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susans17734244
susans17734244
Participating Frequently
September 14, 2022
Question

New to InCopy

  • September 14, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 821 views

Hi,

The magazine for which I am art director (and designer and production... all of the creative) decided we need to use InCopy. We're rounding out our second issue using it, and InCopy is a mess (much due to my errors, I assume). What training did designers use to master InCopy? Our team watched an out-of-date LinkedIn video tutorial. All of the examples shown were incredibly simple—nothing like a page with multiple captions, pull quotes, graphs, body copy. Nothing that might have a caption added after an Assignment was created. Nothing that felt like real-world art direction. 
Somehow, I'm holding the bag and I am frustrated (understatement). Adobe provides little to no support. I've also heard that InCopy has the lowest customer satisfaction rating of any of their products (a staggeringly low number).
1) Did anyone find a tutorial that felt cohesive and answered most questions?
2) Is InCopy viable? 
Thanks for any advice! 

    2 replies

    CABE_Martha
    CABE_Martha
    Participating Frequently
    October 13, 2022

    I've also added InCopy to our workflow designing an educational magazine and a conference program. Like you, I am in charge of all the creative work and have several editors and proofers. InCopy is ONLY for the copy editors and proofers and it has been a blessing for me! There is a bit learning curve to it and, as a designer, there are certain things that I need to keep in mind to make it easier for the editorial staff but for the most part, it has been wonderful. You mentioned "assignments" which makes me think that this might have made things more complicated than they needed to be. Anne-Marie Concepcion had a great Zoom webinar about the InCopy/InDesign workflow where she mentioned to ignore anything that has the word assignments. The designer exports all stories (text boxes with or without text) and just have your editorial staff open the actual InDesign file in InCopy and make their text edits there. It's been working great for me. You can find a Medium post with the info from the webinar I mentioned. You could also contact Anne-Marie directly for a consultation and maybe she can help. 

      Geоrge
      Geоrge
      Legend
      October 12, 2022

      >> What training did designers use to master InCopy?

      This is not a program for designers. This is soft for text writers and correctors who's works simultaneously with designers (who's works through InDesign). 

       

      For designers (works with images, frames, create/edit styles, etc) you are need to use InDesign and LayoutZone: https://www.automatication.com/product/lz/

       

      And don't ask me why Adobe don't do their own LayoutZone feature. This is galaxy mystery.

       

       

      Remember, never say you can't do something in InDesign, it's always just a question of finding the right workaround to get the job done. © David Blatner
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