the "ignore" workaround is, um, ignored.

TIP

You can also use either of these same two strategies (Deselect All first, or use the "Ignore" keyboard combination) to edit Paragraph and Character Styles without applying the style sheet to selected text.

Customize the Default Swatches

The default CMYK swatches aren't bad, but I never use them, so I always delete them. I just want the basics: White, Black, None, and Registration. It would be great to add my company's identity colors the spot color we use in our logo and its CMYK equivalent to the default palette, but that would be too much to ask, I guess.

There's no such thing as "too much too ask" with InDesign okay, maybe there is, but in this case, you're covered.

The Swatches palette is one of the many palettes that are editable in InDesign even when no documents are open. Any changes you make to it in this state are saved as the new Swatches palette defaults. (See the sidebar "Application Defaults" on page 9 for more details.)

So: Close all documents and open the Swatches palette. Choose "Select All Unused" from the Swatches palette menu, then delete the colors it selects. You're left with Paper (white, by default), Black, None (transparent) and Registration, none of which can be deleted. Paper, however, can be edited to match the color of the paper you print on.

Go back to the Swatches palette menu and use any of the New Swatch commands to add colors to your default palette. In your case, you'd choose New Color Swatch and add your spot and CMYK colors. You might want to add tint swatches for each of these while you're at it, and what the heck, a couple new gradient swatches that use your corporate colors.

Quit InDesign to save your new defaults. The next time you open a new document in InDesign, the Swatches palette will list your customized colors.

Change the Swatch Order

What a pain that there's no Sort command in the Swatches palette! The magazine we produce uses over fifty custom swatch colors, and of course the ones we use most often are in the most inconvenient locations on the list. Half our production time is spent scrolling through the palette looking for a color.

Until Adobe adds the command you're looking for, you can drag and drop swatches to different locations in the palette and they'll stick there (Figure 5-2). Drag your favorite ones to the top and your scrolling time will be reduced significantly.

TIP

Drag the default Registration color to the bottom of the Swatches palette. It's probably the least-used color in your documents, why allow it to hog top billing? Do this while all documents are closed, and it'll stay there for future files you create.

Also, you can quickly jump to a swatch by Command-Option/Ctrl-Alt-clicking in the Swatches palette to activate it (you'll see a thin black frame surround the swatches list), then type the first few letters of the swatch name. You can also use the Up and Down Arrows on your keyboard to navigate the list. If you've added a Pantone, TruMatch or other library color that uses a numbering system to the palette, you only need to type the number to jump to it. When you're done, press Enter or Esc to move the "focus" out of the palette and back to your page.

Find the Hidden Swatch Libraries

Where are the Swatch libraries for Pantone, Trumatch and Toyo? In Illustrator I can open them from Window > Swatch Libraries > [name of Swatch Library]. I've searched all the menus in InDesign and they're nowhere to be found, not even in the menu for the Swatches palette itself.

Hey, you're getting warmer . . . warmer . . . you're so close! Choose New Color Swatch from the Swatches palette menu, then look in the Color Mode popup menu. When you click the Color Mode popup menu (Figure 5-3), all the Swatch Libraries appear. Choose a library to view its swatch collection. Select a swatch and click the Add button to copy that color to your Swatches palette.

Add Metallic and Pastel Swatch Libraries

I want to use a Pantone Metallic color in the über-cool presentation folder I'm designing for a client in InDesign CS, but that library doesn't appear in the Swatch Library list. It does appear in Illustrator's list of Swatch libraries, though. Does that mean if I want to use Pantone Metallics, I have to design the folder in Illustrator?

No, but it does mean you'll have to either upgrade to InDesign CS2 (which does ship with these libraries see Figure 5-3 above) or grumble at Adobe while you convert a copy of the Illustrator swatch library you want to a format InDesign CS can read.

Both programs store their default Swatch libraries here: [Name of Application] > Presets > Swatches. The libraries themselves are stand-alone native Illustrator documents.

You can't just copy and paste the swatch libraries over, though. The ones in the Adobe Illustrator CS folder are in Illustrator CS format (.ai files), and for some reason InDesign can only access them if they're in Illustrator version 8 format.

No problemo! Just follow this step-by-steppo:

1.

Open Adobe Illustrator CS.

2.

Choose File > Open, navigate to Adobe Illustrator CS > Presets > Swatches (Figure 5-4a) and double-click the Swatch library you want to convert.

3.

After the Swatch library document opens, choose File > Export. Don't worry about messing up the file for Illustrator's purposes; exporting always exports a copy of the file, and you won't be saving any changes to the original.

4.

In the Export dialog box:

Navigate to the Swatches folder in InDesign's Presets folder so the exported file is saved to that location. That way, the "new" Swatch Library will appear as just another library in InDesign's Color Mode: popup menu (Figure 5-4b).

Rename the Swatch Library if you like.

In the Format popup menu, choose Illustrator Legacy (.ai), and click the Export button.

In the Illustrator Legacy Options dialog box, open the Version popup menu and choose Illustrator 8. Click the OK button to complete the export of the converted file. (Don't worry about the alert that pops up after you click OK something about editing legacy files you won't be opening this file again.)

Close the library document (don't save any changes) and quit out of Illustrator.

Now you can switch to Adobe InDesign and check out the list of swatch libraries available: Choose New Color Swatch from the Swatches palette menu and then look at the Color Mode popup menu (Figure 5-4c). You don't even have to restart InDesign for the new libraries to appear.

If you saved the exported file to the correct folder (InDesign's Presets > Swatches folder), you'll see it listed along with the default libraries. If you saved it elsewhere, choose Other Library and navigate to the swatch library's location on your hard drive.

