Frequently Asked Questions

When you’ve clicked ‘Get License…’, and gone through a payment process (via PayPal), you will have received an Activation Code.

That typically takes 15-30 minutes – so you should have the license in your in-box within half an hour or so.

However, a lot of spam-checkers mistakenly assume our activation files for spam, and hence, our e-mail does not show up in your in-box.

So, if your activation file fails to turn up: check the spam-folder.

Also keep in mind that some e-mail set-ups have more than one spam-folder – e.g. if you receive your e-mail via a web-service like GMail, Yahoo!, Hotmail,… and then access that e-mail with an e-mail client like Apple Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora,… there are TWO spam folders. The web service will filter out some or all spam, and then your e-mail client does it a second time.

So please, retrace our e-mail back towards its source and check all spam-folders along the way.

This is normally the result of a mis-understanding of how our license system works.

If you have two computers, you cannot use an activation file requested on one computer on the other (e.g. users with a desktop and a laptop computer need two licenses).

If you have two copies of InDesign installed, you cannot use an activation file requested from one copy of InDesign with the other (e.g. users of CS4 and CS5 need two licenses).

If you have two operating systems installed on your computer, you cannot use an activation file requested from one operating system on the other (e.g. Macs with Bootcamp, or computers with VMware or Parallels need two licenses).

Finally, sometimes people simply buy the wrong license – e.g. they want TextExporter, but instead bought the optional APID ToolAssistant license. Please read the product page for the tool you’re trying to install carefully. For many of our tools a APID ToolAssistant license is optional, and unless you also buy a license for the tool itself, a license for APID ToolAssistant all by itself won’t do you much good. Licensing APID ToolAssistant unlocks optional functionality in tools like ImageLibraryLoader and LayerLifter.

Please read the following carefully:

http://www.rorohiko.com/licensing

All of our products have demo versions that convert into full versions by means of an activation file, which you can purchase from us.

There are two ways to do the purchase – it’s either a one- or a two-step process.

For budget-users: you can purchase a single install activation file by installing the demo, and clicking a ‘Get License…’ button. Single installs are purchased from within the running demo product. There is no ‘Buy Now’ facility for single installs.

For small teams or users with multiple computers or versions of InDesign: you can pre-purchase multiple install licenses (typically in quantities of 10 or 100) by clicking a ‘Buy Now’ button on the product web page.

This link shows you an overview page from where you can access the product web pages:

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/indesign-downloads/

When pre-purchasing via the ‘Buy Now’ button you’ll get an Activation Code from us. An Activation Code is not an activation file – it is a precursor to an activation file.

To redeem an Activation Code or buy a single-install license: install a demo version of the tool, and click the ‘Get License…’ button when the tool ‘begs’ to be bought.

Make sure you understand how our licenses work: if you have both a desktop and a laptop computer, or both CS4 and CS5 installed, you need two single-install licenses. Please read

http://www.rorohiko.com/licensing

Recap:

For people who want multiple installs (desktop + laptop, CS4 + CS5, small team or workgroup…):

• Go to the web page for the product
• Download and install it
• Try it out for up to 20 days.
• When you want to purchase, go back to the product web page and click ‘Buy Now’ to purchase a 10- or 100-install Activation Code.
• For each installation: restart the product, and click the ‘Get License…’ button when you see the ‘beg’ dialog (e.g. exit and restart InDesign, or re-launch the program).
• Put the Activation Code in the web page
• Wait up to 30 minutes for your activation file to arrive. Check your spam folder if necessary
• Restart the product, and click the ‘Import License…’ button when you see the ‘beg’ dialog (e.g. exit and restart InDesign, or re-launch the program). Import the appropriate activation file

For people who want just a single install:

• Go to the web page for the product
• Download and install it
• Try it out for up to 20 days.
• Restart the product, and click the ‘Get License…’ button when you see the ‘beg’ dialog (e.g. exit and restart InDesign, or re-launch the program).
• Go through the PayPal payment processing
• Wait up to 30 minutes for your activation file to arrive. Check your spam folder if necessary
• Restart the product, and click the ‘Import License…’ button when you see the ‘beg’ dialog (e.g. exit and restart InDesign, or re-launch the program). Import the activation file

You cannot – our per-install licenses are very low cost, and to keep the cost low, we don’t allow for tracking and administration involved in upgrades and side-grades.

