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.

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!

ImageLibraryLoader is a free plug-in for InDesign which allows you to quickly set up a floating palette filled with images from one or more designated folders. In many cases, it is much faster than Adobe Bridge, as it uses standard InDesign library palette – so there is no external app to launch.

ImageLibraryLoader 1.0.7 is an update specifically for InDesign CS3 users – the Paste Into command did not work on CS3 with the previous version 1.0.6.

ImageLibraryLoader and ImageHorn, another free plug-in we have on offer, work great as a combo – read all about it in this post:

How to Populate a Template With Images in No Time At All

TextExporter is a free plug-in for InDesign that export all the stories of an InDesign document into a single file (RTF, InDesign Tagged Text or plain text).

The recent upgrades worked a lot faster than before when used with InDesign/InCopy CS3 and CS4 – but it turns out things were broken in InDesign/InCopy CS and CS2. Also, frame-by-frame export did not account for text in anchored frames.

Version 2.1.1 corrects that. Get it the latest and the greatest here:

http://www.rorohiko.com/textexporter

FrameReporter uses little non-printing labels to display interesting info about selected page items, right in your work area.  Normally InDesign makes you click around and find various palettes to dig up the info – which disrupts your train of thought.

With FrameReporter, the relevant info is displayed exactly in the area where you are working, and you can immediately see the necessary info for multiple items in the blink of an eye.

For example: FrameReporter will show overset text warnings on the edge of any text frame that is part of a linked set of frames.

This latest version fixed a number of bugs and also has substantial speed improvements – the previous version was causing noticeable delays.

Check it out – click here for more info:

http://www.rorohiko.com/framereporter

Turns out that our recent update for the free TextExporter plug-in for InDesign was running much, much slower than it should on any reasonably sized document. Version 2.0.9 fixes this abnormal slowdown. Go to get it here:

http://www.rorohiko.com/textexporter

TextExporter is a free plug-in for InDesign that export all the stories of an InDesign document into a single file (RTF, InDesign Tagged Text or plain text).

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

Changes since 0.2.0b:

• Fixed bug where selections go white on some lists.
• Fixed bug where setting Soxy as the default app crashed the program.
• Some other minor bug fixes.

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.

Our LayerLifter freebie is a simple plug-in for Adobe InDesign that offers an alternative method for moving page items between layers, instead of using the InDesign Layers palette.

With LayerLifter, the names of the document layers appear in the context menu of any selected page item. You can move a page item between layers by right-clicking and selecting a layer name from the context menu.

This updated version adds an optional feature to nudge all items on a layer throughout the whole document, or across the current spread – only users that have a license for APID ToolAssistant installed have access to this optional feature.

To see a little bit more about this new feature, check this out – it’s a little article that explains how to nudge a whole collection of frames in one swoop:

http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/2009/10/29/how-to-nudge-and-shift-a-whole-layer/

More info about LayerLifter can be found here:

http://www.rorohiko.com/layerlifter

ImageLibraryLoader 1.0.6 fixes an issue that occurs when you try to paste from an InDesign library into the same frame a second time – the second paste did not work with the previous version. This version fixes that issue.

ImageLibraryLoader is a free plug-in for InDesign allows you to quickly set up a floating palette filled with images from one or more designated folders. In many cases, it is much faster than Adobe Bridge, as it uses standard InDesign library palette – so there is no external app to launch.

ImageLibraryLoader and ImageHorn, another free plug-in we have on offer, work great as a combo – read all about it in this post:

How to Populate a Template With Images in No Time At All

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

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.

To work around this problem we’ve created Soxy. – originally for Mac OS X only. Due to a large number of requests we have now also built a Windows version. The Windows version is brand new – there is not even a Readme.txt yet, and lots of loose ends, but it’s fairly functional. Stay tuned – more coming soon!