Task Tools for Adobe InDesign

Wonderful as Adobe InDesign is there are many tasks the program doesn’t perform. Tasks that predictably soak up too many valuable hours each time you do them.

Rorohiko Workflow Resources has developed a whole range of task tools, so you can slash hours of mind numbing work down to minutes. The InDesign-compatible tools cover a variety of repetitive pre-press chores that we, or our customers have identified as missing from InDesign.

Check them out to discover where you can slash valuable time.

Workflow Automation – Custom Design and Build

Pre-press systems automation is all about achieving significant productivity efficiencies and ultimately profit improvement. The automation unites the multiple programs you are using, such as InDesign, InDesign Server, Acrobat, Photoshop, your web or FTP server, your output devices, Wordpress, or a host of other software, into one logical workflow. Or it can streamline a single labour intensive task.

Having understood the various elements of your current process Rorohiko Workflow Resources designs your tailored workflow software. The customised automation then gives you a start-to-finish integrated system linking each step and stage to monitor tasks and manage progress.

The massive time and money saving potential is evident in these case studies of our custom automation work.

Developer Training

The Adobe range of products present a host of time saving opportunities – that’s why you have them. Rorohiko Workflow Resources can help you make the most of your Adobe products more rapidly with on-site, over your shoulder training. We cover ExtendScript, ActionScript, InDesign, Flex, C++ and many others.

We tailor training or mentoring programmes that suit your specific needs. The optimal group size is up to 10 people but we will fit with your circumstances.

support@rorohiko.com will be slower than usual for the first three weeks of December. Depending on the availability of Internet and e-mail access it might be 48 hours or more before we can reply to your e-mails. Thanks for your understanding!

This week, we’ve updated TextExporter once more – the new frame-by-frame export feature in the previous versions was not as intelligent as it should be and we think we’ve now found a better approach to export the frames in a logical ‘reading order’ – try our new TextExporter 2.1.2. We also fixed a problem with the ‘Convert Text To Black’ option on some files.

Keep in mind: TextExporter is free, but you get some cool additional features by purchasing a license for APID ToolAssistant, which is only US$25 per installed copy of InDesign.

We’re pretty sure that TextExporter will save you much more than US$25 in time and effort – so if you can spare US$25, don’t hesitate, and purchase an APID ToolAssistant license, and help us fund further development. And, last but not least, a license gives you access to a number of cool additional features in our free TextExporter, ImageLibraryLoader, and LayerLifter plug-ins.

The StylePainter freebie plug-in also got a long overdue bug fix. In a way, StylePainter is like bringing InDesign CS4’s GREP styles to InDesign CS, CS2, CS3, but it is also markedly different – even with the GREP styles in CS4, it still remains useful in a number of workflows. Check it out!

Our new YeShore plug-in has been made available as a public beta. YeShore supports Adobe InDesign CS4 (Mac/Windows) and enhances the built-in Live Preflight function.

With Live Preflight, you can easily avoid numerous expensive mistakes and ruined print runs.

You can draw ‘lines in the sand’ – tell InDesign what the limitations of your project are. For example, you might know ahead of time that the number of pages needs to stay below a certain limit, or that it needs to be a multiple of the imposition signature page count.

Live Preflight will gently alert you in the heat of the moment, when you inadvertently make a mistake against the guidelines you’ve set. Live Preflight allows InDesign to become your guardian angle, and ‘watch over your shoulder’ while you work.

Our YeShore plug-in enhances Live Preflight a great deal. It adds a set of additional powerful design rules to the available rule set, because the built-in rule set of Live Preflight is good, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

For a limited time, during the beta-testing period you can purchase licenses to YeShore at a reduced rate of US$49 (instead of US$69).

Click here for more info:

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/yeshore/

Click here to take advantage of this irresistible offer (don’t forget – the code to use is FRAME09), and to read more about FrameReporter click here!

InDesign Magazine is the magazine when it comes to learning how to use InDesign efficiently.

Sure, you can roam around the menu items and help files, and post questions on user forums, and with some luck you’ll actually find the feature you need.

But more often than not, you’ll miss an important feature or trick. Nothing beats knowledge and experience when it comes to finding your way around the vastness of InDesign. InDesign Magazine is one of the easiest ways to gain those.

It contains easy-to-read articles written by a host of well-known InDesign gurus – all down-to-earth people who  speak from experience, and who know how to explain things in plain English.

There’s a common problem when there are multiple versions of applications like Adobe® InDesign®, QuarkXPress®, Adobe Illustrator®… installed on the same computer.

Double-clicking a file’s icon will often cause the wrong application version to launch. As a result, you might unwittingly re-save a document into a more recent file format, which could be a bad thing. Maybe it’s a customer file, and the customer might not be able to open the updated file when you e-mail it back to her.

Soxy for Macintosh has now officially been released, and is available for US$19 per computer. Soxy for Windows is also already available for sale at the same price, but it is still in beta, and will probably be officially released in early 2010.

If you are interested in purchasing more than 10 licenses, you might want to contact sales@rorohiko.com to discuss a site license.

Download a 20-day fully functional demo here:

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/downloads/lightning-brain-soxy

Kris wrote a new blog post about how you can make Script Labels in InDesign work for you:

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/2009/11/17/the-secret-life-of-script-labels-in-indesign/

It has a wide range of information in it – there’s something for everyone – designers, scripters, IT system architects…

Check it out!

We’re proud to announce the start of a beta program for our latest tool: the YeShore plug-in for Adobe InDesign CS4.

Live Preflight in InDesign is a great tool – it is all about avoiding expensive mistakes. With Live Preflight, you draw lines in the sand, telling InDesign what the specifications of the job are. Then, as you work, Live Preflight keeps an eye on your work, and gives you a gentle warning each time you accidentally step out of the pre-determined bounds. So, when you accidentally place an RGB image when it should have been CMYK, it’ll tell you.

The problem with Live Preflight is that it is quite limited – there’s a lot of room for improvement.

The YeShore plug-in enhances Live Preflight and adds design rules to the InDesign CS4 – we have around ten new rules already, and we’re still adding new ones.

Click here to see a list of the new design rules we already have working:

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/yeshore

We’ll be starting a beta tester program very soon, and at the time of this writing, we have five more beta-tester slots left – so, if you’re interested to give it a whirl, e-mail us at support@rorohiko.com. When e-mailing, let us know what platform you are on (Macintosh or Windows), and whether you’d like to see any other rules implemented.

Don’t dilly-dally – it’s first come, first served: we cannot cope with too many beta testers, so we’re keeping the number down to a manageable limit.

There’s something in it for you too: if you’re selected for the beta-tester program, you’ll be entitled to a free license once the plug-in is released!