A consequence is that you must purchase a new license each time you buy a new computer or (for plug-ins) install a new version of InDesign. There is no upgrade or side-grade path.

But you should put things in perspective: a single install-license of our products should pay back for itself in a very short time (often within hours or days)!

Please read the following carefully:

http://www.rorohiko.com/licensing

Activation Codes are not activation files – Activation Codes are precursors to activation files.

After you purchase an Activation Code by clicking the Buy Now button on one of the product pages, see:

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/indesign-downloads/

you still need to install the product, and start it or start InDesign (if it’s a plug-in). Click the ‘Get License…’ button when you see it on the ‘beg’ dialog.

A web page should present itself – and that’s where you need to use your Activation Code. Continue the process, and eventually you’ll receive an activation file via e-mail.

Restart the product, and click the ‘Import License…’ button when you see it on the ‘beg’ dialog. Import the activation file you just received.

Depending on the Activation Code, you can use it multiple times to get multiple activation files e-mailed to you. activation files are associated with a single installation, and only work with their intended installation – you cannot re-use an activation file to activate other installations.

Please read:

http://www.rorohiko.com/licensing

Send us an email with the paypal receipt you received when you purchased the Activation Code.

Email: support@rorohiko.com

We’re sorry – that license is ‘gone’. There is no mechanism that allows us to ‘de-license’ a computer, and the administration time and effort involved in handling these kinds of situations would often surpass the price of the license itself.

If you have a 10- or 100-install Activation Code, simply request a new activation file using your Activation Code – you’ve lost one of your 10 or 100 installs.

If you purchased a single-install license from within our software, you have to purchase a new license – we don’t do refunds, upgrades or sidegrades.

Make sure you request the license from the correct computer and/or copy of InDesign!

Please have a read:

http://www.rorohiko.com/licensing

We’re sorry – that license is ‘gone’. There is no mechanism that allows us to ‘de-license’ an installation of InDesign, and the administration time and effort involved in handling these kinds of situations would often surpass the price of the license itself.

If you have a 10- or 100-install Activation Code, simply request a new activation file using your Activation Code – you’ve lost one of your 10 or 100 installs.

If you purchased a single-install license from within our software, you have to purchase a new license – we don’t do refunds, upgrades or sidegrades.

Make sure you request the license from the correct computer and/or copy of InDesign!

Please have a read:

http://www.rorohiko.com/licensing

Here’s a link to a page with a step-by-step approach to diagnose and fix potential issues:

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/installation-issues

When you install Soxy, it needs to reconfigure the Finder to direct various files via Soxy. Sometimes, the Finder does not pick up these changes immediately.

Symptoms are: incorrect icons, files still not opening in the correct app.

The workaround is simple: after installing Soxy, log out and log back in (or restart the computer). That forces the Finder to ‘see’ the changes made by Soxy.

There’s a number of reasons why Soxy might seem to be inoperative.

If you’re on a Mac, after a fresh install, try to log out and back in (or restart the computer) if Soxy seems to misbehave.

Often, Soxy does not open certain file types because it is simply not configured to do so – so check the Soxy preferences. Double-click the Soxy icon and verify that it is properly configured. Also bring up the Soxy preferences screen and check the various options.

You might need to run or re-run the ‘Find Executables’ option for it to pick up your various applications (the Soxy window has a button you can click).

After ‘Find Executables’ re-check your preferences: make sure the file format is enabled in the File Formats (Soxy – Preferences – File Formats tab), and make sure ‘Open with Soxy’ is selected.

In the Mac Finder, it is possible to manually override individual files: click a file’s icon, and select ‘Get Info’. There you can modify the ‘Open With’ setting.

If you do that, you’re locking out Soxy, and that particular file won’t be handled by Soxy any more. To fix it, you need to restore the ‘Open With’ setting so it is set to Soxy.

