But it would be nice to have an option to simulate the print page layout when desired. If your Web pages don’t look like your print pages, that’s OK. The idea is to prepare the InDesign content for design work in a program like Dreamweaver.

Unlike XPress, InDesign doesn’t try to reproduce the layout as a Web page instead, it converts the graphics to Web-native formats and applies CSS style names to the exported text based on your paragraph styles. InDesign CS3 also lets you export layouts in XHTML format, something competitor XPress has been able to do for years. You can even edit that ad from within the magazine layout (it opens in a new window).

For example, you can import an ad file into a magazine layout, so the ad is automatically updated in the magazine.

The ability to import other InDesign documents into a layout makes it much easier to create composite layouts. And the Text Variables feature gives you a lot of control over the formatting of these elements. Although InDesign still can’t insert cross-references to other text elements inside the same document (for example, a page-number reference to a sidebar on a different page, which can update when the text is reflowed and pages are renumbered), it can do pretty much everything else, such as inserting the date, the file name, the chapter number, and running heads and footers based on each page’s headings-not just on the user-specified text that XPress 6’s text-synchronization feature first introduced. Publishers of specialty documents such as catalogs and research papers will get a lot of use out of the new Text Variables feature. ] can) instead, an effect is applied to all of a frame’s text. But you still can’t apply an effect-not even a basic transparency-to text selections (as InDesign can apply these effects separately to an object’s contents, its frame, or to the object as a whole, which brings very rich creative capabilities as you mix and match the effects. And thanks to a new glyph-oriented pane, the new dialog box also makes working with special symbols effortless.ĭesigners will also like the expanded special effects features, which invokePhotoshop-style effects such as Bevel and Emboss and Inner Shadow. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find my favorite addition: the expanded Find/Change dialog box, which now lets you search and replace object attributes (such as strokes, fills, and text wrap), makes easy work of adjusting your layout.

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