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Archive for November, 2008

Making Mac OS X launch the correct version of InDesign or InCopy

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

InDesignProxy v1.0.7

Download

See further below.

What it does

There’s a common problem on Mac OS X when there are multiple versions of Adobe® InDesign® or Adobe® InCopy® installed on the same computer. Double-clicking an .indd file’s icon will often cause the wrong application to launch.

To work around this problem, I’ve created a little application that alleviates the issue – it’s called InDesignProxy.

We also have a US$ 19.00 commercial product – Soxy, which takes the limited concepts of InDesignProxy much further.

Where InDesignProxy only supports InDesign and InCopy, Soxy supports InDesign, PDF, Illustrator, Acrobat, and QuarkXPress, and the list is still growing.

Also, Soxy is available for Windows – InDesignProxy is Mac-only

Lastly, Soxy is much easier to configure – in InDesignProxy you have to dig around a fair number of the Finder’s Get Info dialogs, and there is room for error.

With Soxy you can configure all from its concise setup screen.

The web page you’re currently on is about InDesignProxy – click here for more info on Soxy.

InDesignProxy fixes the problem by working as a ’stand-in’ for InDesign and InCopy.

You can drag/drop any of a number of InDesign-related files onto the InDesignProxy application, and InDesignProxy will analyze the dropped document and will then forward it to the appropriate version of InDesign or InCopy.

You can also use the features of the Finder to have these files automatically opened by InDesignProxy instead of by Adobe InDesign – so your InDesign documents start behaving themselves even when you double-click them.

Currently, InDesignProxy supports .indd, .indt, .incd, .incx, or .icml files. Any InDesign-related files that carry a different file name extension are not supported.

If you’d like to show your appreciation, encourage us, and support us in our continued efforts to provide the designer and prepress communities with helpful tools, you can do a US$4 donation – roughly the price of a cup of coffee – by clicking the button below. You need to know that software development is not cheap and giving away freebies does not come easy for a small company like Rorohiko.

We use PayPal as our payment processor, but all you need is a credit card – you can send us a cup of coffee without need for a PayPal account.


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Lightning Brain StoryTweaker – first public beta available

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

Today we’ve released the first public beta of Lightning Brain StoryTweakerStoryTweaker is all about round-tripping text out of and back into an InDesign layout, this to allow a third party to make text changes without need for a copy of Adobe® InDesign® or Adobe® InCopy®.

Great for translating InDesign documents or proofreading. If you’re interested and have time to give it a try, click here for more info.

MagnetoGuides and Color2Gray updated for CS4

Monday, November 10th, 2008

We have free updates for MagnetoGuides (demo/commercial) and the Color2Gray (freebie).

The Lightning Brain MagnetoGuides has been updated to version 1.0.5 and now supports Adobe® InDesign® CS4 (in addition to CS, CS2, CS3).

This tool helps anyone who needs to lay out structured, repetitive documents, for example, paper forms. It allows to automatically coordinate adjustments to the positioning and size of multiple page items that are scattered over the layout

New feature in MagnetoGuides 1.0.5: magnetized guides now are visually ‘marked’ to make them easier to spot. Click here for more info.

The free Lightning Brain Color2Gray has also been updated to version 1.0.10 and also adds supports Adobe InDesign CS4. Click here for more info.

Color2Gray allows you to convert placed color photos (TIFF, JPEG) to grayscale without modifying the original color image. The converted pictures only render on the black (K) plate.

Sudoku Generator updated for CS4

Saturday, November 8th, 2008

The Lightning Brain Sudoku Generator has been updated and now also supports Adobe InDesign CS4 (in addition to CS, CS2, CS3). Click here for more info.

Keep in mind – the LB Sudoku Generator licensing accounted per copy of InDesign. Sadly enough, that means that if you have two copies of InDesign installed on a single machine (e.g. CS3 and CS4), which need both to be licensed, you’ll also need to purchase two licenses.

There are no provisions for upgrading or side-grading – the cost of a single license is kept purposefully low, and does not reflect the real cost nor the real value of the plug-in. Instead the fee is a contribution towards further development.

To allow us to sustain the low license fee, we decided not to allow for the administrative overheads involved in tracking things like upgrades. Instead we use a very simple, automated system and we charge a fee per installed copy of InDesign.

APIDToolAssistant updated for CS4

Friday, November 7th, 2008

The APIDToolAssistant 1.0.46 has been released. More info can be found here.

Download Download APID ToolAssistant (version 1.0.46. Includes versions for Mac, Windows, InDesign CS, InDesign CS2, InDesign CS3 and InDesign CS4).

This version is of interest to end-users and scripters alike. It adds a host of features that are of interest to the serious scripter, as well as CS4 compatibility.

For interested scripters, Kris also has made a blog post that highlights one of the new features - scripted page item adornments. Click here to read it on our new Rorohiko Documentation Pool blog.

Using StoryTweaker to translate an InDesign document into another language

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

A test version of Lightning Brain StoryTweaker can be downloaded here:

http://storytweaker.com

An easy way to get some good understanding of how LB StoryTweaker ‘thinks’ is to follow along as someone puts the program through its paces.

StoryTweaker can be used in a number of different scenarios. For example, one scenario is about text corrections to documents. A different scenario is about translating a document to a different language.

In this tutorial, we’ll be looking at a scenario where StoryTweaker is used to translate a small product flyer from English to German and French.

In case you’re more interested in using StoryTweaker for text edits, you want to check out this post instead:

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/?p=1060

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FileMaker 7.x or 8.x, Leopard and Instant Web Publishing (IWP)

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

(Added note 6-Nov-2008: Please check the added notes at the end of the article. Yes, FM 8.x works too, and I’ve also added a way to do the patching much faster)

Recently, I was testing some ideas with various versions of FileMaker, and I found out that Instant Web Publishing with FileMaker 7 Developer on Mac OS X Leopard did not work.

I reinstalled FileMaker 7 Developer, upgraded to 7.0v3, installed the fm_70v3_osx_iwp update from the FileMaker website – and things seemed to work fine.

That is – until I quit and restarted FileMaker :-(

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