The Mac version of Soxy has an option in its File menu to clear such manual overrides for all files in a folder.

Double-click the Mac Soxy icon to launch it, and select ‘File’ – ‘Clear “Open with” preferences for files…’. Then select the folder you want to clean up.

Occasionally, we get repeated e-mails from people who are upset because we don’t seem to answer.

Things that often happen:

- their mailbox is full, and our e-mail bounces
- their mail server refuses our e-mail because it thinks we’re spammers
- their spam filter does not let our e-mail through
- we never received their e-mail
- Rorohiko is closed because we’re on holiday

So, if you e-mail us and we don’t answer, here’s what you should do:

1) Check our web site, and look for the ‘Contact us’ at the right. If we’re closed, it’ll be shown there.

2) If we’re not closed, something else is wrong. Try sending us e-mail from another e-mail account. Maybe we never got your e-mail. If that does not work, make a post on our message board.

http://www.rorohiko.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl

3) Make sure you mention a phone number or a fax number in your e-mail – if we’re trying to reach you but cannot get through, at least we can phone or fax you.

4) Give us a ring, or send us a fax (Fax: +64 4 233 05 89)

We have a USA-based number (+1 (408) 786-5864). However, that number switches through to our New Zealand offices – so keep in mind that we’re in a different time zone. The best time to ring us from the USA is in your afternoon, from Monday to Thursday.

If you ring us first thing in your morning, we’ll probably be still sound asleep.

And Friday in the USA is Saturday here in New Zealand – so if you ring us on Friday we might not pick up.

But even if the time zones and the phase of the moon don’t line up – try ringing. Often, we’re working late or early, or on Saturday, so someone might be here to pick up the phone.

And if we’re not here, leave us a message. Start your message by spelling out the phone number where we can reach you, and spell it out twice. That way, if we need to replay it, we can hear the phone number at the start of the message, not at the end. Also tell us what time zone you’re in.

When you make a the payment to us, you will receive an e-mail with a receipt from PayPal, our payment processor. You might need to check your spam filter.

Hold on to that receipt – it is your proof of purchase.

We don’t generate that invoice, and we also have no control over its delivery – it is all handled automatically by PayPal.

Sadly enough, PayPal does not allow its merchants to generate or re-generate invoices or receipts – so we have no means to generate a copy of that receipt from our end; if you did not keep it, it’s gone.

The only thing that we can do via PayPal from our side is generate a ‘packing slip’ – which is a document that does list the buyer, and the amount paid.

However, if you want us to do that, we will charge you an administration fee – the employee-cost of generating a packing slip is higher than what we charge for our least expensive tools.

For some of our least expensive tools you will find that the administration fee ends up being higher than what you paid for the tool.

Automation allows us to keep the cost of our tools low. Any additional administrative work represents a cost to us which we pass on to the customer.

If you have a 10- or 100-install Activation Code, simply request a new activation file using your Activation Code – that’s what the multi-install coupons are for.

If instead you purchased a budget single-install license, you have to purchase a new license.

Make sure you request the license from the correct computer and/or copy of InDesign!

Please have a read here:

http://www.rorohiko.com/licensing

Occasionally, InDesign documents can develop small internal inconsistencies – they don’t seem to be harmful, but they cause problems for tools like our TextExporter.

http://www.rorohiko.com/textexporter

The way to fix many of these issues is to first export the InDesign document to IDML (CS4 and CS5) or INX (CS, CS2 or CS3) format, and then re-import the IDML or INX file into InDesign.

Then try exporting this ‘fresh’ file – we found that in nearly all cases the problems have vanished, and the document exports fine.

See more comments on this issue:

http://www.rorohiko.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1280527120

Apple’s TextEdit has trouble properly displaying some RTF files – so if you’re using Apple’s TextEdit to view an RTF export, and some characters seem to be missing or garbled, you might be looking at a TextEdit-induced artifact.

Open the RTF file in Microsoft Word – that’s normally enough to resolve the ‘garbled export’ issue.