Load Just the Swatches You Want

I want to use a few of the colors I used for another client's project (done in InDesign) in the one I'm working on now. According to the manual, to add swatches from another InDesign document, I should choose Load Swatches from the Swatches palette menu, and then double-click the name of the InDesign document that has the swatches I want. When I do that, though, all the colors come over. I just want two, not thirty! It's annoying to have to delete all the swatches I never wanted InDesign to add.

Ah, you can always tell the folks who haven't upgraded yet! InDesign CS2 offers what you want: the options to import just a few swatches out of many. But while you're stuck in the last version, you can try one of two methods.

Method 1:
Open the "source" InDesign document (the older one that has the swatches you want) on top of your "target" InDesign document (the project you're working on now). Resize the source document window a little smaller so you can see a bit of the target document in back. With the source document in front, open its Swatches palette, select the color swatches you want (you can Shift- or Command/Ctrl- click to select more than one), and drag and drop them anywhere on the target document window. They immediately get added to the target document's Swatches palette.

Method 2:
Don't bother opening the source document; we're going to sneak in its back door. In your current (target) InDesign file, open the Swatches palette and choose New Color Swatch from its menu. Don't worry about the Color Type (spot or process) popup menu. In the Color Mode menu, choose Other Library and double-click the name of the source InDesign document. Its swatches open as a "library" just like any other Swatch Library. Select a swatch and click the Add button to add it to your Swatches palette. (If it's a spot color, it gets added as a spot; if it's a process color, it gets added as a process color.) Repeat the procedure as many times as necessary to bring in your desired colors, then click the Done button.

TIP

You can use Method 2 to roll your own custom Swatch Library! Create a new InDesign document and add your favorite swatches to it using any method you like. Save the blank document (with a name like "My swatches.indd") in the same folder as the other InDesign Swatch Libraries: Adobe InDesign > Presets > Swatch Libraries. That way, your custom library appears in the list along with the other ones you won't have to choose Other Library to find it.

You could get quite creative with this and create custom libraries for each of your larger/ongoing client projects: Acme Inc. colors.indd, New Print Ad Campaign swatches.indd, and so on.

Identify Mystery Colors

Just by scrolling through my document I can tell at a glance that it uses a ton of colors that aren't in the Swatches palette. Are they process? RGB? Spot colors? I have no idea. Where did they come from?

Anyone could have snuck into your office in the middle of the night and used the Color palette to add these "unnamed" colors (colors with no equivalent in the Swatches palette). Unnamed colors are unpredictable, because it's hard to tell if they're RGB colors or not. Fortunately, InDesign has a quite useful safety net that will fix the situation. From the Swatches palette menu choose Add Unnamed Colors. This scans through the entire document and adds a new swatch for every mystery color. It just takes a second or two. When it's done, you can scroll through your new swatches and look at their icons to get an at-a-glance readout if they're spot, process, CMYK or RGB, and so on. (And of course you can double-click a swatch to change any of these settings.)

When you (or whomever is sneaking into your office) use the Color palette to mix a new color, try to remember to click the New Swatch icon at the bottom of the Swatches palette to add it to the list before going on to something else. Or you can drag the little color icon from the Color palette into the Swatches palette. One way or another, it's just a good practice to make sure the colors are in the Swatches palette.

No-Surprise Swatch Merging

I could learn to love the Merge Swatches feature if it would give me a chance. In theory, it would let me replace a group of similar swatches with a single one, changing the color of all affected objects to the new swatch in the process. But it's impossible to predict which of those selected swatches InDesign will designate as the replacement! Sometimes it's the top-most swatch in the selection that replaces the others, sometimes it's one somewhere in the middle … is my palette missing a checkbox or something?

There is a method to its madness: Top dog status goes to the first swatch you select. Shift-click or Command/Ctrl-click the other swatches the ones you want replaced by the first swatch you clicked on to add them to the selection. Then choose Merge Swatches from the Swatches palette menu.

Banish Zombie Swatches

Somehow I've ended up with a color Swatch that refuses to die. It's not used in the document, nor in any placed image, but I can't delete the color nor merge it with another one.

No one has been able to explain to us why this sometimes happens. It's kind of scary. Fortunately, you can use this cure-all for flaky InDesign CS documents and the swatch will disappear:

1.

Open the document in InDesign and choose File > Export.

2.

In the Export dialog box, change the filename slightly (so you don't end up replacing the original) and then choose InDesign Interchange from the Format menu (Figure 5-5). The file's extension will change to .inx. Click the Export button.

3.

Go to the File menu again and choose Open. Find the .inx file you just created and open it. InDesign converts .inx files back to .indd (InDesign format) files when they're opened.

Check your Swatches palette: Magic! The zombie color is gone.

What's an Adobe Interchange Format?

InDesign CS can export documents to a number of formats: JPEG, EPS, Tagged Text, and… Adobe Interchange. What's that about?

Apparently, during the development of CS, Adobe engineers were working on a way InDesign version 2.X users could open documents created in version 3 (CS). A document in the newer version would be exported to an intermediate state called "Adobe Interchange" with its own .inx extension to distinguish them from "normal" InDesign files. Then, Adobe would make a free InDesign 2.X plug-in available so users who hadn't upgraded to CS yet could open .inx files and convert them to InDesign version 2 files.

Unfortunately, by the time InDesign CS was released, only half of the plan was completed. Exporting to .inx format works in InDesign CS, but there is no InDesign 2.X plug-in to read them, and as of this writing no announced plans to do so.

Intrepid InDesign CS users have found that exporting a misbehaving InDesign document to .inx format and then reading it back in (opening the .inx file in InDesign CS), often clears up inexplicable problems, such as the "Zombie Swatch" solution described on this page.

The story has a happy ending: Adobe finally got this working for CS2. To open a CS2 file in CS, you can export it as .inx. InDesign CS has to have the free "April 2005" update for this to work, however.