Scripted Plug-Ins are essentially JavaScripts (a.k.a ExtendScripts). What makes them different from ‘regular’ JavaScripts which reside in the InDesign Presets – Scripts folder is what makes our Scripted Plug-Ins ‘tick’.

Regular JavaScripts only run when a user explicitly activates them – these JavaScripts are ‘passive’ entities that cannot react to outside events.

Scripted Plug-ins rely on the presence of a special Plug-In (the APID ToolAssistant) that we’ve developed. It elevates properly constructed JavaScripts to ‘active’ entities – they are able to observe and respond to external events.

That’s perfectly normal – our scripted plug-ins are loaded dynamically on an as-needed basis. That means that the API menu will only populate after you open or create a document.

Try creating or opening a document – the menu items you were expecting should now appear.

Most of our freebies are what we call ‘scripted plug-ins’. They are not ‘real’ plug-ins – they are nothing more than ExtendScript/JavaScript in disguise.

That also means they are not listed in the About Plug-Ins lists in InDesign.

Instead, you should look in the API menu (which is created by Active Page Item Runtime or one of its supersets). Select the APID ToolAssistant… menu item to invoke the APID ToolAssistant ‘About’ window.

This window shows a list of any currently installed scripted plug-ins.

Yep, we know – you can say that a number of our Scripted Plug-Ins have a rather odd user interface when compared to ‘normal’ Plug-Ins. For example – no palettes yet.

That is because we’re still hard at work on our Active Page Item system – we’re not finished.

So, we had to choose between either:

• release nothing until the Active Page Item system is absolutely perfect, and then release a number of freebies based on this system.
• release useful Scripted Plug-Ins and live with the less than smooth user interface.

We chose the latter… As time goes, you will probably see some updated versions of our Scripted Plug-Ins with nicer user interfaces.

The Active Page Item development system allows us to protect our JavaScript source code – users of our Scripted Plug-Ins have no access to it. We’re not intent on giving indiscriminate access.

If you have good reason to want to see our source code, talk to us – send us an e-mail at pluginsupport@rorohiko.com – a lot depends on what you need, and what you need it for.

If you have some ideas (good or bad) about our free Sudoku generator, please, send us an e-mail at pluginsupport@rorohiko.com! You can also post questions to our message board.

We also have a more advanced version of the generator for sale called Lightning Brain Sudoku for InDesign - this commercial version generates more polished Sudoku puzzles (for example with various forms of visual symmetry). You can try out a fully functional, time limited demo for free here.

We’re not Sudoku fanatics ourselves; we simply designed a simple algorithm that would generate Sudokus in such a way that they remain ‘humanly solvable’. We’ve mobilized friends, family and neighbors to check out some of our Sudoku – but they’re getting a bit sick and tired of solving Sudokus.

However, we have no idea where the Sudokus that come out of our generator fit in. Are they too easy? Too hard? Too boring? Let us know if you’d like to see anything different. Depending on the feedback we might adjust the generator.

You tell us! We do have some cool ideas, but our supply is not unlimited. If you have a cool idea or a pressing need, e-mail us at pluginsupport@rorohiko.com. You can also post questions to our message board. We can discuss it, and depending on what’s involved, we might

• make a freebie that fills your need
• make a commercial product that fills your need
• provide you with a quote for custom development

You cannot go wrong by at least talking to us!

Yes, you can. We have a product called Active Page Item Developer which allows you to develop your own scripted plug-ins. Active Page Item Developer doubles as a runtime and as a development environment – every deployed machine needs a copy of Active Page Item Developer installed.

We also have a product called Active Page Item Enterprise, which is used in case you need to deploy to a very large amount of machines. The difference is that plug-ins created with Active Page Item Enterprise can run with an unlicensed version of APID ToolAssistant, whereas plug-ins created with Active Page Item Developer necessitate a licensed version of APID ToolAssistant on every targeted machine.

If you’re interested in Active Page Item Enterprise please send an e-mail to sales@rorohiko.com to inquire.

We have an interactive Message Board with our up to date FAQs.
Here you can comment on questions or ask us a new question.

http://www.rorohiko.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=FAQ